Tales Between the Lines

IV.4 The Oubliette

The WormJet shuddered to life with a low hum. A few LED lights placed in a no-nonsensical design along its nozzle flashed in the colours of the rainbow while a happy little tune signalled that the wormhole was now in the process of being opened.

Cap held his breath, unwilling to let the last, precious molecules of oxygen leave his lungs unused.

Then he concentrated on keeping the weapon aimed, staring unblinkingly at the treacherous hole in his beloved starship.

Finally, a sloppy rendering of the once famous Big Ben chimes told Cap the long-awaited moment had come.

Without further delay, the WormJet spat out a brown, malleable, and slightly smelly lump of matter. It settled with a satisfying splonk on the offensive perforation of the hull. Cap felt instantly and somewhat surprisingly reminded of his grandfather's farm. As a boy, he'd spent unforgettable summer holidays in the meadows, filled with adventure, real or imagined magic, and the occasional slip in a cowpat.

Wait, gardening loam platter?

Cap scrutinised the expensive and reeking new seal with growing suspicion. If he remembered correctly, cowpats were by no means capable of sealing anything, and certainly not a hull breach in hard vacuum.

His oxygen-starved brain cells worked overtime. Wasn't there a song about a bucket with a hole? What did they use to fix it, in the end? Straw? Not a valid option either...

Out of other choices, he jammed the HP WormJet 8620 into the circular, turd encrusted hole, nozzle first. Unexpectedly, the grapefruit-sized body of the gun fitted nicely with the razor-sharp edges of the acetons' exit hole, sealing it for good.

Exhausted, Cap fell to his knees and gulped down a long overdue breath. Unfortunately, there was no air left in the storeroom. He reached out to grab the handle of his former-weapon-now-turned-plug for support. But already his vision blurred and he crumpled into an unconscious heap in 2103 credits worth of the finest cow sh*t.

~~~

Cap stood on a white floor under a white, domed roof. The chamber was featureless and void, except for—the yellow rubber duck.

It did its hovering-in-midair trick and smiled its serene, timeless smile at him.

He felt strangely light, unburdened, and unworried, yet the bird's presence confused him. "What are you doing here? I've shut you out with an expensive cow platter and an HP WormJet 8620."

"There's no way to keep me out because, in the end, it's me that you want." It had a slight, endearing lisp when it talked.

"What are you?"

"I am what remains when you clean up the oubliette of your memory." It motioned its beak at the chamber surrounding them. "When you swipe away the pain and the hurt, the smut and the dirt, the trivial and the stupid, the lukewarm and the tepid... it will be me that you find. Your most beloved memory."

"My most beloved memory is rubber duck waxing poetic on me? You can't be serious."

It shrugged, which looked slightly ungainly on a rubber duck. "Strange, isn't it? Yet most members of your species seem to have fond memories of rubber ducks, I don't know why. But don't worry, some other species are worse. The Aknooglians of Brexit V, for example, they usually see me as a glob from their mother's snot."

"Yuk."

"Yes."

"So you've cleaned out the oobl..." He gestured at the chamber they were in.

"The oubliette of your mind?"

"Yes, that. You got rid of all the bad stuff..."

The duck nodded. "Yes, and the pain and the hurt, the smut and the dirt—"

Cap held up his hand. "Yeah, the last two..." He felt incomplete now. "What did they look like, by the way?"

Duck gave another ungainly shrug. "Haven't looked at them."

"Anyway, what do you get out of this? Are you some kind of... parasite?"

"That's an ugly word... Let's settle on symbiont, can't we?"

"Fine..." He studied the duck, which was now gently bobbing on nothing. "So, what do we do now?"

"Oh, there are many things we can do. This is your oubliette, and your mind, after all. Just will something to happen, and it... will. For example, you could will the floor to be yellow. Or you could will a pond for me." Duck made big eyes at him.

Cap hesitated.

And he thought long and hard. Thinking long and hard wasn't his home turf, but still he did.

"So... I can will anything, whatever I want? And it will come true?"

"Absolutely."

Cap took a deep breath.

And he willed.