SERIALIZATION OF “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” – Chapter 60 of 61
Warble Blinks Morse Code with His Eyelids, and Mary Takes Drastic Action to Prevent World Catastrophe
Chapter 60
Warble Blinks Morse Code with His Eyelids, and Mary Takes Drastic Action to Prevent World Catastrophe
Mary's maternal instinct (she doesn't have any children, and has to waste it all on Warble) kicks in. “Must save Warble, must save Warble,” she begins muttering under her breath to herself, over and over, gritting her teeth fiercely, fighting back the tears.
Warble forces himself to calm down and think logically. He meditates for a few seconds, and then asks the officers: “So, besides those minor things you mentioned earlier, just what did I do that was so bad?”
The officers look at each other, and raise their eyebrows. Officer Landreaux sighs and replies: “Your globalization scheme caused Epcot Center to morph from a poor man’s world tour to a museum of former world culture. Due to your mucking about where you had no business, a homogeneous world culture supplanted the beautiful and varied national cultures we previously enjoyed. Now everyone lives exactly the same everywhere. We eat the same food, wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, build using the same style of architecture, and speak the same language (American).”
“What's wrong with that?” Warble rebuts, trying to defend himself and minimize matters.
Officer Landreaux ignores Warble's interruption, and continues: “Even the literal landscape, or surroundings, became the same for everyone everywhere, as the mountains were leveled to extract every last bit of mineral wealth and to supposedly ‘level the consuming field,’ as you put it, for everyone. After your monkey wrenching—or King Kong wrenching, if you will—a person can no longer tell if he is in Nairobi or San Francisco, London or Kathmandu.”
“Oh, give me a break, cut me some slack. After all, stuffing happens. Besides, what's the problem, anyway?” Warble asks, truly perplexed.
Officer Eising can't take any more. “You're a hopeless case, McGorkle! You're incorrigible! You're a habitual criminal, and ought to be...” He loses control, whips out his nightstick, and raises it above and behind his head.
As he is about to bring his billy club crashing down on Warble's cranium, his partner intervenes. “Don't do that, Martin! We don't want him to get off on a technicality now, do we?”
The danger of that happening is enough to calm officer Eising down. Once he sees that his partner has gained control of his emotions again, Landreaux instructs him, “Now, finish reading Mr. McGorkle his rights.”
“Mr. McGorkle,” officer Eising complies, paraphrasing, “Everything you say WILL be used against you in a court of law, you can bet on that. You can legally hire a shark to try to get you off, but take it from me: You shouldn't waste your time. Nobody wants to defend the likes of you, and you haven't got a chance in Dallas of winning your case, anyway. So, in other words: FUGITABOUTIT!”
During the recitation of the Miranda Rights (2024 version), Warble's heart begins drumming a martial tattoo against his ribs. He now suddenly recalls the details about the nightmare he had had about Mary being shot by snipers, and comes up with a plan to get out of his predicament, which he considers to be even worse than the one in which Mary found herself in his dream.
Needing to communicate with Mary without the policemen decoding the message and intervening, he reverts to an old trick he and Mary used to use in high school to send 'love notes' to each other in class: Once Warble and Mary's eyebeams intertwine (after he “catches her eye,” that is, so to speak) Warble sends Mary a Morse code message using his eyelids: Winking with his left eye represents a dot; winking with his right eye represents a dash. Officer Eising, as well as many of Warble and Mary's traveling companions, notice Warble's strange behavior but assume he is losing his composure and having a nervous breakdown, or perhaps is just getting fresh with Mary.
Marianne, a little embarrassed by what she considers to be a blatant public display of affection, is about to suggest that the pair “Get a Room!” when she sees Mary dash (no pun intended) for the Arodnap. Reaching into the console, Mary flips open the emergency panel.
Officer Landreaux, who is holding on to Warble with one arm to prevent an escape attempt, orders his partner: “Stop her! She's trying to get away or find a laser gun or something! Her maternal or spousal instinct is running amok!”
That last was a shrewd insight on Officer Landreaux's part. That's why he's the lead officer and gets paid the big bucks, I guess.
As Officer Eising sprints toward Mary and the Arodnap, Mary frantically pushes the back button, over and over. As she does so, an overlay of each successive trip is superimposed on the present. Everyone gazes around in wonder as they see faint images of the previous trips, in reverse chronological order of when the trips were taken, flashing in front of them: Woodstock/Violence Corps, Israel/Judas, St. Louis/Dam Nation, and so on.
Just as officer Eising grabs Mary and begins to pull her away (talk about a cliffhanger!), she has reached the end: Cooperstown/Preemptive Strikes. She is able to get just enough finger pressure on the back button one last time, and then hold it in just long enough (0.314 seconds, as you might recall).
Mary blinks, and gradually, the scene seen in washed-out hues takes on rich and vibrant color and completely replaces the previous present—namely, the 2024 of McWallyland, rampant pollution, etc. Mary sees the gang here in she and Warble's back yard, standing around the Arodnap, as Comfy explains its features. The officers are gone, as is their squad car. Warble is no longer handcuffed. Across the street is the oak savanna—the mega strip mall is gone. The air is (comparatively, anyway) fresh and clean.
All are admiring the Arodnap, listening to Comfy Stolen extol its virtues and cool features. It seems nobody but Mary has any memory of the scrapes they had all been in together and just returned from. Warble is proceeding exactly as he had the first time: telling everyone to climb aboard, and that they were going to take the Arodnap for a “spin” to the past.
Mary rushes into the house, reaches into her kitchen drawer, and pulls out a hammer. Racing back outside, she is about to smash the GPS/CPS unit to smithereens, rendering the futuristic Arodnap inoperable.
Soundtrack note: “If I Had a Hammer” by Peter, Paul and Mary
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” has been serialized in this space for the last several months. Thursday (6/24/21) will be the final chapter. The book is also available in its entirety from here.
You can listen to the recording of this excerpt, by the author’s alter ego, here: