Sixteenth World

Sixteenth World by Nerin Naidu

 It appeared in a tattered old, cardboard box, stained with a rust-red blot along the left side. The contents considered worthless by the cleaning staff who resealed it haphazardly as if the anaphylactic contents would spell their doom if left exposed. It was discarded along the regular route the garbage collection truck took every single tedious Monday morning .

Jimbeam, yes Jimbeam as he was christened by his always inebriated mother, pulled distractedly at the left edge of the discarded package. He was careful to scavenge for discarded trash, occasionally treasure before the roar of the yellow truck unceremoniously snatched up the loot and huffed en route to the ever-growing garbage tip.

Looking through blurry eyes at the soiled parcel he disdainfully slurred to himself, “More fucking bubble wrap no doubt”.  He stumbled towards the now muck-covered, stained-brown container, swaggering unsteadily while taking the last big swig of his fermented brew.  The dilapidated gadget he knew to be a typewriter peeped through the shredded box that barely protected it.

Jimbeam tucked the semi-empty bottle of his almost depleted drink under his left armpit while his less than nimble, arthritic riddled fingers reached for the rusty contraption.  

“Edna Boo will love you,” he said to it, reaching into the package to retrieve the contents.

“ Looky, Looky, Jimbeam has a toy for us,” he called out as he crawled into the tent he shared with Edna Boo.

Edna Boo, a scraggly stray that made her home in the makeshift tent, a shelter Jimbeam called home, looked out from under a pile of discarded newspapers.

“Awwww,” came the whining reply. Edna Boo would have much preferred a piece of the discarded hotdog she knew Jimbeam always kept in his coat pocket for just such a hunger emergency.

“No food today,” said Jimbeam sitting himself down next to the mangle, starving canine.

“Just this,” he said pulling out the ancient grey, mechanical device.  Jimbeam stared at the contraption for ages as though trying to make sense of his unusual find.  His gnarled fingers reached out to the device, gently caressing the keys.

“You must have been a beauty in your time,” Jimbeam whispered.

“Olivetti,” Jimbeam read.

“Well Olive, it’s just you and me baby, like old times,” Jimbeam chuckled remembering the feel of the keys under his once youthful fingertips. He always loved the clicking sound that seemed to synchronise in perfect unison with his rapid heartbeat.

“Let’s go for a run!” Jimbeam chuckled as he thought back to his days as a student in junior high.

“Oook Edna Boo, here goes,” Jimbeam stuttered excitedly as he typed out a single word slowly, deliberately. He always stuttered when he was scared or excited.

With unnecessary, exaggerated spacing between the letters, Jimbeam typed out with a single deformed finger:

                                                                         “H 0  t d  0 g ”.

Edna Boo, as though in anticipation of a great occurrence about to transpire, sniffed the air around their cramped make-shift dwelling. She looked around unconvinced at first, then suddenly jumped up on her matted hind legs and wagged her tail in delight.

There, under the very cot of almost shredded, discarded old newspapers that Jimbeam and Edna Boo shared as a bed, sat a whole hot dog, bun, sauce, onions, mustard and all.

“What the?” asked Jimbeam looking around puzzled. “Where did that come from?”

“What the indeed!” thought Edna Boo as she hurriedly opened her mouth to take the first saliva drenched bite.

“Must have been there all the time, you shrewd girl,” smiled Jimbeam with his toothless grin pointing accusingly at Edna Boo.

“Or was that you?” Jimbeam asked the empty bottle he almost forgot he still held under his left armpit.

“My mind is not what it used to be, but then again, was it ever what it was expected to be?” Jimbeam asked Edna Boo.

“Well whatever it is, it’s your good luck Edna Boo,” he said to the content pooch as he turned his attention back to the new-found contraption.

There was no ribbon of red and black, no white paper that was supposed to hold the words his fingers produced, there wasn’t even an O on the faded keyboard, but it was his, Jimbeam’s very own typewriter. Without hesitation, he started to type.

                                                                                     “J I M B E A M”

The bottle of bourbon whiskey miraculously found its way into the humble abode of the stunned old man within minutes of him typing out the letters. The 1 litre glass bottle with a white label and black lettering said, as he had typed out the word, JIM BEAM, complete with its fancy gold logo in a red ribbon and a big B in the middle. It also said:   

KENTUCKY STRIAGHT

B O U R B O N

FAMILY WHISKEY RECIPE

James B. Beam

NONE GENUINE WITHOUT MY SIGNATURE

- 1 LITRE 37% ALC./VOL. -

“I must have drunk more than I ever did before,” smiled Jimbeam to himself as he unscrewed the white lid and helped himself to a swig from the untouched bottle.

He woke to the bright rays of sunshine peering through holes in the tent, reassuring him that today was yet another day. “A splitting headache day,” he thought, reaching for the comfort of Edna Boo, only to find the frigid metal awaiting his welcomed touch.

He absent-mindedly pulled the metallic element closer to him feeling the keys cold to his touch, vaguely remembering the hallucinations.

“Some dream that was,” he said to an empty tent, pulling out a few strands of hair that curled into the corner of his mouth. His arched back ached from constantly bending over to fit into his tent. He scratched his forever itching groin while coughing up a blob of green phlegm when he heard it.

“Talk to me, tell me what you want,” he heard a humming resonate through the stuffy air.

“I’m yours, like you are mine. Forever!” the vibrating echoed.

“Ok, let’s play this game, mind of mine,” Jimbeam said rubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes.

And so he typed and typed with a tireless finger and a rejuvenated brain. Jimbeam typed on his ribbon-less, paper-less, rusty new best friend, Olive.

œ œ œ 

Supreme leader of the Planetary Dimension, The Honorable J. I. McBeam, stood in the lobby of the Siesta Tower, the most recent tourist attraction in his newest inter-planetary collection. Magnanimous and strikingly attractive, with the most perfectly sculptured body and a full crop of shiny long, blond hair, the supreme leader of all known humankind looked out onto the city below. How far he had come, yet how much further he expected to go with the two loves of his life, Olive and Edna Boo, at his side.  

“Olive darling,” he called out to his better half, “ It’s time,” he said reaching for her. She came to him, gliding effortlessly on her long, sensual legs, barefoot, parted the folds of her red flowing gown revealing the shining keys that sat concealed behind the soft fabric on her flat belly. Her dark skin flawless in utter contrast to his own tattooed, toned frame. Olive, his karakuri puppet, his automata, fashioned and typed into existence by his youthful, nimble fingers opened herself to him with a knowing smile. They created worlds together. This being the fifteenth. Each and every one a unique place of joy and fantasy, nothing like the prison of earth. He tried perfecting Earth in the best way he knew how. Typing perfection into a decaying planet. It was his one failure. He knew this and felt the pain rip through him when he typed out,

Destr0y Earth. Burn her to n0thingness. There is n0 h0pe f0r her.  

Make sure all the surviv0rs get 0nt0 the crafts first.

Jim Beam or rather the Honorable J.I. McBeam thought back to simpler times when it all started.

From the humble tent in the back ally of the city slum, the man then known as Jim Beam realised that every word he typed out on his new-old Olivetti became an instant reality. He started with his name-sake a bottle of Jim Beam, then another, but stopped.

“Won’t Edna Boo like something more than a dry hotdog,” he thought.

“How about a juicy fillet steak like I see being ordered at those posh restaurants downtown. Not one but a whole big plate full?,” he asked Edna Boo with a smile.

“Would you like that old gal?”

As though understanding every word he said, Edna Boo shook her tail so vigorously, that for a moment, Jim Beam thought it would fall off.

Very big Plate 0f juicy steak

Jim Beam typed. 

The Uber eats driver needed both arms to carry the humongous plate of steak to the tent.

Never before and never after had either Edna Boo nor Jim Beam ever enjoyed steak as they did on that faithful day,  grabbing chunks of medium-rare, buttery meat with blissful relish and stuffing into their ever hungry mouths, until they could not possibly eat a single additional bite.

“What’s next?” Olive asked, breaking the fleeting vision of fading memories, bringing Jimbeam back to reality.

“The sixteenth world, ” he replied pensively to his Olive.

“Let’s start at the beginning.”

œ œ œ 

Very big Plate 0f juicy steak

J.I. McBeam typed. He always started with a plate of steak. He stopped alcohol the day he left Earth, some centuries ago. It did not give him the satisfaction creating new worlds did.

“Maybe this one would finally be the perfect world,” he said out to the immortal Edna Boo and Olive.

Let there be light

He typed as the new world shone with a cataclysmic brightness.

Water and trees

He typed again.

M0untains and streams,

He continued to type as his sixteenth world started to take shape. Olive, eager for his touch waited, knowing that this world, the sixteenth world would be different.

The immortal three, Jimbeam, Edna Boo and Olivetti, could take their final rest for the written word was almost done.