Physics begets Dadaism.

So, Mike and I were in physics one day [the 9th 0f April, 2008], and — quelle horreur! — were a bit bored. I recalled the Dadaist parlor game The Exquisite Corpse (though in getting that link I have realized that it is in fact Surrealist, not Dadaist). We played a version of the game (different in that we could reread all prior entries) and ended up with the following story. Enjoy.

A few notes: The only changes I made in transcribing this story were in punctuation and paragraphing. And for the record, I got the opening sentence from the vocal warmup that was stuck in my head that morning: “She stood upon the balcony, inexplicably mimicking his hiccuping and amicably welcoming him in.” As to the ending, well, after Mike named the enemies, I couldn’t resist.

Click to highlight Mike’s contributions, mine, or none.

She stood upon the balcony, bathing in the brilliant moon-light of Ganimede. It had been some years since she had seen him, she realized. Long indeed, not since the Gershwin Gap had opened, tearing apart spacetime and flinging her planet away from his like so much flotsam. It was lonely in a different time, a different place, a different outfit — and where had all of the good food gone? She missed eating glor-beast flesh; it was succulent and flavorful, tasting like a combination of smoked beef and roasted tomatoes. She could almost taste it, and she closed her eyes as she remembered the feasts of her youth. Just as her eyes closed, familiar hands rested on her shoulders, the familiar scaled hands of Vlad, her ward and guardian for the duration of the voyage. The shock disrupted her reverie; she turned around to meet the double-gaze of Vlad, and his words destroyed her world again:

“I’m afraid that we must leave this place, madam. The plan has just been attacked by Gordites.”

She knew what that meant. Within days the surface would be thick in the pungent slime that the reptilian Gordites spread on every planet they captured. The acidic sludge would eat away all organic matter, leaving only the metallic husk of Ganimede for strip mining and processing into more drones for the Gordian war machine. Too bad; Ganimede had a beautiful vista of the moons of Saturn.

“But where can we go?” she asked Vlad. “Our hideout has already been betrayed by the traitorous —” she wretched “— Lolgan.” Just his name brought back lurid memories of the multifarious appendages of the sea-dwelling criminal who had betrayed their trust.

Vlad spat on the floor in disgust. “Indeed, madam. We shall have to seek —” Her grandson’s words were cut short as a breaching slug bored its way through his third shoulder blade.

“Vlad!” she screamed.

“I’m too far gone,&rdquo he gasped. “But you must...find...”

“What is it, Vlad?” she cried in alarm as she sank down beside him. “What must we find?”

“The...Gordian...”

“What? The Gordian what?”

“...knot...” he replied with his dying breath.