Once In A Bright Blue Lobster

By Zabel Adarkhov

Beautiful, half Italian, half Scottish, she has spent half her thirty years in Hollywood, a mix of fame and latterly mostly infamy, despite her talent and her beauty, she is unemployable: too knowing and clever to be abused by the predators and perverts of Hollywood. But after a well publicised break up with a rising star, she flees to the comfort of the ocean only to wake up naked and bewildered on a soft floor in warm darkness with no recollection of how she came to be there. A voice in the dark says his predicament is the same. He says he is Serge Zubla, a young computer scientist, who has made a fortune but has been held captive a long time and is as helpless and trapped as her in another room. He thinks he was captured for his brain. She thinks it was for her beauty and infamy, a hoax. He claims not to know her. She will not divulge her name. Is one of the directors or producers she once crossed, having revenge, filming her with night vision, or maybe one of the co- stars she rejected? Has she been too knowing and clever and now it is pay back time? And who or what is Serge Zubla? Or is she dead and in limbo and being punished for all the disasters she precipitated around her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Martin
• Release date: May 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463896891

Book preview

ONCE IN A BRIGHT BLUE LOBSTER

Zabel Adarkhov

Copyright © Zabel Adarkhov 2018

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover copyright © Robin Matto

www.robinmatto.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

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Table of contents

Dark phase 1

Light phase 1

Dark phase 2

Light phase 2

Dark phase 3

Light phase 3

Dark phase 4

Light phase 4

Dark phase 5

Light phase 5

Dark phase 6

Light phase 6

Dark phase 7

Light phase 7

Dark phase 8

Light phase 8

Dark phase 9

Daylight 1

Dark night 1

Daylight 2

Dark night 2

Daylight 3

Dark night 3

Daylight 4

Dark night 4

Daylight 5

Dark night 6

Daylight 10

Time goes by uncharted

Dark phase 1

Head pain, right eye, just above, excruciating

Why? What has happened to me? Three years dry and nothing chemical, and now . . . God, let me die. Sleep. Oh God please let me sleep again, forever. But . . . not cold, soft, warmth under me. Hard yet soft. My eyes: but dark, nothing. Memory loss and sudden blindness. Dead? No. Can't be dead with a migraine. Or can I? Is this your vile trick, God, that the sinners must suffer eternal pain? Huh. Just ill, but how could this happen? Not like I was before. I'm not. I'm clean now. How could I . . . where was I? Where am I? Arrested, certified?

'Awake?'

Distant voice. Male. Here? With me? Within me?

'Yes. Where . . . ?'

'Couldn't say.'

'Why? Why not?'

'Could be anywhere.'

'But . . . ?'

'I had the same trouble trying to deduce my predicament.'

Predicament? Who are you? Where am I?

'So I know how it feels. You're going to be angry, scared, maybe hysterical.'

'I do not get hysterical. Not all females get hysterical you know.'

'Well you'd be forgiven if you did.'

'Oh thank you. Forgiven? By who: you?'

'Angry first: good. That's healthy.'

'What are you, some kind of counsellor? What have I done?'

'Guilt too. I felt guilt, not immediately, but then, I was alone. You're not.'

'I said: who are you? Put the light on for a start. No, wait. I . . who's . . .I need clothes, a sheet, anything.'

'I can hear you, you hear me, but I can't see you or do anything for you, or myself. You might be a million miles away for all I know. Just sound. I had nothing when I woke: naked.'

'Oh, that's alright then. Somebody drugged, abducted and stripped you too. I feel a whole lot better. Who are these people?'

'But they did give me a sort of covering. Not exactly clothes but adequate.'

'Lucky you.'

'I expect they'll do the same for you. I'm warm but in the dark. I'm comfortable, I'll give them that. You have to look for the positive. And there will be light, soon, gradually. All I can say, if it's any consolation, is that I am in the same predicament as you. And I too am human.'

'Oh good, you're human. Great consolation.'

'I had no such consolation.'

'So you can't help me? Who can? Am I . . . shit: they're holding me to ransom aren't they? You too?'

'Why should anyone hold you to ransom? Who are you?'

'You don't know?'

'Are you rich, famous?'

'Who are you?'

'No secret: I am Serge Zubla. Have you heard of me?'

'Russian?'

'My grandfather.'

'Should I have heard of you?'

'I'd be surprised if you had. But . . . I am known.'

'Known? Known for what?'

'Among certain scientists.'

'Clever then?'

'I think that is why I'm here. I can think of no other reason to single me out. But why are you here? Yours is the only breath I have heard beyond my own. I woke suddenly and heard your breath. I thought I was going mad. Not for the first time I've thought that. I listened for hours, days, I have no time here beyond the gradual presence of the light and the gradual darkening. The length of the artificial days and nights vary. I'm sure of it. Must be some reason for that: keep you destabilised. I heard you breathe all through two light cycles and then I heard you stir, so I was sure it was not some artificial noise to salve my loneliness, but perhaps you are a more complex artificial noise?'

'Perhaps you are.'

'Perhaps. Believe nothing. Stay aware. There is purpose to all this but I have no idea what it is.'

'You made a discovery, scientific? Someone wants it, wants to steal it?'

'Look, I have to tell you: stop thinking in terms of someone, people - apart from me.'

'Not people?'

'No sign of people.'

'Background automata?'

'Good, good: they might be. What makes you think of that?'

'Films. Yawn. Old hat R2D2 scrap etc.'

'Well they could be automata of some kind, but I do not think so. And I do not think they could want or need the knowledge or discovery of even the most brilliant humans on the Earth.'

'What? Come on? Is this some TV hoax then? Are they ogling me with night vision? Sick. I can take a joke, but this? I get it now. Yes, a hoax, God, so I'm just a joke now, an easy victim.'

'Who are you?'

'Never mind who. Like you don't know?'

'I don't, really. Should I have heard of you?'

'Not if you've spent the last seven years in Siberia, or you're Amish. Are you Amish?'

'No. I'm not even squeamish.'

'If you think I feel like laughing . . .'

'It would help if you could. I can't say I've felt like even a faint smile for however long I've been here. And I am squeamish, a bit.'

'Huh. Anyway, cut the crap: I've rumbled you. Ha ha. You're some kind of cheesy front man. Yes: I've been drugged, abducted and now the aliens are holding me. Oooh, I'm dissolving in hysterics. Like this is the worst thing to ever happen to me? Not. Surely you have a file on me a foot thick before you plan these assaults on people?'

'No.'

'No, you don't even bother to do much research or . . . anyway, this is so unimaginative, to pick on me. Again. Aren't there a legion of new potential victims out there, starlets emerging like newly hatched fluffy chicks into the glare of fame, naively believing they are the chosen ones, just before some love rat releases their sex tape for all to see? Why me? Again.'

'This happened to you before? This is my first time. So they let you go? After how long?'

'No. A stupid stunt like this has not happened to me before. God knows how many laws you've broken with this one. Don't think I won't sue your ass off. At least I managed to laugh at the last stunt.'

'Which was?'

'Didn't they tell you?'

'Tell me.'

'Huh. Well they were very convincing: I get a call: look out your window, isn't that your Lambo on fire? So I rushed out on my balcony - they were filming from below of course - telephoto lens caught my horror and fury, looked just like my pink Lamborghini ablaze. Could make out bits of pink but not much else in my parking space. So I rushed down in my bathrobe and lost it with everyone I could see standing round doing nothing. Just a hoax. Oh haha; no law broken. I signed it off after they let me re-film a good sport response. First shot had me almost break the nose of the arsehole who told me I was being filmed. And I was a much better sport then than I am now. So warn the guy who breaks it to me that this is all a jolly jape, that I may very well break it to him.'

'I respect your ballsy resilience, but this could be for the long term for you. It is for me already. I don't think they'll hurt us. They seem civilised, whatever that means. I don't know what they want. But this is no hoax, or ransom set up, or anything I have ever heard of. And I am profoundly grateful to be able to talk, in English, to a fellow human. You are English? Slight accent?'

'No. I am not English. Part Scot maybe. Definitely not American.'

'But in America.'

'I refuse to be categorised. Always they've tried to categorise me. I am me: not the cheap or expensive version of anyone else. Not an imitation: I am a one off.'

'Well maybe that explains why you're here then. But I am very sorry, for you, that your predicament is the reason for my gratitude in being able to converse with you in a familiar language.'

'Did you ask for company?'

'No. I did not want anybody else to be subjected to this, whatever it is: observation, possession, experimentation?'

'So this is a study then? Some covert Government dirty trick, CIA? Like dropping acid on innocent strangers and observing the effects, without ever telling them?'

'I have considered that. It is possible, and extremely sophisticated if it is, if it can fool me. To be honest I don't think there is any state organisation capable of anything as efficient and seamless as this. And if there was, why? To achieve what? I have yet to discover what anyone, or anything can hope to gain.'

Shit. Is this real? This bullshit conversation has cleared my head. Hungry, thirsty but feeling better.

'The first light can't be far off now. I always think of it as first light. But every day it is first light. I always think of it as a day, but it is probably only three or four hours long, six or seven at most. Maybe that is the length of their day?'

'Whose day?'

'Some superior race. I've had time to think. Too much time, anything is possible, it is possible that we are on some incredible craft hurtling through space at unbelievable speed.'

'What?'

'Maybe their planet or satellite has an eccentric orbit that dramatically varies the day length?'

'Lucky to have a scientist on board. Or science fictionist. Do you write science fiction?'

'No. Not literally.'

'Good. I hate it.'

'But I suppose I literally try to make solid fact out of what others call amorphous fiction.'

'Meaning?'

'Research, development, mainly computing science. What is your profession?'

'Profession? Thanks for the compliment. Well my . . . profession has been, not science but, shall we say, art. Although my career - I think I'll say career rather than profession - has nose dived of late. If I still had a manager who'd touch me with a barge pole I'd say he was doing this for me as a publicity stunt. In which case I'd go along with it. But I have no manager, and I'd be surprised if anyone gave a damn what I did anymore with clothes on, which is why I am not at all happy to be naked here in the dark with the strong conviction that I can be seen by someone, probably a whole sniggering crowd.'

'I don't want to speculate as to what an onlooker would make of you naked, but they wasted little time in covering me at first light.'

'I can tell you. I'd still cause a stir. Face is still better than it has any right to be and through it all I've taken care of my body - all I've got - as to the mind, well . . . and I never agreed to nudity: even when I was a kid desperate to make it. Never. If you ever thought you'd seen me, it was a body double. No regrets on that score.'

'So you've been in films?'

'Yes. If you still insist you've never heard of me.'

'Hard to have heard of a person whose name I don't know. I might recognise you. But I can't see you. I wouldn't say I kept up with films, or the arts, but I was never a total recluse: just totally absorbed with my work. Yes, maybe self absorbed too. So when I disappeared I doubt it surprised anyone. If they think of me at all, they'll think I am off on some fresh flight of fancy, abroad, or pondering up in a wild wood cabin, whatever. But you have only been gone a few days, yet . . .'

'I won't be missed. Last big thing I remember was a bust up - permanent, no going back - with . . . never mind who. If you're in on this hoax you'll know, if not . . . that it made all the papers, the news, because of him, not me. They'll expect me to have disappeared, on a binge, whatever, and maybe I did. But I don't think so. I saw it coming, not a shock. I treated him like crap. Treated everyone like crap: not a friend left who'd give a damn anymore.'

'Why?'

'Oh why? That's simple, because . . . in fact, it's not simple at all. Ask all the shrinks I've blown money on. I dug holes and tried to get out of them by digging deeper. I know that much. But all I've ever had is a shovel . . . '

'Not a ladder.'

'Deepest of deep holes, bottom too hard to dig into, only hope is to levitate. Tried, but not managed more than a few inches yet.'

'I'm all for levity. Been in short supply thus far.'

'Well no doubt it will all be laughs from now on.'

'So: name withheld.'

'On the assumption you know it.'

'I do not. Age: 25 to 30?'

'Under 30.'

'Career in the arts: film and maybe song too, and therefore probably dance.'

'Probably.'

'Fame a few years back. Money . . . '

'Forget about that; mostly gone.'

'Looks?'

'Not gone yet, but can't be far off.'

'Now I've always been interested in peoples' stories.'

'From a scientific angle?'

'Exactly. And it has fascinated me that those who seem to be suddenly blessed by extreme good luck in business or overnight artistic success -