Just Off the Blue Area

by Mike Mayak

NOTE: Didn’t expect to do another sequel but I guess this is Part Three. Check the earlier stories taking place in The Under: “A Bicycle Built Fortuitously” and “Blue Shoes” also on this blog—-jeff

“‘Scuse me,” a squat man wearing a floppy red hat said as he brushed past Franco and Anthony. “Got my drinks.”

He handed a cup to somebody in a green hat in the back row.

Anthony decided to make small talk.

“Some game, huh?” Anthony asked.

“If you like that sort of thing,” the man in the red hat said.

“We, uh, aren’t from around here,” Franco said for what felt like the tenth time in the last hour. “We don’t even know what the game is.”

“We call it “Shoemerang,” the man in the red hat explained. “I keep waiting for the shoes to turn around and come back.”

“Uh, you know real boomerangs don’t come back?” Anthony said.

“Neither do these,” the man in the green hat snickered. Red hat joined in.

“You know what the winner gets?” someone else said.

“What?” Franco asked.

“One of my special cream pies. We call it Shoemeringue too.”

Franco looked around, half expecting to see a White Rabbit hop up and pull out a pocket watch.

Suddenly there was a commotion from the crowd. People were looking up and pointing. Most of them were angry.

“Well, that’s no fair.” The man in the red hat said.

“What?” Anthony asked.

“Look up,” the man in the green hat said.

They did. The sky had been clear, also it had been near dusk. Now it was daylight and the sky was filled with roiling grey clouds.

“Playing with time and the weather. No fair!” yelled the man in the green hat.

“Dirty pool!!” The man in the red hat yelled.

Anthony was wondering how they knew what pool was when Franco tapped him on the shoulder.

“I think it’s time to go,” Franco said pointing at the bicycle which was swaying from side to side on the ground.

“Yeah. Probably,” Anthony said as Franco hopped on the seat and Anthony sat down behind him, glad the seat was long and that they had been a couple for a while as he grabbed Franco’s waist.

Franco started to pedal carefully behind the rows of people when the bike slowly ascended and floated over the crowd as it got higher and higher.

Somebody noticed.

“Hey! They’re cheating!” That was a voice from the crowd, joined by other loud, angry voices and followed by people on the ground throwing drinks and food at the two young men on the flying bicycle.

“We’re not even playing!” Anthony yelled down as a strange looking fruit soared past his foot.

“Hang on, I’m gonna try to go faster,” Franco said as he pushed on the bike handles. The bike responded by angling upward and zipping into the clouds. Clouds which smelled funny and familiar.

“I think the bike wanted us out of there because it was about to rain.” Franco said.

“So?” Anthony asked.

“We don’t know what comes out of these clouds.” Franco said.

“Oh.” Anthony said.

“But I think it smelled like…” Franco began to say. Then something zipped past them, hurtling downward.

Then there was another one. And another.

“Hang on!” Franco yelled as the bike soared upward and broke the upper layer of clouds.

“Shoes!” Anthony gasped. “Those were shoes!”

“Yeah,” Franco said. “Work boots, I think. I thought the cloud smelled familiar.”

“Sure hope they have some kind of warning system down there…” Anthony said. “And that those boots aren’t steel toed.”

“Owch.” Franco said. He glanced down, hoping to see some of the city if they had cleared where the cloud was. The cloud was only dimly visible through the blue-green misty light that looked like the bottom of the swimming pool. Above them was a silvery mirror-like oval splotched with dark green. The Bicycle was headed right for it.

“Oh-Oh” Anthony said.

“Look out!” Franco yelled.

They hit the oval with a splash.

The two young men gasped for air, which fortunately there was a lot of. Also blue sky, and green grass and trees on a lake bank a few feet away. The bicycle had popped out from under them and was floating on its side next to them. They had burst through a covering of greenish lily pads.

A large green frog was laying on one of the pads that was still floating, looking like he had been overturned by the pair’s sudden emergence.

“Well,” the frog croaked. “NOW you’ve done it!”

—end—