and now for something completely different
"It doesn't look like much but it'll go," said the man with the yellow hat.
"How much?" asked a teenage looking Dirk.
"Usually it would cost you both arms and a leg, but we have a special today,"
the man laughed at his horrible little joke. "But seriously, we can talk. I
know that you don't have much money, but maybe you can pay it off another way.
I need some work done on a few of my, shall we say, private vehicles."
Dirk had heard the rumors about how diry the man in the yellow hat had become in
his business. There were stories that he obtained some of his merchandise from
a local chop-shop, which meant that some of the parts he bought didn't really
fit as well with what they needed to on occasion. "I'll help you put 'em back
together, if you give it to me outright."
"What?! HAHA! Alright! Alright, you've got a deal; but I want those parts to
look like they were put there by the factory itself for that," the man had
calmed down a great deal since his chimp died. It had crawled into cement mixer
and was now part of the foundation for the new strip mall outside of town,
curious little bastard.
Dirk and his bud Richie had spent all weekend on their new hovercar. Like the
man in the yellow hat said, it didn't look like much, but it could run balls
out, especially with the tweeking that they had given it. Now it was time for
their test run. The two had drawn straws to see who would be the luck one to
fly it, and Richie had won. He was sitting in the seat, gunning the engine.
"Remember, just a quick lap around the lake! Then it's my turn!" Dirk yelled
his reminder to Richie over the roar of the customized engine. Richie gave him
a thumbs up and took off.
The first few moments of the practise run went well. We Richie got to the point
were he was supposed to turn back, things went wrong. The body of the car began
to swing around, but it still kept going in the same direction. Dirk could see
Richie trying to climb out of the window, since the doors had been welded shut,
and make a quick fall into the water before he got back to the shoreline. It
seemed as if he were caught on something. Then, Richie fell; but it was too
late. The car was already over land and crashing into the trees of the forrest.
Richie's body slamed against a tree, then fell to the ground. The car toppled
more trees before coming to rest several yards away.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where: Dirk's quarters
When: present
"Jesus!" Dirk cried as he fell out of his bunk. He picked himself off the floor
and headed to the sink. He looked at his face in the mirror, the water he had
slashed on himself beaded and rolled down his face. He was pale and trembling.
It had been a long time since Dirk had thought about that day. Even though the
sight of Richie in his wheelchair and halo reminded everyone else when they saw
him, Dirk, and even Richie, for the most part, had blanked that memory for his
mind. It was something that both of them just didn't want to fess up to. Not
so much the fact that they, yes even the wiz kids of science and mechanics, were
fallible; but that they were mortal. It's a concept that many, especially the
young, try to ignore and deny but can't escape.
"What the hell is going on with me? Why would I remember that all of a sudden?
Why now?" Those were questions that had been building up in Dirk for more than
a week now. This instance just brought them to the forefront of his thought.
Lately, he had been experiencing flashbacks of things that he didn't or didn't
want to remember. They were mostly little things like bad birthday and
Christmas presents from relatives and friend, parking tickets, a little incident
involving a top secret, experimental plastic explosive and a baseball, etc. But
this accident was in a whole different zip code from the others. This was
something that he distinctly wanted to forget forever. But now it emerged, and
Dirk didn't think that it was just going to go away again.
He thought about seeing the new ship's psychiatrist. Then Dirk remembered
meeting the guy, and thought it'd be best to repress his emotional baggage and
wait for the inevitable mental breakdown than to rely on him. "Nothing left to
do but to try and get by it. Again."
He tried for hours to sleep but couldn't. The fear of seeing Richie lying on
the ground motionless by the lakeside prevented Dirk from closing his eyes.
"Maybe a drink's all I need. I'll just see who's up a Parrotts."
OOC- i know it's not my usual zany, misadventures type of post; but i'm working
on something so dirk can start to reavaluate himself. that's when the zany,
misadventures posts return kicked up in full gear. but, until then, i think
most of my posts will be similar to this one, unless my interaction with others
calls for something different
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