fLoOd--Part Seven

It's Now or Never

sEvEn

   On raising his eyelids, Peterson became aware of the brightness of the sky. He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes up to receive his first impression of Johnson and his anvil. Satisfied as to what the  odd sounds were, he re-closed his eyes and relaxed his head.

   Strank! Bing! Flump! Gronk! Ahhh - eeeehh - yahhh!

   With the intrusion of this novel, undulating vocalization, the anvil melody took a pause and, though no one arose from their prone positions, heads began to roll back and forth in search of the originator of this highly unusual vocal accompaniment.

   Brown caught sight of a fast growing speck in the sky and opened his mouth to say "there" and lifted a hand to point to the apparition but, before he could do either, the speck enlarged itself to the size of a thirteen-year-old boy clad only in white jockey shorts, plummeting to earth as quickly as gravity could impel him. Luckily for the boy, the earth to which he was descending was composed entirely of water. By this time, all six occupants of the craft had caught sight of the lad. Each watched motionlessly as the boy terminated his elongated syllable, closed his mouth and eyes, pressed two fingers to his nose and curled up into a ball, in anticipation of his rendezvous with the planet from which he had been, for a time, separated.

   There was quite a spectacular splash when the boy and the water collided and, as he fell as close to the boat as possible without landing in it (which was quite thoughtful of him, considering how disastrous that would have been for all involved), Smith, Brown, Jones, Murphy, Peterson and Johnson were once again the recipients of a plethora of dampness, which, needless to say, (ahem) dampened their spirits immensely.

   No one moved. There didn't seem to be any point in doing so. Afar a while, the boy surfaced a few feet away, swam to the boat and hung on to the side. Johnson was the only one not lying flat so he gave the boy a hand and practically lifted him into the boat.