The Marvelous XerosHe woke up exactly five years later in the hospital. His clothes were gone. There was noone around. The bright fluorescent green light above him filled the room with an eerie light. He slid out of bed and looked around. He was completely naked but it was mysteriously warm. He was in a small room with greenish gray metallic walls that dripped with green ooozing slime that looked like fresh boogers from a hairy nose. "Xeros," he said. He was almost shocked when he said it. It was almost as if he knew what it was, but he had never seen it before and he never wanted to see it again. "Xeros." This time he clamped his hand over his mouth. "Xeros." His hand hadn't even muffled the sound, so he pinched his lips together as tight as he could. "Xeros." His lips just opened as if some giant horrible monster living inside of him with sharp claws and drooling fangs wanted to come out and didn't care if he survived! This wasn't the case of course. "Xeros." He let himself say it. "Xeros." "Xeros." It paused. "Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros." He almost panicked. Then he began to move, involuntarily of course. Whatever the force moving him was, it sure wasn't being very careful with him. It pulled him up to the ceiling and hit his head, swung him down into the bed and threw him into the wall of slime, which turned out to be several feet thick. He emerged from the other side, completely covered with an inch of slime and sick to his stomach. He had never been thrown through a wall of slime before(I don't suppose you have either). The slime turned out to be as gross as it looked; it clung to him like last weeks boogers and it tasted worse. "Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros," he began involuntarily and the wall of slime collapsed. All on him of course. "Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros, Xeros." The wall restored itself, taking all of the mucus off of him. He lie on the floor shivering. Then he heard a rumbling. "Xeeeeeeros," he blurted and he floated into the air once again. This time a pair of clothes flew from the wall of slime and he whirled into action. He began spinning randomly around the room. The clothes flew with him. He flipped around until he was sick, sick all over the room in fact. Then the clothes whirled around him. When he landed with a thump on the floor he was dressed in a plain pair of Levi jeans, a red plaid shirt and mountain boots. He heard a clank on the floor behind him and clearly expected it to be an ax. He turned to see a multi-phase super-dooper handy-dandy sponge sharpener lying on the floor. "Xeros." he said, not so surprised now. The multi-phase super-dooper handy-dandy sponge sharpener jumped into the air. It jumped into his hand and his hand clamped down onto the handle. Then his legs moved in the form of walking. He walked over to the wall and his head banged against the wall six times. The wall fell down and so did he. He fell into an abyss that he couldn't see the bottom of, screaming 'Xeros' all the way down until he hit an ocean full of the slime he had come to call 'Xeros'(I wonder why?) He plunged into the mucus and flew deeper and deeper beneath the slime. then he stopped. He struggled to move but he couldn't, the slime held him fast. He had been lucky enough to take a breath before he hit the slime but it was coming to the point that he had to take a breath. As he opened his mouth a bubble formed around his head. It spread over his whole body until he was not touching anything. He breathed for a long time until his curiosity got the best of him and he reached out and touched the edge of the bubble. His finger stuck like glue to the edge of the wall. As he struggled to free his finger his leg touched the bubble and it stuck. He continued to struggle until his entire body was completely entangled in the sticky slime and he was in a state of panic. "Xeros." The bubble suddenly widened several yards outward. It continued to grow in size until he could see solid ground beneath him it widened even farther and he could see walls of rock on all sides of him. Then to his surprise a ceiling appeared above him. As soon as all of the 'Xeros' was gone the walls blurred and shrunk down to the size of a small room and he lay on a soft bed. Then he realized this room looked familiar. It was his room. He leaned off of the side of his bed and barely missed the bear trap. "Ah the marvelous Xeros," he said. Back to Literature |