NoV: Hmm, hmmm. Well, here's another chapter!
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Quote of the day:
"Well, this is an enigma if ever I saw one…."
-NoV, six years old, on pantyhose
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Joanne dutifully went about finding a wheelchair for the incapacitated Angel. Down in the lobby, she looked past the mass of strollers to a long conveyer belt that supplied wheelchairs for museum patrons who were old. Or clumsy. This museum, trying to be high-tech in order to get more funding and visitors, had installed this electronic conveyer belt to automatically move the next available wheelchair forward when a guest pressed a button to indicate that they needed one. Joanne, not being high-tech in any way whatsoever, didn't think of the button having any correlation with the wheelchairs themselves.
It was certain that the snoozing museum guard wasn't planning to help her, so Joanne stepped onto the conveyer belt and tugged at a wheelchair. The wheelchair was never meant to roll across the riveted metal surface, so as it was dragged along the friction caused the conveyer belt to go haywire. This sent a jolt of electricity into the wheelchair and subsequently into poor Joanne. The situation was not improved by her standing on metal. For what seemed like forever, Joanne stood frozen, unable to let go of the wheelchair, unable to move at all, just being electrocuted. No one seemed to take notice of the young woman, mouth agape, being knocked out with volts of electricity.
Finally, the machine short-circuited and shut down, and Joanne fell down, her hair frizzy and her mind in a daze.
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Half an hour later, Maureen was pushing Joanne in a wheelchair, up on the second floor, where the rest of the group was looking at the modern art section. Angel had gotten a wheelchair too along with the security guard's pillow for her behind, but had to push herself along. Hearing the squeaking of the wheels caused the other members of the group not involved in the horrific accidents to turn around.
After the initial shock of seeing Maureen pushing a dazed and slightly burnt Joanne in a wheelchair, alongside Angel in her own wheelchair, Mimi was the first to find her voice. Rushing over to her three girlfriends, she cried, "Oh my god! What happened??"
The others all hurried over as well as Maureen tried to explain rather calmly and seemingly annoyed at the events. "Well, Angel fell down the stairs and broke her butt, but didn't want to go to the hospital. So, Joanne went to get a wheelchair, and somehow got electrocuted. The first aid office said she should be back to normal in an hour or so. It was probably just a few hundred volts."
Collins took Angel's hand in his. "My poor baby," he lamented. "You broke your…." But he couldn't finish as his lip was curling upward.
Angel took notice of this and said, "It's not funny, Collins."
Collins stifled a laugh. "I'm sorry….it is kinda funny."
Angel, feeling the sharp pain of a broken bottom, didn't falter on the issue. "No, it isn't."
Collins didn't want to anger his partner. He didn't want to cause an argument, especially not when she was injured and not thinking clearly. She might throw him out of the apartment, just for laughing at her broken butt. Or worse, she might let him stay, but refuse to talk to him. No cuddling, no kissing, no….. "Oh my god!" Collins suddenly yelled. "We're not gonna be able to have sex!!"
Now Angel began to giggle. "What's funny now?" Collins demanded.
Angel shifted slightly on the pillow. "That is kinda funny," she admitted.
But Collins looked like he was about to cry. "B-but…..no sex…." he whined.
"Aww, poor baby," Angel said, now pitying her lover. She rubbed under his chin, like he was a cat. "Don't worry. We can still have….fun," she lamely said.
Roger was in the meantime waving a hand before Joanne's face. Seeing that she was unresponsive, he said, "Maybe you should have taken her to the hospital after all. She looks unconscious."
"Well, if she were conscious, I'm sure she'd insist that I take her to the hospital," Maureen admitted. "But, she's not! So, on to the dinosaurs!"
"Yay!" Angel exclaimed, a bit too excited despite the horrific affair of the stairs. In her excitement, she rolled over Mimi's open-toe shoed foot.
"Ow!!" Mimi screamed as she began hopping on her good foot. "MY TOE!!"
"Oh, no!! Mimi I'm sooo sorry!!!" Angel cried.
"No, no," Mimi said, more calmly, rubbing her toe with her fingers. "It's not broken. Don't worry…." Then under her breath, she added, "You should be more careful with that thing, god…."
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The dinosaur wing was the museum's most recent addition, other than the meager annexing of Margo Fletcher's silk hats. With Maureen and Collins pushing Joanne and Angel along in their wheelchairs, the group entered the impressive display. From diagrams showing possible dinosaur physiology, to an electronic raptor continuously bending down to eat a herbivore, to actual reconstructions of some animals using their bones.
"Wow!" Maureen mentioned, looking at a paper mache-esque pterodactyl. "Look, Snookie!" she said to Joanne, as if talking to a five year old. "It's a dinosaur-bird!"
Joanne made a sound that sounded somewhat like a pterodactyl.
Maureen felt like, instead of pushing her girlfriend in a wheelchair, that she was pushing her child in a stroller. It felt fun. "Pookle, when you're back to normal, we're going to have a serious talk about children," she promised.
Joanne began to "Na-na" the tune to an Arabian gypsy song. Maureen went around to the front of her and looked into her bleary and emotionless eyes.
She smiled and said, "Come along, Pookie," as she pushed the deranged woman over to the group.
The mighty brontosaurus. Tall, lanky, herbivorous. It was unimaginable how painstaking it must have been to find and piece together all those bones. This massive creature was so tall that the museum had to rebuild that wing so it could encompass the mighty beast. The bohemian group all stared at the great dinosaur, stretching their necks way back to see the head.
Mark knew he shouldn't touch it. He definitely knew better than to touch anything in the museum after what had happened. He knew that if he did touch the brontosaurus, something bad would happen, something impossibly horrible and perhaps even embarrassing and painful. He knew he should resist all urges that told him to touch the dinosaur. Mark knew all these things.
But Joanne didn't.
On perhaps an impulse her brain fired off from the recent electrical surge, Joanne reached out and grabbed a bone from the brontosaurus. "It's osteoporosis!" she said, choosing very strange words to be the first since the electrocution.
Everyone stared at her in disbelief, as a loud rumbling was heard. Six heads turned to look at the mighty brontosaurus, which was becoming a mighty problem. After a mere moment of stunned silence as they stood staring at the shaking dinosaur, the whole grouped took off toward the emergency exit. They turned around just in time to see the head plummet to the floor and break into smaller pieces. The rest of the bones followed in similar fashion, only one leg remaining when it was all over. As other people milled around, staring in disbelief at what had happened, the nonconformist group took off before they were prosecuted.
Before they were completely in the clear, however, Maureen realized that Joanne still had the bone in her hand. "Pookit, give me that!" she cried, taking the bone and throwing it to the pile the other bones had fallen in. They then made their miraculous escape.
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NoV: Yay! And Joanne destroys the dinosaur….I'll be able to update sooner this time, don't worry.
Next time (!): Joanne recovers from the electrocution, only to end up in a scary place; Mimi witnesses something horrific and….erotic; someone falls out a window; someone gets taken in by the gypsy with the addictive candy; someone gets stabbed; someone gets shot, and Margo Fletcher finally arrives to make her speech. That's not at all mysterious, is it?