The forest of conifers is good old tea dust shaken and stirred inside a white cardboard box. The Zanahoria Negro is a plastic carrot painted black. All good stuff, you understand. Only the best for my art…
The falling snow was added later. Who knows, maybe it will appear in an Earplug Adventure.
This first appeared in a now defunct blog.
When Bubbles Gloor and Barclay Scrimmage stole the prototype Prowler from the Punting-Modesty Munitions Company, Bubbles couldn’t help showing it off to her mother, Millicent, and her ski coach boyfriend Wagontrain McCallister in their ski lodge at the end of a frozen fiord. From The Veil of Shytar. Fascinating factoid: The fiord is actually a hollow in the trunk of a fallen tree that has filled with water. Yes, I know it doesn’t look like it, but it is. Just goes to show what a photographic genius the creator of the Earplug Adventures really is!
For anyone joining the series here, this isn’t a serious piece about climate change. I don’t do ‘serious’. This is a fantasy set in an alternative reality wherein life is silicon-based. The central characters are…wait for it…EARPLUGS. Yeah! Read on…
It took a while, but both Erronious and Hellfire finally gathered their wits and decorum…
Sadly they were less successful when attempting to remove the Wonky Supreme Being’s silly hats. In fact they still wore them when they eventually found the airlocks into the hangar area…
Whether it was the dry ship’s air, or perhaps the glue that held the hats to their craniums had a short half-life, no one will ever know; but once aboard the Drunkard’s Vomit again, the hats simply fell off. As a result both earplugs could make their way towards the bridge with a degree of pride in their appearance…
“We have to tell the Captain everything we know.” Hellfire said. “This is a disaster far worse than I’d imagined – and I certainly didn’t imagine meeting the false Supreme Being. He’s really got it in for earplugs.”
“Yeah,” Erronious agreed, “but we’ll leave out the bit about hanging upside down over Vacuum City and the silly hats, okay? Neither are important in the grand scheme of things.”
Hellfire was only too pleased to acquiesce to his partner’s suggestion. “Right on!” he said in a fair imitation of Valentine Earplug.
Moments later they encountered a crew member…
“You appear to have returned intact.” It said. Then scrutinizing them closely, it added, “and you appear to have a glue-like residue upon your heads. Have you been wearing silly hats?”
To which Erronious replied:
“None of your flipping business, Big Nose. Now take us to the captain: we’ve got some really urgent information.”
The robot, if nothing else, was of the rapid response kind. It took off like a supercharged zombie in search of living flesh. Erronious and Hellfire had to greatly accelerate their metabolisms in order to keep up…
So they felt a little light-headed when they arrived at the Robot Recharge Unit…
“The Captain will be done momentarily.” The Catering Assistant informed them. “Were you successful? You don’t look successful. You look…hassled.”
Erronious was about to reply in a defensive manner, when it became obvious that the recharge was complete…
“What?” The Captain said when the earplugs related their tale to it. “This is the worst kind of news that I’ve ever heard of. It stretches my mental capacity to the very boundaries of my design and construction. Are you certain that the False Supreme Being is responsible for the ice-age? I mean – you couldn’t have misunderstood him, or anything? Might he not be taking credit for someone else’s work?”
“You’re sounding desperate, Captain.” The Catering Assistant whispered loudly enough to make sure that everyone upon the deck could hear. “It’s time to face facts, whether you like them or not.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the Captain said as it quickly recovered from both the surprisingly awful news and the rushed re-charge. Stepping from the machine it added, “I think we should plan for a worst case scenario.”
Hellfire was relieved that the Captain hadn’t inquired about the traces of adhesive upon their heads. He smiled faintly at the thought. Erronious had other thoughts though. He was wondering what a worst case scenario might involve – but he didn’t want to ask, just in case it was something really scary. So, instead of saying anything, he followed the Captain, the First Officer, and the Catering Assistant into a compartment that hitherto had been hidden from them…
“This looks terribly important, Erronious.” Hellfire said in a small voice that belied his confident criminal past, “what do you suppose it does?”
“Don’t know.” Erronious replied more confidently. “Let’s check out what the First Officer is doing.”
But, of course, the robot’s actions taught them exactly nothing. It didn’t answer their questions either. So they returned their attention to the others…
However it quickly became apparent that both robots were communing with the ship’s main computer. Verbal questions were out of the…uh…question.
Erronious spoke quietly, so not to disturb the robots:
“I wish Celestino was here. He knows tech stuff better than us. He might hazard a guess.”
“We’ll just have to wait until they’ve finished.” Hellfire whispered. “Where is Celestino anyway – wasn’t he supposed to be following us? You don’t suppose he’s lost, do you?”
“Unless he’s got the antidote in his back pocket,” Erronious said half-way indifferently, “I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing.”
Then, without a word from either servomechanism, the task appeared complete…
“All done?” Erronious inquired.
“Indeed it is, Mister Bosche.” The Captain replied. “I can now enact the Drunkard’s Vomit’s self-destruct sequence from anywhere aboard ship – or elsewhere using my cell phone.”
“A job well-done Sir.” The Catering Assistant congratulated its superior. “I assume my assistance was of value to you?”
“It was indeed.” The Captain replied. “Rest assured, should this mission be completed successfully, I will be looking for a new Catering Assistant.”
“Excuse me.” Erronious broke in on the robotic conversation. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you say something about the self-destruct – like in blowing us all to Silicon Valley?”
“Worst case scenario, Mister Bosche.” The Catering Assistant replied. “It would be reprehensible for any captain to ignore the possibility and act accordingly. If it proves necessary to blow this ship to…as you suggest humorously… Silicon Valley – that is what we will do.”
© Paul Trevor Nolan 2022
What’s this, the Drunkard’s Vomit going the same way as the USS Enterprise in Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock? Surely not – the bloody thing has only appeared in two stories. What a waste. Oh, but we haven’t reached that point yet, have we: maybe it can yet be saved. Return for later episodes – like the next one, for example – to find out if our beloved shampoo bottle-derived vessel will survive the tale.
My ancient Sony Cybershot DSC-P10 dates from 2002. I don’t use it much, but I think it had a hard life in the hands of a construction site engineer before I liberated it. As a consequence it can misbehave slightly – like not switching on when I want to use it. On this occasion I thought it likely that the battery might not be carrying enough charge to fire it up, so I plugged the camera into the charger and tried again. It worked. By chance the lens happened to be pointing in the direction of a half-full water bottle. So, to test that all was well, I snapped a few point-blank close-ups. When I saw the resulting pictures, the ‘artistic genius’ (weird sci-fi guy) within me saw the possibilities. So I tossed a new (and exciting) smoke alarm on to the bed and snapped some pictures of that. The result is…
What the two saucers are about to do to the domed city upon an airless planet, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they appear in a future Earplug Adventure!
I like creating spaceship wallpapers – usually out of everyday objects and civilisation’s flotsam. Sometimes it takes a while before I write a story that might include the resulting picture. Or maybe I’ll never write one at all. Whatever, the picture’s quite nice in itself. And you can always imagine a story for yourself.
Here, Folie Krimp and Placebo Bison (remember them?) pilot the Gravity Whelk as it departs a vast space station at the edge of a distant nebula.
Remember Triple Threat: Hell Unleashed? The awful 20 second giff that featured a trio of earplugs destroying something with a laser cannon? Here’s a shot from it…
Well I rather fancied writing an Earplug Adventure that featured them…
A story about a bunch of accident-prone idiots getting into deep shit trouble, then finding redemption by saving the day (of course). But I couldn’t think of a story line – until I finished an interestingly-shaped bottle of shampoo. After drying (what remains of) my hair, I took the top and the bottom off the bottle. I then delved into my many boxes of plastic bits and pieces, which included other shampoo bottle tops, catheter nozzles and a wind-up flashlight. Shortly I introduced the separate parts to a tube of superglue. The result – after adding a coat of black paint – was this…
Too matt to see clearly? Check this out…
It’s a submarine/space ship freighter. Yes, a space ship that can travel under the sea. What could three accident-prone idiots do with that if they stowed away, then managed to lose the crew, and had to take control themselves? Well the sky – and the depths – are the limit…
The story will be titled Triple Threat. The principal character names are Bunty Bridgewater, Ginger Slack, and Daisy Woodnut. The ship/sub, at present, remains unnamed. But I’m confident something suitably ridiculous will pop into my mind when the need arises. Watch this space!
Tooty Nolan: Languishing Somewhere Between Clever and Stupid 