Fiction Thank You, Thank You Very Much Installment 3
By Peace Wilson Elvis Lives, in what sense, is the hissing question inside the mind of the vacationing UC Berkeley investigator into matters paranormal. From myriad stories of alien abductions had come the startling ambiguity of objects and of mind stuff. While it was undeniable that the audio sample heard from Elmore's recording from outer space represented a song never heard before, he had burning questions as to its actual origin. He pulled his Econoline van up in front of Elmore Reddy's house in Hollywood, Mississippi. Lights flickered inside the house; he heard the sound of a man and woman's voices talking. The investigator was met at the door by Elmore, who's flaming frizzy red hair seemed extra-terrestrial antennae of its own. "What you want, in the high-falutin' twilight of our daze?" came the Reddy utterance, matching the surreal buzz of distant stars heard with aching hi-tech instrumentation. "Well, Mr. Reddy, I was driving on a vacation odyssey toward the heart of the Internet grrrlll of my dreams, when I heard about your peculiar discovery, the apparently live voice of Elvis on the electromagnetic waves of our waking dreams," replied the Californicator, feeling the languorous molasses of Southern hyperbole in his veins. "Hmmm, well your ears are large enough to receive extraterrestrial transmissions." "Or, perhaps, interdimensional transmissions?" "Well now, I'm a hardware man myself. Shoot fire, come on in, then. . ." "Thank you. My gut tells me there is something of interdimensional software in this impossible song of Elvis, from outer space, or the great beyond." Elmore's galfriend Birdie flitted into the living-room upon the visitor's entrance, her pointy 38s makin' a beeline for improbable destiny. The Californicational 'vestigator might as well have been Elvis from Alpha Centauri, or the nth bardo plane of an avatar's afterlife. "Do tell," she cooed, "what manner of tall handsome stranger do we have here?" Elmore harrumphed off-handedly and guided the stranger by an elbow to a seat near a set of expensive-looking headphones. "Listen," he said. The song, it seemed, was not a long lost or new "Love Me Tender" or "Hound Dog," but rather a strangely familiar collaboration that never was. It sounded like "Pump it Up," an Elvis Costello song, yet throatier, slower, sexier, 'cause the vocals were Elvis Presley to a tee. It was beginning to look as if the 2 Elvises were collaborating in some dimension paranormal. Elmore and Birdie tussled with the idea of the King collaborating paranormally or extraterrestrially with a nerdy Limey songsmith spawned in the New Wave era. "Nope — ah'm hearin' Elvis Live singin' in an objective mannah, in a scientific way, and there ain't no nerdy punky boy in that equation!" Despite ample-tittied Birdie's bein' titillated by the tall travelin' stranger, she had to agree with Elmore. "Ah'm just sure Elvis — the original, I mean — is alive in a flesh and blood fashion and been abducted by aliens!" "He'd be 65," pointed out the Californicator. "Time passes more slowly travelin' in outer space," countered Elmore. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but fact is I'm heading to Knoxville, Tennessee, bound for an Internet-generated romantic rendezvous. But I would like to stay in touch re this matter via e-mail," said the Californicator, rising to leave. Pump it up, tender. . . . Jump to Installment 4 Review the rules here To submit your 500-word contribution, just type it up and e-mail it to mail@southerner.net. Please include the words Elvis Lives in the subject line in all caps, like this: ELVIS LIVES.
Copyright © The Southerner 1999-2000  |
