Soap and Water

"Where are we?" I asked as we emerged from the portal into a chilly dark that was already starting to numb my toes.

"We're on the loading dock," he said, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that he was right. We'd walked through a wall. Which, yes, was not a typical action for me on any night, but I guess I had expected a portal to, you know, take us somewhere a little...farther away...

"Yeah, sorry," he said a bit sheepishly when he saw my disappointment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a bar of soap. "It's got two settings." He turned it over in his hand to show me the two little green lights and three round buttons that were apparently the controls. "One for little quick trips, as you just went on, and--" he pressed one of the buttons, and one of the lights turned yellow, "--one for longer ones. For example..."

He pressed another button, and the ground beneath me disappeared. For the tiniest moment I felt like I was falling, but before I had time to scream, a new ground swept me up and whisked me away...kind of. I was still moving fast, but it felt like I was lying down, and there was water all around me. Warm water that quickly soaked my clothes, but at least my toes were comfortable again.

"Hey!" I shouted out, struggling to keep the spray kicking up around me from getting in my mouth.

"What?" his voice shouted back from somewhere behind me.

The chute it felt like I was sliding down turned right, then quickly left. "What is this?" I called out.

"It's a pan-dimensional causeway," came his voice, though I think he choked on a little water as he tried to say "pan-dimensional."

We dipped a bit and gained some speed, and I felt my whole body fly up onto the outer wall of another turn as we sped on deeper into the darkness. "Wait a minute," I said between splashes. "You mean to--cough--tell me that we're supposed to travel everywhere by--cough, cough--waterslide?"

"Great, isn't it?" he said, though his voice seemed more distant, as though he were trying to slow himself down a little. "We had them installed last Christmas as a joke, but they just became so popular we decided to keep them."

"Awesome," I tried to say quietly so he wouldn't catch my sarcasm, but with the amount of water that hit me in the face at that moment, I probably didn't need to worry. "How long do we have to ride this?" I called back, but before I got a response, I heard a faint beep, and the slide disappeared from beneath me. I tumbled into darkness, spinning head over heels, and this heavy wind blowing warm around me only helped to further screw up my sense of orientation.

"Ughh!" And that was when I hit the ground. It hurt, but I'm pretty sure that breeze had slowed down my fall. And what's more, it seemed to have dried me off thoroughly. I was warm and comfortable and my clothes were dry and my hair...well, okay, that one wasn't so pretty....I looked around as I got to my feet. It was still night, but Sam's was nowhere to be seen.

"Sorry about the landing," he said. I turned around and saw him standing behind me. Apparently he'd landed on his feet. "You just gotta learn to judge the coming ground by which way the wind is blowing. It always blows from the ground up."

"Thanks," I said as I brushed a little dirt off my jeans. "I'll have to remember that for next time. Now where are we?"

Sam's Silence

I tried to jump up, adrenaline and an inquisition rushing through me, but I crashed back to the ground as a searing pain crippled my mobility. I looked wildly around for my attacker...or rescuer...oh my head...

A movement near the end of the aisle caught my eye and I held my breath. Moving with a bit of a jaunt in his step, I saw the crazy cart caddy hovering a few feet away. He was plesantly disheveled, his eyes wide with fear...or was it excitement?

"Alright there?" he asked with a grin.

"Yeah, I guehhhaaaaaaah!" My skin became incensed as he drew near.

"Hold still, now, it's not too bad," he muttered under his breath as he opened up a gallon of milk and guuuush! He dumped it on me. Ordinarily, I think I would have been capable of physical harm after that. I mean, have you ever smelled dried milk?! He was a decently sized guy, but I think I could have taken him. But then, having milk dumped on your person isn't exactly "ordinary." So I kept my seat, and somehow, beneath my utter bewilderment, I was aware that the milk had immediately relieved my burning flesh feeling. It even subdued the pain in my head and leg. I blinked up at him. He grinned again back at me.

"2%. Handy stuff," he said as he set the empty jug on a shelf behind him. "For some, it can get so bad they need whole, but I took a chance here and hoped for the best."

I blinked again. That was pepto I took tonight, wasn't it?

"That's an offense burn for ya," he continued at my blank stare. "Yeah," he shook his head, "your kind are always so easily offended when our kind show up. Such a shame. That should hold you until you shower or become familiar with me."

My breath caught in my throat for a moment. "I'm sorry?"

"You know, get to know me better," he clarified, before a dust buster caught his attention. He shook his head at it with a little smirk. "Such a waste of talent. I mean, really" he said as he looked at me and held the gizmo up, "who really uses these things? And what do they really accomplish?" He set the dust buster back down. "Now, I once saw one that could suck up a live gold fish after an accidental fish take spillage. That...that could be handy."

He was so genuinely...out there...I couldn't help but be amused. He didn't seem offensive to me, really, but at this point....Well, at this point I was just a confused person illegally in a Sam's Club, drenched in milk in the wee hours of the morn. I blinked again.

"Okay, that's enough, let's go!" He helped me up, and just like that we were off. He was quick on his feet, and I was amazed to find I didn't have to struggle to keep up as we hurried through the aisles. He snatched up some backpacking gear, then grabbed seemingly unrelated items as we went. Tennis balls, a million-pack of Post-Its, some flannel sheets, and a mega deck of Uno. "Ah, hold on," he said, then disappeared into more shelves, reappearing moments later with a tub of butter and a special 3-pack of Candy Cane Oreos, which kinda made me happy.

"Well, look at that, an expression!" he cheered when he saw me. A little chuckle escaped my lips as I glanced at the butter. "Ah, right, in case your burn comes back," he said as he held up the tub. "And..."

He looked hesitant, almost a bit embarrassed. I raised my eye brows, waiting for him to continue. "And?"

"Well, you know, if there's time and all, I hear a little butter goes a long way in a grilled cheese sandwich." His smile returned as his eyes drifted into sandwich dreams, while mine went back to a confused gawk. "I've always wanted to try one. Now come on, it's time we got going." We stuffed the items into the packs and headed for the rear of the store. "We need to leave before she realizes we're right next door. I'm so glad Clyde told me where to find you, because I don't think I would have found you in time. I know he tried to warn you and I've been trying to reach you for days now and I--"

Phoomp! Which is precisely the sound one makes when they've been repelled by a wall they've just deliberately walked into, as if they thought it wasn't quite there.

"Ahmuph..." He groaned as I tried my best to help him up. "Helps to be touching the portal key when trying to go through a portal..." He grumbled as he hastily took my arm and reached into his pocket, and together we proceeded through the wall.

High Priced Cookie

To look back now, it seems like it all began there in the Walmart Super Center, between Men's Clothing and this picked over display of Holiday Oreo Cookies. I guess for me, it did, but really, it didn't start there, with him...it began long before that night. Days ago, weeks, maybe even years before. Who really knows. But it all hit the fan that night, and there in Walmart, I ran into it.

There were a handful of cars in the icy parking lot that night. As many as one might expect at two in the morning. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to try a spinning a few donuts on my way to a parking space, but the security vehicle was there near the entrance with its usual yellow lights blinking and bouncing off the walls and windows, so I pulled into a spot near the door and headed inside.

And there was no greeter. That should have been my first clue that something was not right, but then really, how many 70 year-old people do you expect to run into at that hour of the night? It was late, and the quiet of the store didn't seem out of place at all. I grabbed a cart, even though I had no idea what I might buy that I couldn't just carry, and pushed it noisily through those theft detectors. As I passed the pastry display, I tossed a few boxes of sugar cookies and two loaves of bread into my cart. I didn't really need the carbs, but I had nothing better to do, so I added a head of lettuce, an artichoke, and a watermelon that must have made quite the trip to be this fresh in such wintery climes to my cart. Maybe I'd buy it all, maybe I'd just end up putting it back, or maybe I'd just leave it all in the cart in the cereal aisle and walk away as I pretend to search for some other grocery I just can't find. I didn't know, I didn't care.

The aisles were a maze of half emptied cardboard boxes. The night shift seemed busy restocking the shelves, or they had been at some point, but now they all seemed to have gone on break. Abandoned hand carts and dollies were all I found as I made my way through frozen foods and soup and added a few cans of cream of corn to the mix that was my cart.

And that was when it hit me: Hershey's Chocolate Sauce. Literally, right on my head. Fell off of a high shelf, I guess. It didn't hurt, but it nearly scared the pepto right out of me, and it was as my scream disappeared into the lifeless aisles that I first noticed something wasn't right. No one came to help. If anyone was nearby, they didn't even seem to take notice. As I listened to the silence that had fallen around me, I suddenly felt very alone. Not a sound was returned to me, save for the ceaseless buzz of the halogen lights above and the low whistle of the freezers nearby.

"Um...hello?" I called. I felt kind of silly, and I totally expected a worker or another insomniac shopper  to pop out from the next aisle over and see what I needed. But no answer came, and that was when it hit me figuratively: I was the only one there.

"Forget this," I said to myself as I ditched my half-full cart and began to jog toward the main aisle. I rounded the corner and would have sprinted for the door, but something caught my eye and I had to pause...

"Candy Cane Oreos? They have those?" I'd never heard of such a thing, but I'd been a huge fan of the chocolate covered mint Oreos, and....

And that's as far as that thought went, because at that moment, everything erupted. There was this crashing, like shelves being knocked to the ground, the shatter of glass, the squeak of toys. Then across the store in Children's Clothes, entire racks of clothing began flying through the air, then the Women's Clothing section, then the far end of the Men's, and I would have turned to run for Clyde, but in that moment, I heard him coming. I turned up toward the aisle and there he was, barreling toward me with an empty cart, his gaze focused on the nearing flying clothes.

"Hey!" I shouted, and he saw me, but it wasn't quick enough. I jumped all of a few inches before the cart ran into me, and I fell into the empty basket, hit my head, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground in the appliances aisle in the Sam's Club next door. And all was quiet again.

A Drive In Clyde

It was a dark, cold night. The kind of winter night that catches you by surprise and snatches your breath away before you can breathe it back in. Even within my warm car, Clyde, my knuckles were cold. I listlessly steered my Charger through the moonless night in no particular direction, my thoughts drifting as much as Clyde was between the lines. I hadn't been sleeping much. There was something unsettled in my gut. And the pepto wasn't quite smoothing things out, so I'd decided to hop in the car, hit the road, and clear my thoughts, maybe get a Slurpee, peel my tires out in a parking garage...but none of it seemed to help. Like an obnoxious over-achieving cousin who shows up and criticizes my shoes, the feeling just wouldn't go away.

There aren't many times I would admit to this, but it seems whenever I'm deliriously tired, my car, Clyde, talks to me. Helps me sort things out. Like relationships or socks. But tonight he seemed particularly chatty, as though keenly aware of this restless state I was wallowing in....At least, that's what I thought as I drove deeper into the night. But now, looking back, I think he was trying to warn me, trying to tell me to turn around and head home.

If only I'd listened...

Have a seat; the story's about to begin...

Welcome all to "The Wayward Wily Whistler Was," a story being told from across a nation to people around the world.

Before we begin, Chrisha and I would like you fill you in a bit on who we are and what you're about to read.

Once upon a time, Chrisha and I supposedly met in rather interesting circumstances, and we decided to write about the story in the "how we met" area on facebook. It was a crazy, funny story about a mysteriously shoeless man, a woman in a wedding dress and snowshoes, a warning fish, some glistening teeth, and a cow named Bounty. It was a lot of fun to coauthor, each of us writing a little more every now and then. But the story was not easily accessible, and the text box not well formatted for stories of such length. So a few weeks ago we decided to try something new: a new blog to tell a new story. And after some brief discussion (I said, "Hey, let's try this!" and she said, "Sure!" and that was about it), here we are!

The story you are about to read is completely fictional and 100% off the cuff. That's right, we'll be making it up as we go along. Now, if you're worried about the quality of a story written with no forethought, let me assure you it is a method we have tested with much success, so we'll be sure to keep it interesting and moving along with every new entry. And this way, it's just as exciting for us as it is for you guys!

So without further ado, we present to you our first blovel (get it? blog novel?...that doesn't really work, does it? How about "our first novlog"?), randomly titled:

The Wayward Wily Whistler Was...

-Seth