Plundering Lamps!

In her other pocket was a small bag of crushed Moody Hues, a legal drug, that she had the less than brilliant idea of inhaling in combination to the cocaine invading her system. The combination proved nearly fatal to the last remaining brain cells she had left. A wild burst of screaming laughter ripped out of her, terribly amused as she finished rubbing off the white flakes along with the moody hues. She took notice of nothing except the fearful folk that zipped by her faster than a breeze. She pushed the bangs back from her forehead, as she had a fashion of doing when a little confused, and against her better judgment moved against the tide of panic. She was not entirely in her right mind when she drifted toward the root of the problem. She was normally one to run away from it when she wasn’t drugged up, and it was not until she had arrived at the place of trouble, that she seemed to almost want to take the reaction of the many that fled the scene seriously. But she hardly knew what to think, and, to make matters worse, she did not consider hiding behind the public waste container to eavesdrop on the older woman and the man.

Like a baby turtle going out to sea for the first time while being exposed to hungry seagulls, the difference varying if only because she was quite high, Vera Jayne snuck closer to them for a better look and paused her clumsy approach with a ridiculously sluggish blink. The heroic act of a selfless stranger she thought most rare and perhaps very short-termed, that shadow of her more somber self believed, spoke too soon as the heartless bloke pulled out his pistol and aimed for his leg. And then the innocent, drained-of-color, sobbing woman he cornered earlier cried real tears for the fallen hero. She had some difficulty removing her golden necklace and could not stop shaking for the life of her.

Vera Jayne, her good logic on leave for the night, allowed her chin to drop and settled her eyes on the zipper of her crimson jumpsuit. It was so shiny, so silvery. She gripped the slider dragging it down at a slow speed as a great ‘zzzpttt’ sound pervaded the cool air. It took longer than necessary as there were times Vera would jam it up somehow, what with her clumsy fingers and questionable vision, and have to pull at it again. But it was released once her cleavage became more visible to herself. Taking a small keyring out of her bra with an almost intoxicated air about her; she had closed up her jumpsuit afterward with that same awkward slowness and was uselessly shaking the circular piece close to her ear. Nothing. She jiggled it once more. There was nothing to come of it with all this repetitiveness, and unceremoniously dropped it as a flickering, possibly dying light bulb flashed above her head.

Whether this young girl was a runt member of the human race, a drunken woodland nymph, or a suicidal idiot, is what perhaps no one could decide at the moment, so reasonably offended was the hostage by the heartless display of the purple-haired loon that she hardly touched the strap of her dress just to process what was going on. Vera was not the tallest person there, though she appeared so for the brief time she had to appease her little key ring, so randomly did her slender form dart about like a forest deer with rabies.

She was dancing, whirling like a spinning top, and sprinting around the neglected key ring like she was trying to summon an army of flesh-eating clowns. It was bizarre and perhaps even a little majestic, as though she had done this for a living, and then she came to a startlingly perfect halt. And, like a puppet, bowed deeply and artificially, head hanging and hair curtaining her face. Her dangling hand made a grab for the key ring and upon rising to full stature — the spherical item glowed mysteriously and revealed its true form. It was a massive feather duster of every color imaginable, and with it she danced her way to them. The baked dimwit was still vibing with the dangerous mixture in her body, and it showed. She slammed her knee on top of the gushing wound and purposefully leaned in to add pressure. Her judgement might’ve been horribly impaired, but she valued life instinctively and placed her seemingly harmless feather duster beside him.

It seemed like something cruel of her to do and it did not make the woman next to her any less frantic. An attempt to remove his long sleeved shirt was made and with it she wrapped his injured leg tightly, allowing her to take her blood soaked knee off it. She heard a dull clinking sound coming from the floor beside her, and Vera seemed quite aware that the lamp should not have fallen out like that. Yet there it was. Her eyes were wider than a pair of saucers, lips puckered with cheeks sucked in.

“Is the awful pirate gone, Master? May I come out now? It’s terribly stuffy here. Miss Vera?” Zeale spoke from within the lamp, much of it glowing to indicate his presence. She quickly snagged her feather duster and her lamp and looked like she was ready to run wildly through the streets.