Liana's Ship (#ONC 2021)

5. Liana: Hell Is A Waiting Room

For the second time in three weeks I find myself in another waiting room. I had never waited in a room in need of a serious pruning before but this one was crawling with vines. Ones that entwined around the sides of the soft green padded wooden mounds. All the vines were covered in soft purple brown leaves. Looking significantly healthier than the sorry under watered pot plants in the numerous Earth waiting rooms I’d wasted my time in. Then again, I bet these vines got a better diet than cold vending machine coffee and applicant tears. I sat myself down on the nearest seat and jumped as it squirmed under my backside, adjusting itself to fit my contours. All while the vines constantly twitch and move.

Is there anything in this godforsaken ship that isn't bloody alive! I thought, kicking the chair in retaliation. Thankfully the seat stopped moving, it stopped and remained lumpy. I could live with lumpiness, it wasn’t the first time I'd sat on a chair, worn out from years of being sat on. It's the living part I couldn't stand, what I'd give for a sensible seat made of some nice non living plastic. I started to cross my legs to go through what I needed to say but found I couldn't. I try again, nope. What's going on? wound both my feet and wrapped securely were two vines, my legs were trapped unable to move.

I looked at the desk at the front of the room. If it had been an old film from the eighties I swore there’d be a receptionist filing their nails, oblivious to the needs of their clients. This Xeran equivalent was petting a red version of the Pumpkin/tuber, tsh, thing that robbed my chocolate days ago. They seemed to be trying to train the little fruit to jump fences. The fences moved every few minutes at will, more moving vegetation, great.

I cleared my throat trying to get her attention from her miniature three day eventing. "Excuse me," I whispered in a 'sorry to bother you,' tone, "I seem to be in a bit of bother with this chair."

The receptionist looked up from her vegetable Crufts living playset, stared at me and looked back down.

"Charming," I said, coming out louder than I wanted. Looked like it was down to me to get myself out. Pulling against the vines, I struggled to loosen myself but the vines got tighter. Ok, if that's how you want it. I reached down and grabbed the vine round my left ankle and pulled. I wish I had brought my secateurs but thinking I hadn’t needed them, I had left them in my cabin. The vines redoubled their efforts, they had now started twisting round my wrists.

I gave out a yelp, as they pulled me off my chair and onto the floor.

"Help me!" I pleaded to the Grand National trainer of walking tubers.

She looked up, "you need to apologise. She won't let go until you do.

"I haven't done anything!" I yelled while I was effectively being hogtied by a triffid, "alright! I'm sorry!" The vines got tighter still.

"Not to me you fool!" She said, exasperated and gestured at the leafy walls, "to ‘Thera’." She threw her eyes up, "Oh by the light of the red sun, not another one! Why do they keep sending me uninformed guests? Makes my job harder, explaining this. I don't deserve this!" she sighed, then emitted an ear busting  shriek that promised to ring in my ears for several hours after the meeting, "that should do it." she said satisfied, “how may I help you?”

The vines loosened and crept back. I flexed my reddened ankles and hands, relieved my circulation had not been cut off. The receptionist went up to me and held my hands, "I am not familiar with the human body but I detect no damage in your hands, what about your feet?" She said, her violet eyes blinked with mine. She was paler than most Xerans and smelt like a damp forest. I stepped back, she was so close to me I could count the pores on her face.

I flexed my feet as I backed away from her, "it’s nothing, just some pins and needles." I said.

"Pins and needles? Why would you have those little pieces of metal in your shoes?"

I Had forgotten that she might find this phrase odd, "it's what we describe the sensation after the blood is restricted from your limbs. It will go."

"Yes well," she said, "next time perhaps kicking Thera when she's trying to be nice isn't a good plan for getting on here. She was only trying to make you comfortable while you waited."

I looked around at the empty waiting room. Waiting for who exactly? I thought but decided to leave it unsaid.

"Our chairs don't do that, unless they're electric,”I Said, bemused, “and who is Thera? Are they the chair?”

The Xeran woman sighed in a tone that suggested I was being unintelligent,"They really didn’t tell you?” 

“I've been treated like a mushroom on a farm since I’ve been here,” I said, “in that I've been kept in the dark and fed horse shit,” her face was blank, “do you even have mushrooms on Xera? Look,” I paused, “I realise that is a bad explanation, I mean I am beginning to think I’m not here for what I think I’m here for.”

Her face fell, "ah, I see why that would make you feel like a fungus on a farm. I am familiar with mushrooms, though we don’t eat them. To answer your other question. Thera is the ship, it’s her name." She went back to her desk, sat down and tapped something on her tablet.