Andrew Mackay - Pink Symphony

Jamie sat crossed-legged in the middle of the garden. He held up a shiny pink object about the size of a tennis ball. Jelly sat a few feet away wondering what the dastardly contraption was.

“Wanna chase the ball?”

She purred up a treat and climbed on all fours, ready for Jamie to roll the ball to her.

“Ah, no, no,” he giggled. “You gotta go get it. Ready?”

“Meow.”

He tossed the ball toward the bushes by the fence – a little too hard. “Oh!”

“Meow,” Jelly jumped at the bushes and followed the ball through the foliage.

Jamie scrambled to his feet and called after her. He knew the danger of the bushes all too well. The fence was broken. Worse, the busy main road lay right behind it.

“Jelly, come back!” he yelled as he saw her behind disappear behind the bushes.

She trundled through the leaves and broken sticks and eyed the ball as it rolled through the gap in the fence. “Meow.” The sticks broke apart as she trundled over them. The hole in the fence yawned out and invited her through.

The hole was a bit smaller than she’d have liked. Hoisting her considerable frame through tiny opening was painful. The jagged ends raked through her fur and body as she squeezed through.

The pink ball took center stage in the middle of the road. It seemed to plead for rescue amongst the whizzing cars. She hadn’t the first clue how to grab the thing when she reached it.

But it didn’t matter. It needed rescuing, and that was all that mattered. She bolted across the first lane of traffic believing herself to be invincible.

NEEAAWW!

A car whizzed past her, nearly taking a whisker away from her face.

More cars shot past at ridiculous speeds. Her head twisted right to left, left to right, keeping up with the vehicular jousting match.

“Jelly, don’t move,” Jamie’s face appeared in the hole of the fence. He’d burrowed through the mud and sticks to try and save her.

“Meow,” she turned around and spotted her opportunity to move.

Pounce!

She jumped into the middle of the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by a speeding car.

“Jelly!” Jamie hollered. “What did I tell you? Stay there!”

She sniffed around the ball, kicking her tail up for balance. She decided she couldn’t bite it much less carry it in her mouth. She’d seen dogs do it but knew that they were more adept at carrying items.

Bop .

She knocked the ball with her paw. It wobbled and rested back to its original position.

Maybe two paws?

She yelped and batted the ball from opposite ends with her two paws. It pinged out of her grasp and rolled across the main road.

Without thinking she darted after it… but hadn’t counted on a speeding car rocketing toward her.

She turned to face the gargantuan hunk of metal blare its horn and flood her face with its head lights.

“Meow!”

“No!” Jamie ran into the path of the car with his arms out, hoping the driver would slam on his brakes in time.

Jelly closed her eyes and held her breath, expecting the worst…

Darkness.

Imagine your arms, legs and midriff are suspended in the air. Like you’re lying on cloud, without fear of falling either side. No more noise.

Just complete and utter silence.

That’s how Jelly felt for a time once the headlights disappeared. She opened her eyes very slowly.

A horizontal slit let a flood of white and pink light into her retinas. It should have hurt but it didn’t. Instead, it had a soothing effect.

Her left paw lifted into view, complete with her titanium claws. She exercised them, retracting them in and fanning them back out. A tiny whirring occurred, followed by a streak of blue shocks.

Her right paw waded in front of her face, blockading the view of the length of her body.

An endless gloop of pink stuff cocooned her outstretched body as if being smothered by a warm duvet.

No more suffocating. No more water. No more anything .

She tried to flip around to her side but couldn’t. Perhaps she was too relaxed? Not as such. She wanted to move around – but simply couldn’t.

Her limbs worked, evidently. She wasn’t tired – quite the contrary.

She lifted her face to the side and stared at the sticky, pink substance and tried to meow at it.

But she couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

A face emerged within the pink, jellied tomb. A nose, then two cheekbones and a pair of eyes. It moved around and stared back at Jelly.

“Ha… Haloo… ?” Jelly mouthed.

A smile stretched across the image of the woman’s face and nodded. “Hello, Jelly,” it said, softly.

“Mwaaa-ack,’ Jelly nearly squeezed out a sound but it was of little use. She pained when she tried to speak and so decided against it.

Another face appeared directly above her. A Japanese woman Jelly had met on Space Opera Alpha. Her name was Zilla Chin-Dunne.

“Zaaah…” Jelly tried and licked her mouth.

Zillah’s face nodded and slowly faded away from the sloppy, pink ceiling.

Jelly made the mistake of blinking. Blackness fell for approximately two-fifths of a second and turned back to pink. Another blink. The gelatinous catacomb turned black.

Another blink, and it turned pink once again.

It frightened Jelly to the point where she didn’t want to blink ever again.

Before she had time to display her defiance the entire womb-like tomb rotated around her body. The sound of the movement was intense. She wasn’t able to block her ears with her paws. Try as she might, she’d just have to put up with the deafening sound.

“Meeeooowwww…”

“Jelly,” a voice whirled around the increasing spin of the tomb, “Something fantastic is coming…”

“Mwaaaah,” she screamed and clamped her face with both paws, careful not to take her eye out with her infinity claws.

Lightning bolts struck around the internal walls of the tomb, briefly illuminating it to resemble the inside of a human brain.

Then, Jelly herself began to spin around sideways.

At first it was quick, but as the tomb’s rotation sped up so, too, did Jelly’s – in the opposite direction.

Spin… spin… spin…

Faster and faster and faster…

A rocketing thunder clap lit up the tomb as it smoothed out into a perfect cylinder, spinning faster than was comprehensible.

Jelly’s meowing bleached into a blend of gargles and growls then to nothing as she rotated several hundred times per second.

The thunder bolts intensified as a pang of white light broke out from her face.

Perfect oblong particles broke along her whiskers, streaking out to her nose and cheeks, shifting them away from her head.

Just then, a storm of choral music piped in, smearing into the brilliant white light as Jelly spun around even faster. And faster. Her body blurred she was spinning so fast.

Her body ballooned due to the inertia until it reached the insides the tomb in all directions. Jelly’s zippy revolutions per second were beyond measure.

Spin-spin-spin-spin … Jelly let out a prolonged growl of pain.

The white light exploded into a miasma of heavenly outreach.

Seconds later it swallowed onto itself, leaving absolutely nothing left… of anything .

The staff parking lot.

A quartet of USARIC mercenaries decked out in standard-issue armor bundled an elderly man into the back of a limousine.

“Get in, now,” the leader of the squad stood next to the door as the man got in.