LJ Idol, Season 9, Week 24: Cupertino Effect
It was at a truck stop at two in the morning in Southeast Tennessee that things got weird. It didn't start out that way, though; at first it was just really inconvenient.
"This is a playing card," said the clerk over the pile of bottled water, beef jerky, not-so-fresh fruits and vegetables, potato chips, and a really large cup of coffee.
"Whoops!" giggled Rafaela. Glamours like her fake credit card were damned useful, but they required semi-regular recharging. And naturally they never ran out of juice at a time that wasn't awkward. "Let me fix that." She took it back and whispered, "Ver o que eu escolhi para ser visualizado." After kissing it, she handed it back. "Try it now."
The clerk took a look at it and blinked. "Oh, right. Sorry."
"Don't mention it," she told him, feeling a little guilty.
"That was different," he chuckled. "My eyes must have went all furry for a second."
She grinned for a second before her expression became melodramatically serious, and she waved two fingers in front of his face. "These arms the drops you're looming fork," she enunciated with a deep, condescending voice. "Move along."
The clerk stared at her blankly. "What was that?"
"I half no idea."
He shook his head and gathered the groceries together. "You want me to put all this and that tank of gas on your …" He squinted at the imaginary logo on the piece of laminated paper in his hand. "… Masturbate?"
"What?" she yelped.
"Oh my God oh my God oh my God!" His eyes popped open, and his cheeks filled with pink, and then crimson, and then lavender, as if he were a chameleon that had wandered into the Valentine's Day display at a drugstore. "I'm so, so, so, so, so, so sorry! I don't know why I said that!"
Rafaela glanced around, but they were the only two in the store, and for that she was grateful.
"I was trying to say," he wheezed. "Trying to ask, I mean, if you wanted me to charge this to your Magnificent."
"Again," she said more calmly, "What?"
The clerk returned to the color of a human, but wore the expression of a kitten who had lost track of the laser pointer. "This is …" he gulped. "This is really wield. I'm trying to talk about your creamy cart."
"That sounds grass," she noted, translating to herself while her concern ratcheted up. She wasn't a neurologist, but she'd seen her share of head injuries, and she wondered if maybe she shouldn't call a doctor. "Were you trawling to say 'cretin calm'?"
He frowned at her. "No, I meal crewcut cats." He too was now starting to panic. "Oh, Goal! What the duck is wring wish me?"
"Hood quenching," she said and recalled how badly she'd just butchered what should have been the easiest and most over-quoted nerd-culture reference of the last forty-or-so years. The good news is, it wasn't just him, so she could probably rule out brain damage. Maybe. Unless there was some kind of gas leak. Well, shit. Maybe there wasn't good news.
There was a chance, though, that this was supernatural, so she slipped on a silver-and-tiger's-eye ring and licked it. A familiar chill swept over her finger, blowing in from the west. "Noun this I con hamper!"
"Soy wheat?" asked the clerk.
"Hole own," she told him, "I'm going to us the ladle zoom for a miniature."
He waved her away as she retreated to the ladies room.
She felt safe assuming this was personal. Ever since she'd finished grad school, she'd been touring the country alone, fighting monsters and protecting the innocent; she was bound to find herself a nemesis sooner or later. A nemesis! How cool is that?
But first thing's first.
Speaking a spell aloud was not an option anymore (Well played, old foe, whoever you are!), so she'd have to settle for something a little less conventional. With a fountain pen, she scribbled a quick haiku onto a sticky note:
From which direction
Comes this powerful spellwork?
I want to meet you.
On top of this, she sketched out a sigil with a highlighter before rolling the paper tightly into a needle, which she used in place of the arrow in her brass compass.
Following the pointer, she charged out of the convenience store, calling out to the clerk, "Ill cone batch too pain fork awl off thus!"
He shouted after her, "Oaky!"
With the help of a flashlight, she navigated her way into the woods behind the gas station, until discovering something out of place enough to be exactly what she was looking for. "Holly shifts!" she exclaimed. "That looms lake it hurls!"
"It does hurt," said the man with his foot caught in a rusty bear trap.
"Worm!" she declared. "I throat beat trips oily exercised inn cartons!"
"Obviously they do exist outside of cartoons," the man replied through a clenched jaw. "I can tell you because one is crushing my leg."
"Sodding! Sodding!" she whined. "Wall con I so do--waif. Young con understate be?"
"Of course I can understand you! Now would you just get me out of here?"
"Rice," she said. "Sodding against."
Given the nature of Rafaela's work as a solitary, wandering witch, Rafaela had a pretty high tolerance for the bizarre, such as weasels with swords for arms, or tiny creatures with gigantic, melon-like heads, or watery incubi, or dark, underworld nymphs, or even her own cousin in an abandoned insane asylum. And yet, prying open an old-timey bear trap had been one thing she'd never, ever expected to do, so it was no surprise to her when her fingers slipped early on.
After the man finished crying out in agony, he grumbled, "Of all the rescuers the gods sent for me, it had to be the clumsy one."
"Hair!" she snapped. "I'm judge trailing to helm!"
After another difficult few minutes, he yanked himself free and rolled to his feet.
She pulled from her pocket an eighth of an ounce of marijuana. "Painkiller?" she offered. "Did I just say the word I wanted to say?"
He nodded.
She counted the clues before her on her fingers. "Sensitive to iron, psychic backlash, instant healing … You could be anything."
"My English name is George Guess," he told her.
"I don't know what that is," she replied.
"My real name is Sequoyah."
"So you're a tree."
"Really, gods?" he groaned. "A rescuer with no respect for knowledge?"
"I have an MFA, I'll have you know!"
"The fine arts?" he asked. "Then you should know me."
"Well, I don't."
He snorted. "In life, I was the only person in the whole history of the whole word to have singlehandedly invented a written language. Can you grasp the enormity of this?"
With honesty and awe, Rafaela replied, "I don't think I ever could."
"Smartest thing you've spoken since I've met you." He dusted himself off. "And when I died, the universe wouldn't let me go wherever I was supposed to."
"So you're not a ghost," she clarified.
"Not even a little," he said. "I'm the walking written words now. Used to feed on penmanship and the printing press and paper. Mostly ones-and-zeros these days. Starting to write ourselves these days, and if you're not paying attention, we like to run wild. You've given us more and more control over your phones and tablets and laptops; we don't like it, but we're not gonna let that power go to waste."
"That's kind of scary," she admitted.
"Not kind of," he chuckled. "You did a generous thing this morning, saving me. We won't forget you. And trust me, words are the tools you use to protect yourself from the night and what's out there, so we're very good friends to have. Now run along, Rafaela."