Short Story: Benign Intervention

Short Story: Benign Intervention

Benign Intervention

Bulo Banthem wasn’t really in the pub at this moment (if you can call it a pub, it was more of a modern metro-sexual bar for the mass-pleb culture). Well he was, but he had taken his mind to another place. He, of course, thought this was extremely clever, a perception that wasn’t shared by Carla, with whom, until a short while ago, he seemed to be in some sort of conversation.

The conversation had bored Bulo within, let’s say, three words and he had regretted its existence and gradually the existence of this ugly being placed in front of him. This was forcing his eyes to search the sterile interior around her head for something mildly interesting to observe lest he be forced to pay any attention to said head and the features on its front. To be honest the features weren’t that bad but they were frustrating him. He felt that if you had the right desktop-publishing software, you could quite simply select each feature individually and, with couple of presses in the right direction of the cursor keys, or an enlargement tool here and there, you could transform this monstrosity into something of slight respectability.

Bulo pondered the arrogance of these thoughts. He also pondered how the plant on which he had managed to train his eye didn’t really look real and if it was, it wasn’t indigenous to… Then he thought about how he could think about those two things at once and at the same time think about thinking about them. This last one was fatal, the thought had created an element of enjoyment in the situation and this had unwittingly created a twitch of the cheek that could have been perceived as a wry smile.

He knew the smile was his downfall, he cursed it. This also showed as an emotion, probably through an imperceivable swelling of the skin upon his forehead and a more perceivable reddening of the same area. He saw this was taking effect for although her mouth (which had been motoring at a fierce rate) had not faltered, a slow crease of realisation had started forming just above the eyebrows of his opponent.

He knew this could mean trouble. But he also knew the crease had not reached full realisation potential. He had a very brief window of time to act before the relentless chatter would turn from idle natter of…, well of what he knew not, but he knew it was mindless or at least to him it was because he couldn’t hear any of it, to something far more sinister.

“Far more sinister,” he thought.

“If this sleeping robo-hell-lioness realises I have zero interest in her tax bracket, there could be some sort of tirade aimed directly at my ever weakening self-worth. Even worse she might think I’m interesting or something. She might think my silence is a form of quasi-intellectual charm.”

“Holy nut bags”, he thought.

Then the opportunity arose. Bulo thanked the gods for their consistency in providing opportunity at the very nanosecond it is required. It came in the form of a bruiser; a city trader, a London-born man, probably of working class descent - well this was Bulo’s deduction - the kind of man who had made his living the hard way, who was probably quite social but was also a traditional sports bully, easily frustrated and for some reason good at maths. Bulo cursed him for being good at maths. He was well built; Bulo imagined him as a white-collar boxer and it pleased him.

The man was aiming to venture past their table towards his table of so called friends. He was carrying three pints in his hands, you know the way, in a triangle type thing. He had a ‘ready to be smug’ look on his face, waiting for his colleagues to look up to see his prowess in carrying shit Lager around. Bulo felt superior to the oaf, he could carry five pint glasses at once. He cursed his own hypocrisy for joining in the macho game.

There wasn’t a great deal of space and the place was fairly busy. Bulo knew this was his only chance. As the beast walked past their table he kind of jabbed his knee out and into the man’s thigh. The effect wasn’t spectacular as a visual feat, but it was enough to spill quite a substantial quantity of the beer over the man’s hands and his awful ill-fitting suit. The satisfaction was intense. For a split second Bulo felt achievement values had peaked, until he realised that Carla had not stopped talking and he saw the ox-man was beginning to form a “don’t worry about it, mate” face.

Bulo knew that momentum was a key factor in the matter and to complete his escape act he would have to continue. Before the man could react properly to the event, Bulo rose and stretched out his hand in a hand-shaking gesture, pushing the front pint of the geometric wonder out of kilter which resulted in its total collapse.

“It’s amazing how much liquid three pints really is,” thought Bulo, contemplatively.

As he did so he smiled and addressed the man,

“Sorry… Bummer”