Wednesday, July 22, 2020

3. The Wabbit and the Liquid City

It wasn't so much of a bang as a woosh. The Wabbit wasn't used to wooshes, although he'd set off plenty of Kabooms in the past. The woosh took him by surprise. Everything was sparkly and the world seemed to get smaller, but it was just the speed. One minute he grasped the object and the next he was spiralling through the air. His fingers tingled where he'd touched it and now he wished he hadn't. Hindsight was 40-40. It was going to be quite hard when he landed, he thought. But there was no sign of landing. He was stuck in a rapidly diminishing landscape that zoomed into the distance but when he looked down, he'd hardly travelled any distance at all. Noises seemed hollow. He twitched his nose. He could still smell the pizza places but it was at a distance. Of the place where he'd found the object, there was little but a blur. The rest of the city shimmered and glowed. He somersaulted in a lazy loop, and he could see the city change position. But with a violent shudder all of that changed. Everything disappeared into a pin prick then swirled as he was propelled somewhere - anywhere but where he wanted to be. The scene gradually stabilised. He was looking at a wall. Then the wall turned liquid and dripped onto a street. The street became a rushing river that gushed torrents of cars, street furniture and tables and chairs along with it. Then it stopped moving and stabilised again. The Wabbit looked all around because he was in a part of the city he'd never visited. Everything was still. The Wabbit dusted himself off. "Now that was a long strange trip," he murmured ...