dianepm
Professional Insomniac
It's Wednesday in Australia so that's close enough to post another chapter!
I'd like to just say that it's nice to write with someone who doesn't make fun of the craziest of crazy ideas I come up with sometimes. Some of them didn't make it but most of them did. I'd just like to say thanks for that Ali.
Anyway, off with the horns and all that....
Oh, almost forgot....this is in no way meant to be taken seriously, as fact, as anything resembling the truth or with alcohol.
Chapter 16 -
"I don't like this... stuff," Larry muttered, waving a hand around him as he and Bono wandered past the swimming pool.
Bono sighed theatrically. "You can go outside and roast if you want, or go and have a nap. It was your idea to find something to do, anyway," he reminded the drummer.
Larry grunted. "How about some more table tennis?"
"How about pool?" Bono countered, wanting to win for once.
"I don't have any trunks..."
"No, pool!" Bono pointed, and Larry saw that they had come to the front door of an Irish pub. Bono pushed it open, and they saw an empty bar, complete with a pool table.
"You're on," Larry said, and picked up a cue.
Three hours, several pints, and five games later (only one of which Bono had won, under protest from Larry), Bono was ready to try something else.
"I'm bored, let's keep exploring," he whined, towing Larry towards the door. Still carrying a pool cue, Larry allowed himself to be towed.
Bono opened and closed a lot of doors, which contained things like hotel rooms, a dental surgery, a chicken coop (devoid of chickens), an empty club with loud music booming, a well-timed line of urinals, and an elevator. Larry forbade Bono from going into the elevator and seeing where it went. Finally, Bono heaved open a large steel door, and found himself staring at a huge cavernous space. The door appeared to be halfway up the wall, with the floor and the ceiling fifty feet away in each direction. All the walls were equally distant, and all the surfaces seemed to be padded. Dim lighting shone from panels in the walls, ceiling and floor.
"What's this supposed to be, then?" Larry scowled. "We should be getting back anyway..."
Bono didn't budge, determined to work out what the room was for. He noticed handles protruding from all the walls at intervals, as well as the floor and ceiling. Why would there be handles on the ceiling? Bono cautiously poked his hand through the doorway, and felt a curious tingling pass along his arm as it crossed the threshhold.
"Hey Larry, stick your arm in! It's all tingly..."
Larry did not want to stick his arms in any mysterious tingly rooms with padding on the walls.
Bono took a step forward, making to put his head through the doorway, but Larry pulled him back. "You don't know what's in there!" the drummer cautioned. "You don't want to fall all that way, ye eejit."
"My arm felt all light when I put it in," Bono said.
"Yer head's empty enough," Larry muttered.
"Gimme that pool cue," Bono said, his eyes still roving around the room.
Larry checked his hands, and found them empty. He looked back along the corridor, but the pool cue he'd been carrying was nowhere to be seen. "What the...?"
"Larry...?" Bono turned around. "Where is it?"
"I don't know! I had it when I left the pub..." The drummer looked nervous. "I think we should go back."
"Just wait..." Bono took his watch off, and tossed it into the huge padded room. It sailed serenely across the room, ignoring gravity, and bounced off the far wall. The watch came back towards them, although a little slower.
Bono goggled. "Did you see that?! There's no gravity in there!" He lunged forward again, and was again restrained by Larry. "Lemme go!"
"It might not be safe..."
A short scuffle ensued. At the end of it, Larry was barring Bono's way into the room, his expression stern.
"At least let me get my watch back," Bono said. Just then, the watch reached the spot where Bono had thrown it into the room, and it clunked into the back of Larry's head before dropping to the floor of the corridor.
Larry stooped to pick it up, and Bono shoved him into the room.
"AAAAAA.....aaarrgh?"
Larry had let out a panicked yell, in the full expectation that he would plummet to the floor fifty feet below. Instead, he floated gently across the room, just as Bono's watch had. He waved his arms and legs experimentally, and started revolving as he floated.
Bono let out a whoop and leapt into the room. Windmilling madly, he shot up to the ceiling and bounced off it.
"Wheeeeee! This is incredible! Oof." Bono ricocheted off a wall, and flailed wildly, trying to control his orientation.
"What's going on?" Larry said as he met the far wall, and managed to grab one of the handles.
"There's no gravity! We can fly!" Bono managed to get his legs towards the wall (or possibly the floor, it was all a bit meaningless now), and pushed off against it. He flew past Larry, cackling like a loon. "Ha ha ha!! Waahoooo!! Oof. Whoooeeeeeee!!!"
With a belly full of of stout, and suddenly disoriented about small matters like "up" and "down", Larry started to feel ill.
"Come on, Lardence! (Oof.) You must have wished you could fly when you were a kid..." Bono bounced around the room happily. Watching him only made Larry feel worse.
"I didn't think it'd make me sick," he muttered.
"I want one of these in my house!" Bono shouted, executing a marvellous pirouette near the ceiling before swan-diving towards the floor.
Grim and determined, Larry carefully launched himself across the room again, aiming for the doorway. Bono collided with him at a ninety-degree angle and high speed, and sent them both careening off in random directions.
"Oof!"
"Ow! Ye feckin' eejit..."
"Just relax! This is fun!! Wheeee!" Unfazed by the collision, Bono was sailing along, arms and legs akimbo, laughing his head off.
Larry grabbed another hand-hold, and pulled himself along by one after another until he reached the door. He swung himself awkwardly through it, and immediately fell to the corridor floor when he crossed the threshhold. Then he opened the nearest door and threw up. He closed the door and hoped that particular room would never be found again.
The sounds of Bono zooming around the anti-gravity room echoed down the corridor, but Larry had had quite enough of the inexplicable contents of the lemon.
"Wey hey ha ha! Woooooo!"
"I'm goin' back," Larry called through the doorway.
"What? (Oof.) Aw, don't go, Lardence! Come and try this out!"
"I just threw up. Edge might be finished by now, I'm goin' back," Larry said again. "You can stay if you want."
There was a moment of silence, except for a muffled "oof". Then, in a smaller voice; "Wait up, I'm coming too..."
Bono finally managed to aim himself successfully at the door, and approached it far too quickly. He flew out and collapsed in a heap in the corridor, still giggling.
"Come on," Larry grumbled.
They finally made their way back to the control room, although Larry was sure they'd made several wrong turns.
"Oh, there you are. Adam woke up ages ago," Edge said. "I think he's in the bath now."
"Edge, Edge, we found the best room! Larry and I played pool for ages but he kept winning, so we went somewhere else and there was a dentist and a chicken coop and this really big room with padded walls and handles all around and there was no gravity in it! I threw my watch in and then I pushed Larry in and I jumped in and bounced off the ceiling and we could fly! And I flew all over and crashed into Larry and Larry threw up and I kept flying but he wanted to come back." Bono drew a deep breath and pouted.
"Does that count as 'too weird'?" Larry asked.
Edge stared. "No gravity? Can you remember where it was?" He hadn't worked out anti-gravity, but somehow his lemon was already equipped with it. Sort of.
"Ehm. It was a long way in," Bono hedged.
"I've no idea how to find it again. I think we came back a different way to how we got there," Larry said.
"Oh well. I think I've finished the repairs," Edge announced.
"Can we go home now??" Bono's experience in the anti-gravity room seemed to have restored his former hyperactivity.
"Almost," Edge said. "I've completed the guidance system, but we need to take another trip to calibrate everything. Which means one more go with the Random button."
Edge and Larry looked at Bono, who was looking everywhere but at the button. "What?" the singer said defensively.
"Nothing," Edge said. "I'd better get Adam out of the bath."
On the view-screen outside, the sun had set behind the stark red desert, and everything was becoming black. A brilliant array of stars were coming out overhead.
"Are we off again?" Adam said, finally emerging into the control room, wearing a fluffy bathrobe and slippers, and a towel on his head.
Bono just looked at him and giggled.
"Why don't we let Larry have a whack at the button. He hasn't done it yet," Bono said to Edge, who shrugged.
Larry looked at it like it was a poisonous snake.
"Oh go on Lardence, you know you want to," Bono teased him.
Larry just rolled his eyes and then closed them and hit the button.
"I haven't had a go yet," Adam pouted, as the unlikely strains of Monty Python's Lumberjack song rang through the lemon.
"You usually get distracted by all the flashing lights instead," Larry pointed out.
"Hmm?" Adam hadn't heard him, because he was distracted by the flashing lights on the view-screen. Larry rolled his eyes at Bono and Edge.
After a few minutes, the song ended, the special effects died down, and the view-screen showed clouds of smoke and dust instead. It cleared, and the four men saw a wide area strewn with rubble, concrete, twisted steel cables and a partly-demolished tower block. It was covered in grafitti and weeds, and the whole scene looked particularly desolate in the thin drizzle that was falling from a heavy grey sky. It all looked grey, even the thistles.
I'd like to just say that it's nice to write with someone who doesn't make fun of the craziest of crazy ideas I come up with sometimes. Some of them didn't make it but most of them did. I'd just like to say thanks for that Ali.
Anyway, off with the horns and all that....
Oh, almost forgot....this is in no way meant to be taken seriously, as fact, as anything resembling the truth or with alcohol.
Chapter 16 -
"I don't like this... stuff," Larry muttered, waving a hand around him as he and Bono wandered past the swimming pool.
Bono sighed theatrically. "You can go outside and roast if you want, or go and have a nap. It was your idea to find something to do, anyway," he reminded the drummer.
Larry grunted. "How about some more table tennis?"
"How about pool?" Bono countered, wanting to win for once.
"I don't have any trunks..."
"No, pool!" Bono pointed, and Larry saw that they had come to the front door of an Irish pub. Bono pushed it open, and they saw an empty bar, complete with a pool table.
"You're on," Larry said, and picked up a cue.
Three hours, several pints, and five games later (only one of which Bono had won, under protest from Larry), Bono was ready to try something else.
"I'm bored, let's keep exploring," he whined, towing Larry towards the door. Still carrying a pool cue, Larry allowed himself to be towed.
Bono opened and closed a lot of doors, which contained things like hotel rooms, a dental surgery, a chicken coop (devoid of chickens), an empty club with loud music booming, a well-timed line of urinals, and an elevator. Larry forbade Bono from going into the elevator and seeing where it went. Finally, Bono heaved open a large steel door, and found himself staring at a huge cavernous space. The door appeared to be halfway up the wall, with the floor and the ceiling fifty feet away in each direction. All the walls were equally distant, and all the surfaces seemed to be padded. Dim lighting shone from panels in the walls, ceiling and floor.
"What's this supposed to be, then?" Larry scowled. "We should be getting back anyway..."
Bono didn't budge, determined to work out what the room was for. He noticed handles protruding from all the walls at intervals, as well as the floor and ceiling. Why would there be handles on the ceiling? Bono cautiously poked his hand through the doorway, and felt a curious tingling pass along his arm as it crossed the threshhold.
"Hey Larry, stick your arm in! It's all tingly..."
Larry did not want to stick his arms in any mysterious tingly rooms with padding on the walls.
Bono took a step forward, making to put his head through the doorway, but Larry pulled him back. "You don't know what's in there!" the drummer cautioned. "You don't want to fall all that way, ye eejit."
"My arm felt all light when I put it in," Bono said.
"Yer head's empty enough," Larry muttered.
"Gimme that pool cue," Bono said, his eyes still roving around the room.
Larry checked his hands, and found them empty. He looked back along the corridor, but the pool cue he'd been carrying was nowhere to be seen. "What the...?"
"Larry...?" Bono turned around. "Where is it?"
"I don't know! I had it when I left the pub..." The drummer looked nervous. "I think we should go back."
"Just wait..." Bono took his watch off, and tossed it into the huge padded room. It sailed serenely across the room, ignoring gravity, and bounced off the far wall. The watch came back towards them, although a little slower.
Bono goggled. "Did you see that?! There's no gravity in there!" He lunged forward again, and was again restrained by Larry. "Lemme go!"
"It might not be safe..."
A short scuffle ensued. At the end of it, Larry was barring Bono's way into the room, his expression stern.
"At least let me get my watch back," Bono said. Just then, the watch reached the spot where Bono had thrown it into the room, and it clunked into the back of Larry's head before dropping to the floor of the corridor.
Larry stooped to pick it up, and Bono shoved him into the room.
"AAAAAA.....aaarrgh?"
Larry had let out a panicked yell, in the full expectation that he would plummet to the floor fifty feet below. Instead, he floated gently across the room, just as Bono's watch had. He waved his arms and legs experimentally, and started revolving as he floated.
Bono let out a whoop and leapt into the room. Windmilling madly, he shot up to the ceiling and bounced off it.
"Wheeeeee! This is incredible! Oof." Bono ricocheted off a wall, and flailed wildly, trying to control his orientation.
"What's going on?" Larry said as he met the far wall, and managed to grab one of the handles.
"There's no gravity! We can fly!" Bono managed to get his legs towards the wall (or possibly the floor, it was all a bit meaningless now), and pushed off against it. He flew past Larry, cackling like a loon. "Ha ha ha!! Waahoooo!! Oof. Whoooeeeeeee!!!"
With a belly full of of stout, and suddenly disoriented about small matters like "up" and "down", Larry started to feel ill.
"Come on, Lardence! (Oof.) You must have wished you could fly when you were a kid..." Bono bounced around the room happily. Watching him only made Larry feel worse.
"I didn't think it'd make me sick," he muttered.
"I want one of these in my house!" Bono shouted, executing a marvellous pirouette near the ceiling before swan-diving towards the floor.
Grim and determined, Larry carefully launched himself across the room again, aiming for the doorway. Bono collided with him at a ninety-degree angle and high speed, and sent them both careening off in random directions.
"Oof!"
"Ow! Ye feckin' eejit..."
"Just relax! This is fun!! Wheeee!" Unfazed by the collision, Bono was sailing along, arms and legs akimbo, laughing his head off.
Larry grabbed another hand-hold, and pulled himself along by one after another until he reached the door. He swung himself awkwardly through it, and immediately fell to the corridor floor when he crossed the threshhold. Then he opened the nearest door and threw up. He closed the door and hoped that particular room would never be found again.
The sounds of Bono zooming around the anti-gravity room echoed down the corridor, but Larry had had quite enough of the inexplicable contents of the lemon.
"Wey hey ha ha! Woooooo!"
"I'm goin' back," Larry called through the doorway.
"What? (Oof.) Aw, don't go, Lardence! Come and try this out!"
"I just threw up. Edge might be finished by now, I'm goin' back," Larry said again. "You can stay if you want."
There was a moment of silence, except for a muffled "oof". Then, in a smaller voice; "Wait up, I'm coming too..."
Bono finally managed to aim himself successfully at the door, and approached it far too quickly. He flew out and collapsed in a heap in the corridor, still giggling.
"Come on," Larry grumbled.
They finally made their way back to the control room, although Larry was sure they'd made several wrong turns.
"Oh, there you are. Adam woke up ages ago," Edge said. "I think he's in the bath now."
"Edge, Edge, we found the best room! Larry and I played pool for ages but he kept winning, so we went somewhere else and there was a dentist and a chicken coop and this really big room with padded walls and handles all around and there was no gravity in it! I threw my watch in and then I pushed Larry in and I jumped in and bounced off the ceiling and we could fly! And I flew all over and crashed into Larry and Larry threw up and I kept flying but he wanted to come back." Bono drew a deep breath and pouted.
"Does that count as 'too weird'?" Larry asked.
Edge stared. "No gravity? Can you remember where it was?" He hadn't worked out anti-gravity, but somehow his lemon was already equipped with it. Sort of.
"Ehm. It was a long way in," Bono hedged.
"I've no idea how to find it again. I think we came back a different way to how we got there," Larry said.
"Oh well. I think I've finished the repairs," Edge announced.
"Can we go home now??" Bono's experience in the anti-gravity room seemed to have restored his former hyperactivity.
"Almost," Edge said. "I've completed the guidance system, but we need to take another trip to calibrate everything. Which means one more go with the Random button."
Edge and Larry looked at Bono, who was looking everywhere but at the button. "What?" the singer said defensively.
"Nothing," Edge said. "I'd better get Adam out of the bath."
On the view-screen outside, the sun had set behind the stark red desert, and everything was becoming black. A brilliant array of stars were coming out overhead.
"Are we off again?" Adam said, finally emerging into the control room, wearing a fluffy bathrobe and slippers, and a towel on his head.
Bono just looked at him and giggled.
"Why don't we let Larry have a whack at the button. He hasn't done it yet," Bono said to Edge, who shrugged.
Larry looked at it like it was a poisonous snake.
"Oh go on Lardence, you know you want to," Bono teased him.
Larry just rolled his eyes and then closed them and hit the button.
"I haven't had a go yet," Adam pouted, as the unlikely strains of Monty Python's Lumberjack song rang through the lemon.
"You usually get distracted by all the flashing lights instead," Larry pointed out.
"Hmm?" Adam hadn't heard him, because he was distracted by the flashing lights on the view-screen. Larry rolled his eyes at Bono and Edge.
After a few minutes, the song ended, the special effects died down, and the view-screen showed clouds of smoke and dust instead. It cleared, and the four men saw a wide area strewn with rubble, concrete, twisted steel cables and a partly-demolished tower block. It was covered in grafitti and weeds, and the whole scene looked particularly desolate in the thin drizzle that was falling from a heavy grey sky. It all looked grey, even the thistles.
I love this story!
Bono in an anti gravity room. Sounds like fun!
