Initial Massage by Wirruulia

Drinking at the Bat’s Droppings is great. Michael the publican has a real larrikin streak in him and Dave the guitar man plays all my favourites, once I programmed him with my disc, Band-in-a-Droid. Michael has arranged for me to visit the tropical island bio with two of the crew, the Kipper and his mate Jilligan. They were the strangest looking droids I’d ever seen, cross dressers by the look of them. “Only takes three hours” said the Kipper while Jilligan just smiled and looked goofy.

We set off from the village. Belinda said she would go another time as her and the Helvi-tastic were going to see a chick flick at the cinema. So along with Zeb I boarded the SS Nimmow. Some of this stuff seemed so familiar it was spooky. As we headed up the river I could hear the Kipper humming a tune. “What tune is that Kipper?” I enquired. “Oh, it’s just a song I like to sing when we are out in the boat, I made it up” the Kipper replied. “Sing it for us, go on, its only us lads and the dog” I prompted. “Okay then Sandy it goes like this”.

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this village port

Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,

The Kipper brave and sure.

A passenger set sail that day

For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,

The tiny ship was tossed,

If not for the courage of the fearless crew

The Nimmow would be lost, the Nimmow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this, bio desert isle

With Jilligan

The Kipper too,

A bag of hair and a knife,

A muesli bar

A compressor and jerry can,

Here on Jilligan’s Isle.

Hmmm, hardly reassuring but vaguely familiar is some strange sort of way. Jilligan approaches me “Here Sandy, you and Zeb will need these”. Safety lines, what in the fuck will we need these for? “When we hit the tube it gets pretty rough and then there’s the membrane”. “The membrane?” I ask. “Yeah, the membrane holds the river water from the sea water, you know, Glad Wrap” smirks Jilligan.

As we approach the tube the current starts to accelerate. The pace of the boat quickens along with my pulse. I double check our lines and I can see the top of the tube is clear. I can see the stars as clear as a bell then suddenly, bang! The pace is electric. Waves of water pound over the bow. I am scared out of my wits. The nanobots in my jocks will be working overtime tonight. “Prepare to come about” called the Kipper. What the fuck does that mean? The ship groans under immense pressure. I hear the keel scrape against the membrane and then thump goes a pole into my head and I drop to the deck, unconscious.

I wake up on a beach. Zeb is licking my face and the SS Nimmow is prostrate up on the sand. I can smell bacon cooking and the aroma of coffee meanders through the air. The Kipper sings out “C’mon Sandy, breakfast is ready”. Breakfast,  last thing I remember was scrapping the membrane. “Sorry mate a mast broke and you got hit on the head. Henry is sending the rescue party but Belinda is dirty as you were on a promise, whatever that means, wanna see the engine?” the Kipper blurts. Engines are about as interesting as cricket but I go along with it plus the bacon sarnie and coffee is hitting the spot. “Yeah, sure, where is it?” I ask.

The Kipper takes us along a track into the island, so this is Jilligan’s Island I think to myself. The Kipper points to a tunnel. “That’s the Urethra” he bellows, not so loud mate me head hurts. “You go down the Urethra and you find the WEE”. Hang on a minute, is he having a lend of me. We enter the tunnel and it’s rather short. At the end of the tunnel is a hatch and we enter. It opens into the top section of an huge building. We must be twenty stories high. Whoa I am feeling a little wonky. At the bottom of the building is a very large white box shaped object with some indescribable objects attached to it. “That’s the WEE” says the Kipper “The Wireless Electric Engine”. He points to the attached objects and says “That’s the Gizmo and that’s the Thingy. In combination they propel the ship at very high speed”. So a gizmo and a thingy couple with the wee to go fast, oh dear, not very scientific I suppose. “This is complex fiction” I reply finding it hard to come up with anything useful to say. Looking around I see all these tubes and ladders running up and down the inside of the building. I point them out and ask what they are. “Gee Sandy, what rock have you been living under. The tubes are called Snakes and the Ladders are just that, I mean haven’t you ever heard of the transport system called Snakes and Ladders?” replies a smug Jilligan.

…….No, it was Warrigal all along … who did the digital mischief