kagablog

Mister Sister occupied an old, abandoned seaside resort beside a wild stretch of coastland, a rundown property he had added to and developed over the years. Rows of ornamental palms had gone completely wild, ballooning between tangled mango trees like the heads of distraught women. A white walled, tinted window comfort zone had been erected on a cliff facing the sea. At one time this complex must have been chic and breezy, with its spacious atriums, glassy balcony’s and rambling kidney-shaped terraces. Now hundreds of rooms stagnated in the stale wedding cake buildings. Their walls extended into the nearby mangroves, festering with ruin. You had to enter the complex through a white tile mezzanine arched over with broken pavilions of filthy, tinted glass. Everything had long since fallen into disrepair. Cheap brick walls had been constructed where modifications were necessary, or on chaotic whims, lending the place a shabby, patchwork atmosphere. Piles of disused bricks lay in stacks. An abandoned cement mixer housed a small nest of quails. Mister Sister’s ‘Buddhist Punks’ haunted the hotel; slim gutter psychopaths perversely clad in the robes of monks, sporting spiked or intricately shaved heads and hefting machine guns. They slunk around the stained corridors, metal accessories glinting in their sour faces, sharpening kukri knives against bannisters or smoking hashish through the cured finger bones of their many victims. Tattered pennants fluttered from holiday poster palm trees, catching against the severed heads which dangled from them like rotting coconuts. The filleted corpses of giant lizards were suspended upside down above guttering fires, undergoing preparation for the smoked jungle chicken stores. A wide procession of stairs led up to the main piazza, where a decaying arch gave way to wide air-conditioned passages hung with oversized photographic prints and large canvases. Mister Sister liked to think of himself as something of an art collector, and his ruined luxury resort was a maze of cluttered sculpture gardens and storage areas. A wide variety of bad paintings overloaded the curving walls, plundered from museums and galleries throughout the lowlands. A large mirrored elevator ferried visitors up past the extensive sex slave suites where the resort earned its keep, past living quarters and lounges to the pool deck. Alphonse, Judas and Typhoid Mary followed a topless girl in a grass hula-hula skirt out of this elevator, onto the expansive top level of the hotel complex. The girl had attempted to place flower garlands around their neck at the gate but Alphonse had refused coldly. Judas also squabbled in irritation, but Mary did not even seem to notice as the woven frangipani flowers were draped around her stitched throat. A recent disagreement had rewarded Judas with splints and bandages on all his fingers. The legend: I AM A PRUNE had been scrawled onto his forehead with lumo paint. Unable to remove it, he sulked like some strange seal, dragging his cargo of junk behind him, avoiding his reflection. He batted about in this manner; a maligned platypus, ignoring his wounds and cursing each and every thing that tickled his wrath – of which there were many.

The most overwhelming feature of the pool deck was obviously the pool: a flat, ice-cube blue expanse, which melted into the horizon as part of an elaborate architectural illusion; a recent addition by Mister Sister. The overall effect in relation to the ruined resort was however tacky, and unavoidably nouveau riche - an accessory mined from the unreality of a glossy periodical and transplanted into a fecund nightmare. There was a sound of heavy machinery clanking as a large guard robot swiveled noisily to scan the visitors. It stood about eight feet and was easily as wide as a small car, balanced on a pair of girder-heavy hydraulic legs. Its parts were stained, rusted and bullet-pocked, yet all the internal mechanisms seemed to be in operation. Yellow and red panels flaked, hinting at an original paint job now plastered over with ornamental insignias, innumerable stickers and graffiti. Painted flames decorated the lower casing of its legs while fighter jet shark teeth ornamented the long, snout-like chassis. The clanks and squeals of its motors were dangerously loud, indicating that certain mechanisms were in dire need of lubrication. Machine guns and multiple rocket launchers spiked in pods from the heavy plating while scanners and cameras roved in a paranoid fashion beneath its hood. Behind the robot was a deckchair upon which was berthed an obese Samoan in Bermuda shorts, straw hat and a floral print shirt. He drank pineapple beer behind aviator sunglasses, a samurai sword balanced across his belly within easy reach. Across the pool was another grotesquely corpulent character, the fat man himself, Mister Sister. Mister Sister had an Asian physiology and bore the uncanny likeness to those laughing Buddha’s one often spied in the niches of seedy Chinese restaurants. It was a resemblance he exploited, by dressing in richly brocaded Oriental robes and a Mandarin’s cap. Even his ears had been stretched to match the image of a fat, jolly Buddha. Yet, there was something recklessly off-kilter about this image, something in the eyes and mouth; a gluttonous disregard for social propriety which bred a sort of repugnance. He was the kind of character who was always invading an individual’s personal space, someone who could never breathe quietly.

“The imp itself!” Mister Sister squealed in falsetto, air-kissing the immobile cheeks of Alphonse Guava.

“What the fuck do you want?” Alphonse smiled politely.

Mister Sister threw his hands up dramatically, smiling smarmily across at the pale, impish countenance.

“Now now,” he chided. “Claws in, tits out wot wot! No need to be uncivil on such a sunny day, some watermelon?”

“I warned you not to bother me again,” Alphonse announced silkily. “Now I’m going to have to get Typhoid Mary to fillet you.”

Mister Sister ignored this display of aggression, glancing down at Judas.

“Nice doggie…I mean prune,” he coochi-cooed.

“Don’t look to me for sympathy,” Judas muttered, glaring at the pool in barely contained disgust.

“Kill him Mary,” Alphonse ordered.

Typhoid Mary slung out her sledgehammer and the various Buddhist punks reached for their machine-guns as the robot went into attack mode. Mister Sister batted his long, false eyelashes and pressed his hands together in an attitude of mock pleading. He even went down on one knee.

“Fine minutes grace?” he play-begged with a lascivious smile.

Alphonse beamed emptily down at the kneeling Buddha while everyone waited to kill each other.

“Only for your grandmother’s sake,” he relented diplomatically. “She was such a wonderful specimen.”

“I’m going to fucking cry!” Judas screeched.

Typhoid Mary replaced her hammer, deftly snagging a wasp out of the air and pressing it to her sealed lips. It stung her sewn lips several times before she once again realized that she was unable to open her mouth. She crushed it as Mister Sister led them around the ostentatious pool, toward a series of tables laden with metal trays of watermelon. Saffron robed Buddhist Punks in sunglasses lounged around, oiling themselves and their guns, jockeying vast cockatoo Mohawks which rippled colourfully in the breeze.

“See,” Mister Sister began in a conversational tone. “Dr Dali has been busy tinkering with the concept of a holistic interconnectedness between clocks and quasi-dimensional reality…”

“We could just eat him,” Judas offered helpfully.

“…Apparently he’s discovered something quite remarkable,” the fat little caricature prattled on, completely unfazed. “According to his calculations there exists between nano-seconds, an infinitely tiny space, a vacuole which acts as a loop-hole to different dimensions.”

“Same pimp, different holes,” Judas barked. “Break his kneecaps for a change!”

“I’m sorry Sister,” Alphonse broke in as they reached the tables. “I should have warned you beforehand of my intense prejudice against pseudo-scientific monologues, you see, my mother died in a particularly incoherent one…Mary?”

“The point being,” Mister Sister interjected, ignoring the ominous hissing of Typhoid Mary. “Is that Dr Dali, in his infinite schism of wisdom, has devised a sort of inter-dimensional Venus Flytrap which enables him to capture foreign specimens…”

“Foriegn specimens?” Judas repeated with a look of utter disbelief.

“Inter-dimensional foreign specimens,” Mister Sister winked coyly. “And I have one that should put you out of business double quick.”

He swished theatrically around on his pointed slippers, pointing up at the ancient life-guard station which rose above the pool area like a dismal erection. It was an imposing, decayed tower, topped by a bulbous dome of fractured glass and overrun by flowering fruit vines, yet it was what was clinging to the dome that drew their attention.

“I give you…the Symbiote!” Mister Sister intoned melodramatically.

A figure crawled and crept like a gekko along the outer walls of the lifeguard station. It resembled a lanky teenage boy, except that it was possessed of slick, green skin, similar to that of a tree frog. The amphibious resemblance did not stop there. The arms and legs of the being were double, if not triple jointed and possessed of a rubbery flexibility. An extra elbow and knee joint lent the legs and arms a vaguely ‘z’ shape when they flexed. When the creature stopped moving, these limbs folded up like wet origami and it assumed sickening sort of yogic position, not unlike a grasshopper. Another dramatic feature of the thing were its long antennae, which quivered in spasms upon its head. The antennae themselves were gigantic and feathery, like a moth’s, fluttering spastically against surfaces like peacock feathers. The eyes of the Symbiote were also disproportionate, bulbous and reflective. Nictitating membranes licked across their surfaces while complex sets of mandibles operated below. Someone had dressed the thing in loud neon surf shorts, whether for a joke or modesty it was hard to tell. Mister Sister clapped his hands together twice and the Symbiote responded by leaping nimbly down to the deck. It landed gelatinously and scuttled over to the faux deity, squatting on the edge of the water while the fat man petted it grotesquely. The nearby Buddhist Punks found much amusement in the antics of the creature. One even ran up and placed a cheap pair of mirrored orange sunglasses on its unspeakable insect face. The Symbiote twitched, spat and chittered mindlessly in the ludicrous eyewear, eliciting uncontrollable giggling from the gun toting youths. Judas, who had flinched wildly at the landing of the Symbiote, now stared at the thing in disbelief.

“What the fuck is that and how do we kill it!” he called out.

“This is my Symb,” Mister Sister explained,with churlish satisfaction. “A rare bird indeed, even its native reality, for despite the rather froggy façade, our friend here can evoke a sensual bliss unparalleled on this plane.”

He attempted to pinch the non-existent cheek of the alien, only to cause it to flutter and gibber in panic. Perhaps it thought that he was attempting to injure its eyes for it reacted in fear, flapping into the pool like some monstrous bird, where it sank like a stone. It lay unmoving at the bottom of the deep end, an exotic and hideous statue, blinking its huge eyes occasionally up at them.

“Aside from tapping the sensory pits to create life-like illusions and slave-driving the pleasure cortex,” Mister Sister continued smugly. “The Symb can also deliver a state of almost perpetual orgasm.”

“So?” Judas spat. “We have plenty auntie-empaths and ghost girls who can also butter the toast without coming off like a Billy Burroughs vomit comet…is that ectoplasm it’s oozing! Jesus!”

“True true, “ Mister Sister cooed. “But all of your rather, lets face it, archaic modus operandi’s depend on troublesome staging and require many players working simultaneously off each other.”

He drifted to a table, hacking thoughtlessly at a bright red melon while he spoke. Alphonse had meanwhile stepped to the pool’s edge and was regarding the monstrosity at the bottom. The pool-cleaning device chugged around and the Symbiote batted at it as one does a fly.

“The Symb here is a one bug show,” Mister Sister continued, sucking at ragged slivers of watermelon. “It jockeys an ovipositor instead of a cock rocket because it isn’t quite male, more a sort of aphid.”

“An ectoplasmic aphid with an egg-dick!” Judas chortled. “And you expect this to sell?”

Mister Sister shrugged school-girlishly.

“It’s true,” he giggled. “Getting it on with buddy buggy can’t be all tea roses and peach flambés…I mean all that ooze and what not, disgusting!”

He paused dramatically, spitting some seeds out of his smile before approaching Alphonse to deliver what he considered the coup de grace.

“But its worth every froggy pump my fine feathered philanderers,” he hissed in grandiose fashion. “Because every time the Symb gets down and doggy, he ejaculates a tiny sentient symbiote into his partner; a tiny little baby Symb which bonds with the host – symbiotically of course…”

Alphonse glanced up from the pool, reaching for his cigarettes.

“Internal parasites don’t make for very good cherries on top,” he quipped, lighting up a menthol as slim as a chopstick.

“Au contraire Alphonse! Au contraire,” Mister Sister leered slyly.

He placed his hand softly on Alphonse’s shoulder and leaned in close to the pointed ear of the imp.

“You see when the baby Symb has crawled up the spine and nestled at the base of the skull, it begins to grow,” he whispered in an exaggerated mockery of confidence.

“Not as big as its daddy here of course, but just as potent, “ he smirked. “And when the Symbiote locks in, everything becomes intensely sexual for the lucky host. Something about the way the bug interfaces with the spinal and cortex systems. The host can orgasm just by tasting something yummy…like strawberry ice cream for example. Can you imagine it? Even the bad things will become good! An orgasm a lifetime long!”

“How much…did you say?” Judas eye-browed.

The Symb abruptly surfaced, took hold of the pool’s edge and launched itself acrobatically into the air. They watched as it sailed over their heads, landing clumsily on the lifeguard dome and scuttling around it like a bewildered insect. The robot tracked it like a giant, noisy toy, it’s guns adjusting and fixing on the Symbiote with many hums and whirrs.

“We love you, you housefly from heaven you!” Judas yoo-hooed.

“So what’s the drawback?” Alphonse asked.

Mister Sister removed his hand from Alphonse’s shoulder and backed away a few steps, clearing his throat.

“Um, well yes the drawback,” he coughed. “There is always one isn’t there! What price perfection as that poet said…”

They all watched as he procrastinated.

“Well the host has to eat a minimum of a hundred and thirty carrots a day,” he let slip as encouragingly as he could.

“But…why?” Judas asked in something like amazement.

“Oh I don’t know,” Mister Sister flustered. “I suppose there must be some unknown carrot-y nutrient which the little buggers desperately need! We’ve tried other orange vegetables and extracts and things but it seems like only those will do…Carrots have secrets too!”

“Oh please,” Alphonse snapped. “This is like some sort of absurd attempt to justify health food franchises. I think we should just perform a little pest control and just annihilate you all now.”

“Lets not be too hasty…” Judas piped up.

Mister Sister smiled poutily, not at all taken in by Alphonse’s aggressive posturing.

“Oh Al you are such a doll,” he smooched. “You may fool the help, but as one skin trader to another, I know that you are just fizzing up with curiosity!”

He leaned in closer, running a pudgy finger quickly down one of Alphonse’s scalpel cheekbones.

“You want to see how the green boy operates,” he teased. “Say it ain’t so…”

Alphonse remained silent, meeting Mister Sister’s gaze for a moment before staring back up at the alien. A low chuckle bubbled up from somewhere in the depths of Mister Sister. It built to an extended smear of mockery which utterly defaced the air between them.

“I could just dance!” Mister Sister exclaimed, turning away from Alphonse in a vaguely dismissive way.

“Music my little Buddhist Punks!” he trilled.

Some of the nearby Mohawks began firing their machine guns into the air, creating a dismal racket. Mister Sister danced away through the gun-smoke. He activated an enormous rhinestone ghetto blaster, which began vomiting chaotic native pop songs into the air. Some of the Buddhist punks began dancing alongside him, firing their guns in time with the hard beats pumping out of the woofers. Alphonse stalked away wordlessly. Typhoid Mary followed him to the elevator, spooked and panicked by the gunfire. She clutched her hammer and dragged Alphonse along with a free hand, lugging him as effortlessly as though he were a cooler bag of beer. They piled into the elevator, slammed the door and descended quickly, leaving the noise behind.

“Why didn’t you just kill them all and take the bug!” Judas exploded.

“The big Buddha has a point,” Alphonse murmured. “He’s shown an enormous amount of initiative and will no doubt corner a huge market.”

The imp sighed sharply, pulling out a small silver six gun and polishing it on his jacket as though sorry that he was unable to put it to immediate use.

“I can’t just kill him now,” he muttered. “I have to out-do him first, my delicate sensibilities just won’t have it any other way.”

“You and your fucking sensibilities!” Judas belched sarcastically. “Did you SEE that thing?”

Alphonse leaned back against the wall of the elevator, ignoring Judas entirely, withdrawn and lost in thought. He remained like that all the way home.