NOTICE: The following section is ambiguously canon with Sky Lines. It may have happened, it may not have. It just exists.
…
Tale #1: "Rehabbababa (Heh Heh)"
Sello had no idea how he had gotten there. That is to say, he had no idea of the events which brought him into the room in addition to how he had moved from the floor of the Island Symphony's engine room to sitting in a chair in a completely different location. Not that this particularly bothered him; this was pretty common for his recent days.
The room was probably a classroom, evidenced by desks stacked against one wall and a blackboard on the opposite wall. Or maybe that wall was just painted black. Sello could not be sure; the wall would not stop wobbling enough for him to identify edges. Windows revealed a pleasant-looking park outside, filled with enough sunshine to scramble his vision and the piercing sound of children at play. If he was not so focused on the fact that he could not figure out how he arrived here, it looked like fun to be outside, especially compared to his current company.
He sat in a circle of chairs. Men larger than him in either muscle mass or fat occupied the other chairs. The blue tunics they wore told him... something. He could not think clearly enough to remember the significance behind them. The only person who did not seem to fit in this crowd (other than him, a long-neck bottle wearing a dirty, orange utility suit) was one man wearing a very nice, quite pristine, white button-up shirt and black slacks. He wore glasses and had a clipboard resting on his lap. The glare from the glasses confused him, but Sello felt quite certain that this man was staring at him.
So Sello said, "Uh... What?"
The man with the shirt gave an exhausted sigh and said, "I asked you to introduce yourself, sir. What's your name, what ship you're from... anything you would like to share."
"Oh, I know the answer," Sello replied, enthusiastic about questions he could actually respond to with any degree of certainty. "I'm Sello. And, uh... I have no butt."
This caused two of the men in the circle to snort with laughter, unable to chime in as the rest of the crowd said, "Hello, Sello."
"Whoa..." Sello droned, not really certain if they were merely greeting him or if someone else named Sello had just entered the room.
"Sello, according to this," the man with the clipboard said, "you're from the Island Symphony. Is this true?"
"Heh," Sello chuckled at the simplicity of the question. Then he turned worried and said, "Uh... I dunno."
The man glanced down at the clipboard again. "Hmm. I might have to ask your captain when he returns. Now, I'd like to go around the room, Sello. Have the others introduce themselves." He indicated the man sitting to his immediate right. "Loren, why don't we start with you?"
"Yessir," a man with a fuzzy, black face replied. "I'm Airman Loren from the Summer Gale. My favorite drink is applejack, and I haven't drunk for two months."
"Very good," the man with the clipboard said. "Let's just go around the room. Saunter, if you please."
The man on the opposite side of Loren adjusted himself. "A-hem, uh. I'm Airman Saunter from the Moon's Shadow. I like whiskey and rum mostly. I haven't had a drink forrrrr... two months as well."
The man next to Saunter nodded. He spoke with an unexpectedly high pitch for a man as he said, "I'm Airman Donald. Uh... I'm here from the Autumn Eclipse. I haven't had a drink for three months now, and I like wine."
The next man to talk said, "I'm Airman Guybrush. Uh... I'm... kinda between ships right now. I haven't even touched a drink for twenty-four years. Uh, oh! And I like grog!" This caused everyone in the room to give him a strange look (except for Sello, who was making shapes out of the pitted ceiling above himself).
"Mister Sello?" the man with the clipboard asked. "Would you like to contribute to the group?"
"Huh?" Sello replied after hearing his name jarred him out of his thoughts. "Oh, uh... I have a shoe with two names."
The same two men, one of them being Saunter, snorted in response while a third guy on Sello's right asked, "Is this guy serious?"
"Mister Sello," the man with the clipboard said. "We can't get to the root of your problem if you keep cracking jokes."
Sello blinked at him. "Uh... do I godda problem?"
"Your drinking problem?"
Sello chuckled. "Nah, dude. Heh. I got dat one figured out!" Sniggering sounded out of three men this time while others were visibly trying to stifle their laughter.
"Mister Sello, do you know what this place is?" the man with the clipboard asked.
Sello took a long time to look around at the room while he tried to find an answer to that question. Unfortunately, five seconds later, he had forgotten the question. Five more seconds later, he had forgotten that there even was a question as he started rolling his eyeballs in a misguided attempt to make himself dizzy.
"Mister Sello," the man with the clipboard (whom Sello, after being removed from his thoughts again at the sound of his name being spoken, decided to call "Fish") spoke up again. "You are in a rehabilitation group for Skyrider airmen who have been reported by their commanding officers to have a serious drinking problem. Your participation in this group is mandatory and important to returning you to your vessel. Do you understand?"
"Huh-yeah," Sello said with a nod. Then he shook his head, "Heh-nope."
"Oh," Fish replied, sitting up a little straighter. "Well, why don't we just continue on? Maybe you'll get the idea as we start talking more."
"Okay, Fish!"
Fish blinked in confusion at Sello's response. "Uh, okayyyyy... Um, Robert. Why don't you tell us about your last experience drinking?"
Robert, a lanky-looking man who looked more like a fish than Fish [so Sello decided that he will call Fish "Cheese" instead (although, for the purposes of this story, we shall continue to call him "Fish" so as not to confuse the readers [and because I forgot the bastard's name])] cleared his throat and began speaking. "Well, uh, I think the last time I drank was about five years ago. Uh, I decided to quit because of these two little—" Grrrrrrrrrr. "—who were supposed to be my shipmates but turned out to be a pair of little—" Grrrrrrrrrr.
Fish held up his hand. "Sorry, Robe—" Grrrrrrrrrr. "What is making that noise?"
All eyes turned to Sello just as the Grrrrrrrrrr repeated again. Sello, seemingly in ignorance that this sound was his stomach, had occupied himself with rolling his head. He happened to catch the looks and stopped, causing him to tip in his chair a bit. The men sitting on either side of him caught his arms. "Whoa," he uttered. "Cows and a clay butterknife, dude…"
"Mister Sello, is that sound coming from you?" Fish asked.
"Please, Cheese," Sello replied. Grrrrrrrrrr. He heard the sound that time and glanced down at his belly. "Hm." Then he looked up and said with a dumb grin on his face, "Beer time!"
"Mister Sello, that sort of conduct is why you're here in the first place," Fish explained to him. "You're here because you've gotten out of control with your drinking. It needs to be addressed and handled."
"But… beer time!" Sello repeated, pointing to his stomach.
"You'll have to do without, Mister Sello," Fish replied. "If you're thirsty, we have some fruit juice." He pointed to a table set up along the wall in front of the blackboard.
Sello shrugged. "Okay," he said. He stood up and carefully made his way over to the table. Carefully, because he was sure that the tiles on the floor were trying to trip him up.
Fish let out a long sigh. "Mister Sello," he said as Sello picked up a glass. "I don't know how things worked for you down on the surface, but up here, there are a lot of people counting on you to do your job. And to do that job, you have to have a sharp, clear mind. I won't claim to know what's been happening on your ship, but it's quite clear that it should not be allowed." He waited to see if Sello would reply. Sello, not noticing the ladle on the table next to the bowl, decided to dunk the whole glass and his hand into the bowl. "Look at yourself. You can't walk a straight line, your speech is slurred—you've probably drunk so much that it takes days for your hangovers to clear. Right? I know I couldn't live with it in the long run. I spent a week drunk out of my skull, and I vowed to never let it happen again. I was lucky that sort of drinking hadn't killed me. I'm sure you feel the same way."
Sello had downed his drink while Fish had been talking. He turned around and stumbled back over to his chair, empty glass still in hand. He stared at Fish, who seemed to be waiting for an answer. Sello was not sure if there had been a question, but he felt that he should to something after he sat back down.
So he fit his left hand into the glass and saluted with it. Ponk! "I am a lemon," he said with a grin.
Curious looks floated in Sello's direction. Saunter stood up and crossed the circle so that he could look in Sello's eyes. "Mister Sello… are you drunk?" he asked.
"Toooooodie-fruidie," Sello replied. Saunter, repulsed by Sello's breath, stood and backed away in the direction of his seat.
Fish set his clipboard on the floor and stood up. "Oookay, Mister Sello," he said as he hooked a finger to beckon Sello. "Come here. Let me have it."
"Okay, Tuba," Sello said with a depressed tone as he stood up. Hanging his head, he stepped forward and offered out the glass with his hand still stuck inside.
"No, Mister Sello," Fish replied. "I want the alcohol."
"Turn around, little moose," Sello replied, nudging his glass-covered hand at Fish.
Fish looked over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Sello. "I'm not playing games with you, mister."
"Meatball?" Sello asked.
Fish grabbed the glass and pulled it off. Then he smelled the glass's remaining contents. A confounded look crossed his face as he sniffed the glass further. "Mister Sello, there's no alcohol in here," he then said.
"Ah drunk it," Sello replied with a stupid grin.
Fish held out his empty hand. "Flask, bottle, whatever," he said. "I want the booze, Mister S—"
"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE BOOZE!" Sello suddenly screamed in Fish's face.
The sudden turn of attitude startled Fish, and he stumbled backwards and over his chair. His head struck the floor, and his whole body went limp. Everyone else in the room stood up, and Saunter pushed past the man who had been sitting to Fish's left so that he could kneel next to Fish.
"What'd you just do?" Airman Loren asked.
"Twenty-one days and a buffalo," Sello told him as he scratched his nose.
"He's all right," Saunter told the rest of the room. "He's just not home right now."
"Well, what do we do?" one of the other airmen asked. "Should we try to go on without him?"
"Maybe one of us should go get a doctor," Loren suggested.
Sello, however, took interest in the windows behind where Fish had been sitting. He moved over to them and used a finger to tap on one window. Then he stepped to the window to the right and tapped on the glass. The sound appeared to be what Sello was looking for. He walked to the desks stacked against one wall and pulled one off. This caused a number of the desks to fall to the floor, creating a racket that startled the airmen in the room with him.
Sello lifted the desk above his head by its top. Its weight caused him to stumble, and the other airmen cleared to the opposite side of the room out of fear that he would drop it. Sello staggered backward. Then he finally gained momentum toward the window and threw the desk at it.
KRRRRRSH! The desk smashed through the window, sending large shards of glass raining down into the hedges below. The airmen looked on in shock as Sello stepped up to the window.
Then Sello turned to them. "Ma fellow Booze-a-Hooligans," he addressed them it what would be a serious tone if not for his slurring. "It iz a zad day fer uzz all when we find our liverzzz tramped, our droats dry, and our melons baked at two-hundred and eight-seven degreezz inztead o' two-hundred and ninety-one. In dese dark timezz, we each muzd find it wifin himzelf'fa rise and zay, 'Give me ma drink or a hairy leg.' We lugget peoplezz like Log, and we feel more frizgy dan ever before. An' after." He clenched one fist. "Led's not ask what we can do fer our booze, but whadda booze can do fer us!"
For a moment, no one was sure how to react.
And then Loren stepped forward and saluted. "By the grace of the Goddesses, Mister Sello," he said.
One by one, the other airmen saluted him. Sello gave them a dopey grin and dismissed the salutes with his own. Then he backed up. Just before the others could realize what he was doing, Sello then charged forward and jumped out of the window.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" WHUMP! Some men cringed while others moved over to the window to see what had happened. Probably by the graces of some divine spirit, Sello had completely missed the glass-filled hedges one story below.
Much to the others' shock, however, he had belly-flopped onto the dirt path next to it. Sello was hardly perturbed by this as he raised one hand and used it to pull himself along the ground.
"What do you think he's gonna do next?" one airman asked aloud.
…
"I still cannot help having my doubts about all of this," Leynne said as they reached the top of the stairs. "Sello has thus fah proven to be quite resilient to the general idea of sobriety."
"Trust me, Lieutenant," Flower replied. He paused to indicate which side of the hallway to walk down. "I had a friend who was drunk for three days, and then for the next five years, and this program cleaned him out so well, you'd hardly ever even remember that he used to be a boozer."
"Pehhaps," Leynne said, "but we suspect that Sello had been drinking foh most of his adult life, if not longeh. I'm not so confident that a matteh of a few days is going to revehse damage accumulated foh the betteh paht of a few decades."
"Well, they say that you have to show him support on the ship, too," Flower said as they stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway. "Just anything can set an alcoholic off again." He then opened the door for Leynne.
And immediately, he regretted it.
The desks in the room were arranged to look like a large bar with the blackboard behind it. One airman stood behind this bar with two large crates and a barrel with a tap nearby. Seated at the desks using their chairs was a trio of airmen hunched over as if they were each enjoying a glass of beer at the end of a hard day. One man, apparently unconscious, had been left in a chair in the corner with an upturned punch bowl on his head. Two more airmen lay at his feet like a pair of sleeping cats curled up to their master. Someone had written the words "Guay-face the Superbeerrrr" on the wall opposite the blackboard with blue paint and made an arrow that pointed to one airman who had been relieved of his trousers and left on the floor with his legs propped against the wall. Two airmen were dancing near the unconscious men, looking like a pair of lovers enjoying a soft, romantic song that only they could hear.
And lying on his back with his arms and legs splayed out was Sello, staring at the ceiling with a vacant expression and a bottle of rum resting on his stomach.
Leynne and Flower surveyed the room for several moments as they tried to make sense of everything.
Then Leynne said, "I take it that ouh payment foh this sehvice will be refunded within the next few days."
"I'll, uh… I'll have to get back to you on that one, Lieutenant."
…
Tale #1 of the Island Symphony – END
NOTICE: I repeat, the previous tale is ambiguously canon with Sky Lines. And evidence regarding why Sello will never be sober.
