Twenty Six; Getting Old

I sat at the window watching the changing landscape beneath us. We had left the mountain range and were currently flying over wide green fields and expanse of dark green forest.

The others left the cockpit, only Bubbles remained, which was a good thing considering she was flying the ship. She cranked up the stereo system and a noise I thought would make my ears bleed came out of the sixteen surround sound speakers that were mounted on almost every available surface.

I couldn't understand many of the words, though I'm fairly sure they were in English. The ones I did understand painted some very unpleasant pictures, and I suddenly thought I knew how my old man had felt about the music I had listened to as a kid, and with a shudder, I realised I had just recycled one his favourite, and one of my most hated, phrases.

Make my ears bleed.

What was I? Sixty years old?

Had I crossed that invisible line that seperates the young and the old?

"Shit, I'm only twenty nine years old," I told myself, and started to nod my head to the music, frightened I might suddenly transform into my father and find myself sitting there in tartan slippers smoking a pipe and going on about how much we needed the rain.

Bubbles glanced at me in the rear view mirror when I started to sing along to the words, which was odd, because there really was no need for a rear view mirror in a cockpit with no back windows.

"Do you like this?" Bubbles bellowed over the music and turned it up with a grin.

I winced, and then nodded.

"Why don’t you come and sit here fly boy?" Bubbles indicated the spare seat next to her.

"So, how you doing?" She had turned the music down.

"I've been better," I answered truthfully, then winced again realising that was another one of my father's catchphrases.

"Yeah well," said bubbles, "From what Kira says, you haven't had much luck recently. Been pulled from your own world by a pair of mischievous Zugars," I wasn't sure if that was a joke but I laughed anyway thinking it sounded funny. "Must be a bit of a kick in the arse."

"Yeah," I answered, then wanting to take my mind away from my bad luck I asked, "So how come you've got all this technology and the Leprechauns, haven't?"

Bubbles raised an eyebrow, then said, "Zugars. It isn't nice to call Zugars leprechauns."

"Oh, sorry," I stammered.

"It'd be like them calling us monkeys."

"I see. I didn't know."

Bubble smiled, "No I guess you didn't. Well, the easy answer for that is, they just haven't developed as much as we have," it took me a second to realise she was answering my initial question. "and for whatever reason, they don't seem particularly interested in buying any from us."

"Wow," I said, "That bear suit Kira wore was really something."

"Yeah, we had to model it on the real Bocco."

"The real Bocco?"

"Tex is with him now."

"He's on the ship?"

Chapter Twenty Seven