(CIRKUMFLEKS)Magazine

A Worm is a Bird and Other Bad
both of them fluent French speakers. Unfortunately French was far from her
mind as a girl. She didn’t need it in London.
The conversation dies, as she enters, and both glance at her as the cook
begins to boast. “She’s a captain! We were right to pick her up! I told you!”
Deckard assesses the hierarchy. The cook is obviously at the bottom as the
woman teases him, using English to include her new companion. “Ah,
Christophe thinks he’s saved the world, he’ll clean it of worms, but if we get
out of here alive he’s going to end up cleaning the ship, just like before, while
we destroy these worms!”
There is underlining tension, as Christophe retorts sarcastically. “That’s so
sweet of you, Genevieve. I feel so worthwhile!” She assumes there’s more to
this relationship. Sexual politics had its place on her own ship, and she can
sense the chemistry between them.
Deckard looks at the jumble of alien controls, and the hopeful expressions on
the faces of her new crew. She says in her best Captain’s voice, to establish
her dominance, “Isabel Deckard, former captain of The Birmingham.” She
keeps calm, but inside, the woman who knows nothing about advanced
technology, panics. Captain Deckard takes her place, beside the old man
piloting the contraption.
He offers his hand. “Professor Yuri Moreau!” He looks precarious and
frightened, as if he’s never flown a ship before.
She glances at him, and asks. “You built this thing?” He is perspiring. “Yes,
but I’m not a pilot!” She can see why he’s so scared, as more worms begin to
break the surface of the earth. The ship weaves around, like a mouse
avoiding snake strikes.
He yells. “Tirer, Genevieve!” Genevieve looks hardened, Deckard can sense
military, her eye patch and attitude give her away, despite civilian atire. She
takes hold of a machine gun, begins blasting the worms, lifting them out of
the ground, as they had before, screaming, “Die!” Deckard steps in, takes the
machine gun on the opposite side, as more worms strike at the ship.
Professor Moreau clambers over his seat, muttering, “We should swap!” and
pulls her from the machine gun, so that she is sitting at the ship’s helm. She
quietly panics as she realises there are no rudder or elevator wheels, just a
strange looking handle bar, which forced the ship to plummet, when Moreau
removed his hands. He screams at her. “Grab the joy stick! Pull her up!”
Deckard grabs hold of it as the ship nosedives, and growls at him as the
earth spins rapidly nearer. “You’re crazy!”
Moreau replies, “You’re a captain!”
“Of a Zeppelin!”
(CIRKUMFLEKS)Magazine 2.2012