Whoops…

There it is – the magic word. Little mishap or major catastrophe, doesn’t matter. One word covers it all. Call it an apologia, a mea culpa, a universal admission of human failing… that’s the word of the day. Then there’s that other little word: FUCK!

Fair warning to all: Be careful what you ask for! Yes, friends, in an effort to restore our squatter’s status at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, we have managed to blow a big hole in our beloved squat house – a major breach in the street-side wall, courtesy of neighbor Gung-Ho and his squadron of bombers-for-hire. Of course, we had asked the good fellow to drop a few intimidating shells on the offices of the developer-bloodsuckers that turned us out onto the streets. This he did – actually, a bit more emphatically than we had expected. In fact, much of the town is in ruins, including the local magistrate’s courthouse. (Our plea for leniency was vacated, as was the courthouse itself… just ahead of a wall of fire.  But as is his wont, he got a little carried away and… well…. ka-boom. That’s right — ka. boom.

When we headed back towards the mill to claim what was rightfully ours and saw a yawning gap with black smoke rising to the heavens, we knew something was awry. Though I was inclined to send Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in first to assess the damage (and perhaps extinguish the fires before secondary explosions ensue), I took it upon myself to walk through the front door ahead of him. What happened then? Well… I can only tell you in the form of a popular song:

I fell in through a burnin’ ring of fire!

Down, down, down, and the flames a-gettin’ higher!

Yes indeed — Gung-Ho had opted for the heavier ordinance. I think he may have had one or two of those mini-MOAB’s in his arsenal, I don’t know. Earth penetrators, perhaps. Either way, there was a gaping hole in the Earth’s crust just inside the front entrance, the walls of which were alight with an unearthly flame – Saint Elmo’s Fire, perhaps. (Saint somebody’s fire…) In any case, I was imploring Saint Getmethehelloutahere in as loud a voice as possible, grabbing uselessly at the air as I hurtled downward through a newly drilled chimney of living rock that appeared to stretch straight to the chewy center of the “oit”, already. And I would have encountered that great ball of molten caramel, had it not been for the diligence of our own Trevor James Constable, who quickly surmised my perilous circumstance and trained his orgone generating device down the bomb crater, grabbing me like a science fiction tractor beam and pulling me back from the very jaws of oblivion. Close shave, big mister.

I would rather not go through the trauma of describing the rubble-strewn mess that confronted us within the bowels of our beloved squat-mill. Suffice to say that we (i.e. Marvin) have a very large clean-up job ahead of us. Probably a good time to go back on the road, especially since the local constabulary will be after our collective ass, once they discover who is responsible for the surprise attack… and once they’ve dug themselves out of their collapsed building. Spaceward ho!

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