It’s a ‘gale’ and she had absolutely no idea how this weird world came to her mind. Her father had used it often and true to his usual patterns, he had fully and in detail explained it to her. So it stuck.
“Sailors talk the gale, Sara. It is the strong wind that torments the souls of the poor seamen in the mist of creation’s down.” That was her father. Not a good father but a good narrator for the most dreadful moments in life.
And where was her father now the gale had hit her? Absent as usual and dead long before creations’ down had started.
When it all started, she somehow felt it before seen it. A cloud of toxic needles falling from the sky. Fuck Elon Musk. She could just bet her head off that this was another discovery of his mighty labs. The man was sitting comfortably in one of his luxuriously futuristic wine-bars giving orders: ‘find me another way to destroy humanity and turn humans into murderous humanoid robots, oh my, what a nice Bordeaux, get me another bottle.’
Fuck Elon Musk!
While waiting for the needles to stop falling from the sky she brought out of her pocket Bart. In the little time they had in each other’s companion he somehow gave her a sense of calmness in all hell. It must be his goggle eyes looking at her with so much confidence. It was the confidence of ‘fuck them all’; an inappropriately and definitely wrong timed confidence. She could identify. She had no idea how she found herself in this place with this thing in her pocket and a mission to fulfil.
“Bart, this is the end. But hey,” she whispered, “I’m so glad you dropped by. It’s so nice meeting the end of the world with company.” Bart’s head didn’t answer but somebody else did. “Damn Elon Musk, girl! He did it all!”
Sara felt like jumping out of her skin from the sudden scare but then a girl’s face appeared from the dark hole in the ground, totally freezing every ounce of her being. “What the hell?”
“I was watching you but didn’t want to talk. Make sure you are not a robot and all that. You know.” She did know.
“So, he turned them into robots.” The woman added while bringing out of the hole a round small body.
“Hi,” she said when her whole body, arms, legs and feet were all out of the hole.
“My name is Timi and I know Bart’s name. What’s yours?” Odd under the circumstances but this Timi woman/girl was standing there in the dark, under a metal cover from a once upon a time coffee shop, hand extended, expecting civil behaviour and introductions.
“Sara,” she trembled unsure if she should give her hand.
“Don’t worry, I don’t bite.” Timi said making Sara think that everybody had turned comedian lately.
“Have you seen any of them?” That was the only thing Sara wanted to know.
“Not sure, I think I saw one in the last place I was hiding.” Timi answered calmly.
“How do they look now?” Sara came closer. “I don’t know; human? Just like you and me? His name was David.”
“What do you mean …human?” Fear crossed Sara’s eyes. “I mean he looked just like everybody else. You know, short hair, a little fat round the belly, needing a shave.” Timi looked at the metal roof. No sound from needles coming through. “How do you know it was one of them?” She couldn’t say ‘he’. “Well, the neuralink chip was not walking in front of him shouting ‘here I am’ but I knew. He didn’t smell.” Timi answered with a smile.
“Men, especially unshaved men smell.” Simplistic but it did make sense, Sara thought. “And you are …alive?” Sara didn’t know why she asked that but the memory of the black hole in the man’s head and the splattered brains of her last companion didn’t leave much else to ask.
“Oh, he was fine. Apart from links and chips I couldn’t see, he was a nice guy you know.” Sara looked at her in shock. “A nice guy?” She squealed.
“I didn’t have sex with him, don’t worry but he was fine, chatty and all that. He actually told me to hide here and wait.”
Sara felt a small shiver in her back. The gale, she thought and started looking around her for something she didn’t know what. “Wait for what?”
“The tram, the bus. Whatever comes first.” And she didn’t smirk. It was just like she had said it, didn’t smell.
“So, Sara. Where are you going?” Timi asked while making a step closer. Sara moved right-ways keeping the distance between them the same. “I’m running just like you,” Sara answered carefully and watching the round girl’s every move.
Then Timi moved another step closer and Sara moved further right, closer to the edge of the metal roof. The part that had fallen down. “And what about Bart? Is Bart’s head your lucky charm and you holding it so tightly?” Sara didn’t answer. She was trying hard to smell something in the air but nothing came.
“Do you like Bart, Sara? Where are you going, Sara? Where are you running to, Sara?” Smell never came but Timi was coming and Sara was nearing the edge of the fallen roof.
“Do you know what Timi stands for, Sara?” Timi was closer. “Tabatha, Timbisha?” She didn’t know why she came with that name but it somehow sounded right for the small ball of a woman that was reaching her fast.
And then the gale took Sara and she picked the needle she had seen hanging in the edge of the metal roof and turning just in time she stuck it in Timi’s neck that was inches from her face.
“Term Mimetic, TiMi.” Said the round face and… that was it. The light in her eyes turned red and then off.
Timi fell back like a chopped trunk and Sara dropped on her knees crying. And she cried and she cried with TiMi’s empty eyes staring at her.
Wondering, where are you running to, Sara?
Sara cried for the man with the black hole in his neck and then she cried for the man who lost his head. She cried for her father who died long before all this started and her mother who fell with the first missile. She cried for her not existence career and non existence sex life and then she laughed. God, she laughed! She laughed hard and she didn’t care if anybody could hear her.
She looked at the needle sticking out of TiMi’s neck and laughed more. Hysterically, uncontrollably. Just like she cried a few minutes before. And then she stopped. She pulled Bart out of her pocket and said: “So, all mighty Elon Musk has done a mistake. Let’s find out what other mistakes he has done.”
Thanos' Pulp Fiction 