Hell on the Prairie
I better get this out of the way while I can still remember it. Hi, I'm Nick Neercassel, Theological Private Eye (TPE), i.e., I work for the Magistrate of the Milky Way. The pay is miniscule, the hours are maxiscule, and by gum, it's get darn dangerous out here at times.
Leaving North Dakota, I headed south to of all places, South Dakota. After a few hours of trouble free driving, I found myself in the midst of a vast stretch of prairie. It was a barren landscape with an almost limitless horizon. I turned the radio on to keep me company but all that I could tune into was a repeat episode of that morning's 'The Cracked Egg' farm and theology report. It was Omega 1A celebrating being alive another day.
The opening theme was reminiscent of a song called 'City of New Orleans': "Good Morning, South and North Dakota!/ Don't you know me? I'm your native son/ I'm the prophet they call Omega 1A/ I'll be sipping wine in a jet plane before day is done."
It was at that moment all hell broke loose. What looked to be a Cessna two-seater came barreling out of nowhere buzzing me and the 67 Mustang convertible. I immediately turned the car sharply off the highway into the adjacent prairie where I killed the engine, jumped out of the car, and started running for cover. But there was no cover to be found, only treeless fields of invisible grain. I looked behind me and the plane was headed straight toward me! Just before impact I dove to the ground where I heard the terrible roar of the engine and felt the heat of the plane's underbelly. I somehow managed to pull out my celestial cell phone and placed an emergency call to Third Heaven Central (THC).
"God afternoon. This is Third Heaven Associates. How can we help you?"
"It's Nick! I'm being buzzed in South Dakota. A crazy pilot is trying to kill me!"
"We know. We're all watching it on our 27 mile wide television screen." They were always bragging about the size of their tv screen and how they could get 673 trillion channels (this number coincided, by the way, with the currently known number of galaxies).
"Can you help me?"
"We've been debating that. If we send a Heaven to Earth Missile (HEM), it will surely kill the pilot and probably you too. Have you tried standard TPE evasionary tactics?"
"Such as?"
"Running like hell."
I hung up. This was one of those times I was to be entirely on my own.
Just when all (or almost all; I'm speaking relatively here) seemed lost, the miracle occurred; at least now in retrospect it seems like it was a miracle; at the time I don't think I was categorizing the event; I was just thankful for it.
A man on a white horse came galloping up to me. The man cried out, "Jump on! The drone is headed back this way!"
It didn't seem a very practical thing to do but my choices were limited. I did as I was told and we went galloping toward a cement block building about five hundred yards distant. I wondered why I hadn't spotted it previously but it made sense why not when I saw the color of it. It was the same color as the prairie that surrounded it.
Things were looking up until I looked back to see what was up. It was that darn plane (or drone as the man had called it) and according to my mental calculations it had an excellent chance of reaching us before we reached the block building. But then suddenly the ground opened up (or so it seemed) and we were galloping through a tunnel lit only dimly by small light fixtures on the sides of the walls. After a couple of minutes of hard riding, we came to a stop and the man said, 'Ok, son, hop off. I think we're safe now."
I was pretty shaken up but thanks to Pond of Fire TPE training, my psyche was up to the challenge. I spotted a bench and sat down. The man who rescued me came over: "Hi, son, my name is Claude. Nice to meet you. Hope that ride wasn't too bumpy."
I could now see why he was calling me son. He looked like he could be 90 years old. He had a long white beard and wore a beige ankle length jacket with an attached hood. I replied, "I'm Nick and, considering the circumstances, the ride was downright comfortable."
The old man laughed. "Those drones can be rather nasty. You're lucky it didn't demolish you and your Mustang the first time it buzzed you."
"Why do you call it a drone? It just looked like an ordinary Cessna to me."
"Oh, it was a drone all right. They're programmed to destroy all Mustangs and riders." (Mustangs? What kind of horse did we just ride?)
"But why?"
"Because they're enemies of LA."
It was then (I think) I passed out. The Mystery of LA would have to be investigated at a LAter date.
THE END
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