Another difficult customer today during my Butter Mouse shift. A man under forty who clunked onto the ground within a minute of putting on the helmet.
Link had dealt with these situations before. My role was to run to the vending bear for a complimentary cold drink. But he was dealing with an ink spill in 817, and the customer’s eyes were already in the back of their head. His back arched so far off the ground his shoulder blades grew tight against his shirt. My heart tripled to a rate I have never experienced outside running.
The crowds do not understand that the sole solution is to sit and wait. Reassure the queue that this is one in a thousand, and the other turns will be different. Their panicked cries started to infect my brain. Suggested had misinterpreted the situation, and this was a few rattling breaths from real trouble. The Air Health service could be here in five minutes with a call,
The Butter Mouse was what kept me calm. Gliding round that tank with her ragged fin. A gentle presence who could not mean harm. I counted her call for another few minutes, until the man’s eyes rolled back to reality, and he sat up so quickly I thought he was going to faint again. The tape spat out from the deck. .
After a chilly lime ice from the vending bear, the man slumped back against the glass of 1619. We chatted, and the crowd flickered away, I tried to offer a refund, but he was so apologetic I never got the words in.
'I'm so sorry,' he said. ‘My Dad. I thought it was my Dad. Well, it was my Dad. How did my Dad get on the screen? I am sorry.'
Once I was sure no more apologies were coming, we crouched next to each other, and watched the tape. He went pale when the images flickered on the monitor.
'Yep. That's him. I'm sorry, I'm not sure what to make of this. Sorry.’
I was wrong about the apologies.
Watching these images felt like watching someone take a shower. The footage was fuzzier than most, but still legible. A person on the beach, palm trees and tall buildings on a horizon opposite the sea. They glugged some kind of soft drink from a chunky glass bottle. Nothing I recognised as anywhere local to the city. That cannot have been his Dad unless he had a child at three years old. Not my place to say that though.
‘Keep smiling after an incident,’ Link had said. We said good bye, and I fixed a grin. After six more customers I believed my own smile.
Back home, I thought more about the tape. Did the Butter Mouse know those images meant something to the man? Was his paternal reaction to them an illusion formed by his brain to cope with the shock? And either way, where did those images of the beach come from? Are they of a real place?
Had to happen on clip day too. A clip day which suggests they join together. Glad my time with the Butter Mouse has a long way to go.
And of course this all made me think of Dad. But not going to write about that.
Clip: Bit of a shock. Some definite connections with a video from a few weeks ago. What does that mean? And another vehicle? Is that the one that goes up the mountain? Let’s see what the next few weeks bring.