"I can't believe you got us submerged in a giant glass of soda!"

Yes, it's true, instead of being diced into tiny human bits by the ginormous soccer net, Susan and Jacob were now paddling to stay afloat in this brewery sized vat of cola, while large carbonation bubbles blasted them with the sticky liquid and threatened to drown them.

Neither one could remember who actually said the above phrase as both had been thinking it, but it was out there, unlike the two of them, who kept paddling and spitting the mouthfulls of bubbly goodness out of their mouths to keep from choking, but to no avail. Each looked a mess with saliva, etc, oozing down their chins with more flowing with each hacking exhale.

What a mess thought Sue, but she somehow found the stamina to work her way over to the edge of the open topped vat and after a few brain refreshing breaths at a semi-relaxing perch at the edge of the vat she noticed dozens of foreign tourists staring at her and Jacob from the observation platform that ringed the vat like a walkway at an aquarium. Susan now knew how those fish felt. She wasn't too happy.

Seemingly long moments went by until she had gathered the last of her strength and climbed over the edge of the vat not caring if the fall would kill her or not, this drenching was the last she would ever take, feelings for Steve, adventure, or not. It took all of her might to break free from the syrupy viscosity of the cola vat, like climbing out of very cold and thick molasses. She let herself flop the fifty or so feet down the stainless skin of the vat to a lifeless thud against the floor, evoking a gasp from the gathered tourists. Jacob by then had worked his way around the rim of the cola vat and found a coolant hose he could slide down like a fireman's pole and he did so. He had to crawl across the floor to where Susan lie as he had no energy to stand and walk. He too collapsed, on top of the motionless Susan, when he reached her. Jacob, too, was spent...

Steve, on the other hand, was coming to in a very different place and swore, which was very unlike him. In fact, he was so at his wit's end he swore a number of times making a run-on sentence from them all and one could say he created a few new ones.

I feel like an abused soccer ball he thought next. And rightly so because he too had been kicked about by the gold medal winning team of Fuzz Freaks. I need a pill the size of...

and there it was. Steve looked up and was standing in the shadow of a pain relieving pill the size of a hot air balloon. He stood transfixed as it drew closer and closer to him, and as it did he could see that it had a basket hanging from it just like a hot air balloon would, and as it neared even still he could see a man captaining this huge narcotic and Steve couldn't help but smile. Steve smiled the broadest most uncontrolable smile he'd ever had in his entire life, bigger than Christmastime when he was a child. Not knowing what to expect and with nothing better to do, Steve stuck out his thumb like a hitchhiker as the behemoth pill loomed overhead.

"Ahoy down there!" called the pill captain, "Climb on up!"

Steve grabbed hold of the rope and climbed up the incredibly long length to the flight deck.

"Sorry 'bout the hassle," the Captain said, "she's just too big to fly any lower. Regulations ban me and even if I were allowed a lower altitude, once she's below the wind she manuevers like lead." The Captain was dressed like a weekend status symbol yacht captain, like the stereotype image you might have in your head with the Captain's hat, navy Izod crew-neck shirt, white shorts, and white top-siders. Steve felt at ease around the Captain, as the pilot exhuded an aura of genuine goodness, because the Captain was such a good person. Entranced by sensory near-overload Steve could only nod in acknowledgement of what the Captain was saying. That is until Steve heard "Where to?"

"I would like to find my friends."

"Ah yes, Jacob and Susan," because the Captain knew Susan was her birthname, not that frou frou Alexandria crap. (The Captain knows all and sees all. Infact, when Santa Claus drops the ball and loses track of who's naughty and nice, he calls the Captain for help. You could say the Captain is a metaphor for a certain deity but I'll leave that up to you. I'm just a bad writer....;-) "Your friends do need help."

With that the Captain piloted the jumbo pill across fruited plains and between purple mountain majesties, conjuring refreshing mists as they passed over waterfalls and they stayed dry as they sliced through the worst thunderstorm Steve had ever seen, let alone be in the thralls of.

"This is pretty amazing!" Steve exclaimed during the height of the storm, "You really know your ship well."

"It's nothing really," the Captain explained as he effortlessly piloted through the melee, hardly turning the ship's wheel, "this girl handles like a sports car. Nothing like an ark..." Steve was about to put two and two together when all of a sudden they came out of the storm and were hovering over what looked to Steve like Munchkinland from that Judy Garland movie.

"You know what to do," the Captain called down to him once Steve had been deposited on the brickway.

"Aye aye!" Steve saluted as he watched the jumbo pill-liner fly into the sunset, off to help someone else. A quartet of Penguins hobbled past him and the presumed leader faced Steve and warned that the human hadn't seen them, all the while without breaking step. They soon disappeared over the horizon into the setting sun. Then, as the orange sun was disected by said horizon, Steve had an epiphany. He clicked his heels together and said aloud "There's no place like where my friends are." Which sadly was quite a mouthful and a pain to type, but it was necessary if I were to get them together...er, I mean if they were ever to join each other again. And yes, Steve clicked his heels and repeated the lackluster phrase a number of times as in the movie until the air in front of him began to ripple. Recognizing the phenomenon from past experience, Steve wasted no time jumping in without hesitation. Boy was he wrong!!


Well, as I said, this is a trilogy -- and there's a one-shot -- so don't fret about them. They're all like bad pennies, really.

No...Really. They are.

Again, originally posted 22 months before February 16, 2010 so that would make it April 2008, which is about right kinda I guess...

There was originally a photo to go with this (well it inspired the chapter anyway...and it might have looked good) but an anonymous person who is not me deleted it

Til next time!