“The Portal in the Dryer at Hammond’s Laundry & Juice Bar” (part One)
A Haibun Monday at dVerse Poets, with a Sci-Fi theme and haiku.
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“Hello? … Hello?” Jenn said meekly.
She took an almost step and then held back, “Oh, you two are going to be in sooooo much troub …”
“You mean Ralph and Ant?”
It was in that imperceptible but perfectly clear sound of that initial pindrop you could distinctly hear through the laundromat noise, right before the blinding light and the temporary stunning and the disappearing knock-off magazines and other assorted items … including herself.
But it was deep and heavy, filled with bass or was it wispy and floating like an angel’s falsetto dropped from a cloud into a void, she wasn’t sure, and her head sat static apart from her body as it walked away and walked back and walked away and walked back again looking for a wall to possibly bounce off, a door jam to bruise a nose on, or maybe a set of stairs to fall down like some headless ghost or an almost there drunk.
And she was missing a shoe.
Her voice just almost wouldn’t come again but then it echoed, loudly, and startled her.
“Hello? Whooaa that’s loud!! … Where am I?”
“Exactly”
“Oh great, cryptic (she sighed to herself) … fucking fantastic.”
“You know you weren’t supposed to find us, none of you were but your friends, the smart one and the fat one, just wouldn’t let it go …”
With a bit more bearing, Jenn then said into the void.
“Ok, hold on, but we weren’t supposed to find you?! Seriously?! You left one of your portals to wherever the hell this place is, in a dryer, in a laundromat that also happens to be a pretty popular juice bar, in the middle of a fairly big town, what did you expect?”
Silence now … profound silence.
“Hello?!!? Jenn said again but with a definite note of annoyed impatience now.
“Sorry, we were conferring”
“Conferring?! Conferring about what? And who is WE?!?”
“WE were conferring about what we expected leaving one of our portals behind in this place you describe and WE is, are … well, WE”
“Oh, I see”
“We were hoping you would”
“Jesus!! No, I don’t see!!! I was in a laundromat with my friends, who had found what they thought was a portal of some type in a dryer to some wherever or whenever and we were testing it and then I sat in it, thinking what the hell and why not, and Ant put in some extra quarters just in case, and then I ended up here, in some void, talking to a disembodied voice who is actually the spokes something or other for a bunch of creepy otherworldly voyeurs who apparently leave portals just lying around in other worlds’ laundromats they don’t intend for anyone to find. No, I DON’T fucking see!!!”
Silence again …
“Let me guess, you’re conferring”
“Yes” ……..
We know not behind
Doors left ajar
With intent?
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