Kitty Wittgenstein and the Sinister Society of Southpaws (4.2)

4.2 Travel

(note: to go to the beginning of the story, go here, to see all Chapter Four posts, go here and to see all Sinister Society of Southpaws posts, go here)


I was part of a charity celebrity rodeo. It would have been a simple enough deduction. But what made it even easier was the fact that I remembered agreeing to do it. Training for it. Signing detailed legal waivers regarding it.

And I’d done all of that only a couple of days ago.

What I couldn’t remember was how I’d segued into the massage room with Akira. His massage rooms were halfway across the country. There must have been some kind of plane trip to get there and back.

But I couldn’t remember any of it.

I cast my mind back. What could I remember?

I could remember training for the rodeo.

No. Specifics, Kitty. Specifics!

I remember taking my turn in the clown outfits. Trying to distract a bull that had just thrown Masi Oka. I remember running around with the experienced clown trainer.

And then, bang, the massage table.

So, apparently a rather large gap in the ol’ memory there.

What then? The battle-suited attack, the vampire attack, the society of southpaws, the break-in to Good Stuff headquarters, the bomb.

And then, bang, back to the rodeo.

And judging by the frenzied audience applause and the red light on the camera, we were shooting the show. So there’d been some kind of time gap there.

I did some subtraction in my head. The time I was away from the rodeo corresponded almost precisely to the time between the massage and the bomb exploding.

It was as if I’d been teleported elsewhere for the last few days before being teleported back here.

Except that wasn’t quite right. Because I’d returned atop the bucking bronco. The show’s producers wouldn’t have let the bronco do its thing without some damn fool clinging on for dear life. Where were the ratings in that?

Which meant that I must have been on it, even while I was seemingly in a building being blown apart by a bomb.

Or, perhaps, it wasn’t me on top of the horse. Maybe they’d sent out some other, not particularly bright celebrity and we’d switched places when I returned.

Except that I’m sure if I’d switched places with another celebrity in front of the audience, there might be a reaction other than the excited screaming and applause. Perhaps some kind of shocked gasp.

And Luke Perry, who was now almost upon me, would probably have something other than a goofy grin all over his face.

Where did that leave me? I’d clearly been here when my turn on the bronco had started. And yet, my memory told me I’d actually been in a room being blown apart by a bomb. I knew which location I preferred. But just wanting it didn’t make it so.

Two possibilities. Either the last few days had all been a very elaborate hallucination. In which case, I needed to seek medical assistance straight away. Or my consciousness had travelled elsewhere in that time.

But, if so, how? And why?

“Kitty Wittgenstein,” said the grinning and applauding Luke Perry. “How do you feel?”

And I couldn’t help but notice that Luke was holding out the microphone with his left hand.

(to be continued)