Openfly is Alive
Peeps, if you’re regular readers of my column you’ll remember that a few days ago I told you that Openfly was missing. Well, she’s been found!
Actually, “found” isn’t quite the right word. “Heard from” is more accurate.
Openfly has Internet access and has been exchanging emails with her best friend, Cherrytart. In fact, it seems that this communication has been going on for a couple of days now. Cherrytart tried to keep it a secret because, as you’ll recall from my previous post, she was hoping Openfly would be declared to be presumed dead, freeing up her apartment to be taken over by Cherrytart.
The only reason I learned of Openfly’s emails is that Cherrytart inadvertently left her computer on, with one of the emails up on the screen, when one of her lovers dropped by. Cherrytart went into the bathroom, where she spent 45 minutes trying to make herself as aesthetically appealing as any Shalampaxian can possible make herself or himself look, which is still several notches on the hideous side of plug-ugly.
While she was in the bathroom, her lover du jour or, to me more accurate, lover d’heure, spotted the email. He read it and then went through Cherrytart’s inbox and read all of the other recent emails from Openfly as well.
As it happens, that lover is a good friend of mine. My reportage has been aided by the fact that, apart from the frequent sex, Cherrytart’s lover doesn’t particularly like Cherrytart. He couldn’t give a fig about keeping her secrets. As soon as he left her apartment he spilled the beans about Openfly to me.
Here’s what happened.
Shalampaxians will recall that, during one of those very rare periods when the winds almost approached calm, we spotted a large ship not far off Shalampax’s coast. We all were, of course, hoping that one of our regular horrendous gales would blow through and crash the ship up against the sharp rocks that surround our island. That would have allowed us, as is our custom, to plunder anything that remained intact on the ship.
Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for the ship’s occupants, that didn’t happen. The ship pulled safely away from our shores before the winds picked up.
But, prior to the ship’s departure, Openfly hauled out of storage and floated a double-hulled raft that she had fashioned out of used swizzle sticks that she had collected over her long drinking career. Openfly made it safely to the ship and immediately requested, and was granted, asylum.
The ship is a research vessel occupied by zoologists, marine biologists and three professional bagpipe players. They are on an around-the-world voyage of exploration to investigate the effect of bagpipe playing on the behavior of the world’s sea and land creatures.
One of the zoologists is interested in studying only how long land animals can listen to the relentless drone of bagpipes without developing severe psychosis. Not being interested in marine animals, he took advantage of the ship’s current lengthy time between ports-of-call to take a break from his research.
With time on his hands, the zoologist befriended Openfly. The two of them shacked up together for the first two days of Openfly’s stay on the ship.
This blissful arrangement ended abruptly, however, when the zoologist locked Openfly in a room that is normally used by the researchers to observe the interaction between land animals and bagpipe players. The bagpipe players mistakenly believe that it is the animals that are being studied.
The room is normally used only while the ship is at a port-of-call because the scientists never remove animals from their native territories. As a result, Openfly had it to herself.
The zoologist now spends most of his time observing Openfly through the room’s observation windows. He has not made any further sexual advances toward her.
Apart from being confined, Openfly is being treated well and has unrestricted access to the ship’s satellite-based Internet connection. What’s more, Openfly is receiving three meals a day that are, in her words, “1,000 times better than anything I ever tasted in freaking Shamlampax.”
Openfly, who insists that the only Shalampaxian she will communicate with is Cherrytart, told Cherrytart that she does not know why she is being held captive. Openfly may not know why she’s locked up—although I think there’s a good chance that she’s lying about not knowing—but I intend to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes. I’ll keep you posted.
