lab chapter 5

Hey guys, it's been a while, so here's an update on what's happening between the mad scientist and the weary soldier. Remember: scientist = bad guy with crazy potion that transforms people into monsters; soldier = ex-partner now trying to stop him. Oh no, what's going to happen next?!

...and, starting tomorrow, get ready to crap your pants!

But first, the next chapter of lab...


chapter 5 – man in sky
As the air fell around his face, Jacob attempted to stare at the flaming halo of his plane. The terse touch of the sky was devouring him. He watched as an unknown chunk of debris – what had cause the death of his ship – plummeted just beyond, screaming through the atmosphere. Jacob could not help but imagine a wonderful world, where falling is akin to success, and that to die was to be promoted. Tears rounded up his face against the will of gravity, caught in the gale wind. He told himself it was right and proper to flail and to scream.
The following moments stretched into hours. Lifetime flashes and deformed clouds, the tattle of no-god hissing sweet nothings. The pulse of the wind came to be his own as his bones bounced and his teeth chattered. He wondered how long until the verdant underneath caught him. He thought of abstract hands composed of vegetation, of god in the endless no no sighing, of a little woman in an apartment burning his cloths. Jacob fashioned a prayer, but it had little sense and its function was dislocated. Pray instead, he sobbed, of endless blue, of gravel and locust, of arbor and moss and highway blacktop. Jacob closed his eyes and prepared for the great kalamazam.
He felt a twitch upon his arm. He swatted and was shocked to feel there another man’s hand. Jacob instantly opened his eyes open and gasped. A man, bespectacled and shocked in white hair, flowing along, falling too, strapped to some form of jetpack apparatus, was holding on. He was laughing. Jacob shouted questions but they were lost to the rush of the fall. The man in white frock and flame handed a blue bottle to Jacob. He motioned for him to drink it, then leaned in and mouthed, “Take this and it’ll save your life.” Jacob was completely astonished and nonplussed. He grabbed the bottle, understanding nothing, and drank deeply. Jacob understood angels to be querulous creatures with bulbous faces and nerd-beam eyes. He knew miracles to flow like water and drag not in doubt nor fear. He drank the damned thing and tossed the bottle into the grip of the fall. He felt a tug in his corporeal form. The mad flyer smiled, hissed, “I am the scientist,” and fluttered away with his magic backpack.

Jacob watched the glitter chrome lift away. The strange, starry sensation continued. His stomach became hard to place. There were bricks – no; horseshoes? – kicking about. Farewell, thought Jacob, and he caught a final glimpse of his bamboozled plane tumbling. His final plea was a call for an airplane savior to hoist his creature back into the sky and let it dwell there for the rest of time. Jacob begged for his life too. His lips became diaphanous, his hands useless parachutes, and his legs roman candles. Jacob finally let out a wail and felt his body transform just before the thud.

--
Jacob felt time stop. At least he thought he felt time stop. He smashed into the
earth and died. His body was gnarled, gashed, smashed, twisted, and bloody. But he was not dead. Jacob lived. He had become a mosquito. He flew off. He buzzed away into thick distant foliage. The sounds of life sounded heavy. The breeze was a deep muffle drone. The sunlight was a razor blade window pane. Jacob rested in the shade. The sun began to set and he took to the air anew. A thirst for blood came. He became mad with searching. He landed on the head of a young child playing in dirt outside a hut. The mosquito feasted and felt the evil of a previous life run through him.
A mating urge tapped him. He had become a female. A swarm of male mosquito's buzzed in the air. Jacob yearned to feel the orgy of the swarm. Jacob raced about the currents, intent, of course. Tis a sad death to be repeatedly born.


--

Before the greedy mosquito succeeded its ability to lay eggs in the rainforest, the soldier came along and collected the monster in a glass jar. He looked upon the former Jacob with pity. The soldier had black bars painted on his face. A hunting knife sat at his side. The soldier had watched the wreckage of the plane dip into the canopy previously. He had seen the scientist truffling about in the atmosphere, flying mad with white frock and hapless hair-do. The soldier saw the poor body of the man Jacob transmogrify in the glory/chaos of impact into his mosquito form. The soldier again glanced into the jar and made a quiet promise. This will not be your last life, he thought, and tracked into the interior of the undergrowth, searching the other mysteries awkward abundance might provide. The scientist was not alone; the soldier was unfastened.