So I mentioned it...lol....Our Suicidal Tangquery

Tangquery had always been the planet of scientists. It was where we sent most of them to study, figuring all of them on one planet was enough space to do anything they liked, even if it meant they came to their own destruction.

Just because they're scientists doesn't mean that the other colonies aren't in contact, every one always knows what is going on there. Except for maybe me. I'm not ignorant or anything, but there were bigger fish to fry in my life at this particular moment. I was usually a very good student, kept to myself, received good grades, and got teased a lot, especially by this one big acorella player.

Now you have to understand, to play acorella you have to be at least six feet tall and have the body of a Greek God. Most of these guys were sweet, sexy and really liked the girls who were a little bit more on the intelligent side. Not me though, I had to constantly deal with Granger and his freak of a friend, Tacy who got a kick out of Granger constantly hounding me.

I had enough though I was finished with them. That day I had decided to stand up to them. I remember Granger was on the side of the pool, elbows up on the edge with his chest emerging from the water. He wasn’t a bad looking guy but his attitude made him look mean and disgusting.

"Hey Wyler...Gonna try out for acorella again this year? 'Caus you know I wouldn't advise it...you might end up with a broken skull this time." Granger shouted as we passed the pool and loud chuckles bellowed through the pools large walls.

Wyler looked down at the ground, ashamed. He was definitely tall enough to play and definitely had enough body to do it, but when it came to grounding the acorella, he was just too clumsy. The game consists of seizing a large and heavy metal hook called an acorella, and while doing so you must move it to the pits. A lot of the times, the teams will throw them to the pits, while another waits there to pull it back out and send it to the next pit. The object of the game is to get it through 10 pits before the other team does. It becomes highly dangerous though because of the throwing. If the players aren’t right on target with the throw, the acorella can injure another player pretty badly, but it’s not often that it happens. Grounding is the last task before the team can win, and this is where the game can get very close. The grounder must take the hook, swing it for a throw and with the momentum of the swing, and ground it as deeply into the ground as they can. Every player must be able to do all of the tasks to make the team. Last year, Wyler broke his arm while trying to ground at tryouts. The problem was, his initial throw grazed the ground with enough momentum to bounce it back at him and still with enough momentum to ground itself on top of his arm. The grounding was deep, but because it was a bounce back he wasn't accepted onto the team, he was "a danger to himself and other players because of his inability to throw a proper grounding".

Granger got a kick out of the whole tryout, continually teasing Wyler. Like I said, I was fed up with him. I know that anger should not be taken out in a physical manner but sometimes the only way to get to these guys was through brute force, which I was unaware I had. I slowly walked over toward him, kicked his elbow into the water throwing him off balance, as he tried to recover I dove into the water and came up to a face of horror. I had pinched his testicles into my fist and emerged from the water to stare into his face. I growled at him,

"You ever talk to Wyler or me again and there will be more of this, understand? You wont even see it coming, just like this time. You also make sure that you think twice before ever teasing anyone else. Tacy spitting your words at us is no exception either and if I hear him giggle from a comment so much as whispered, you can expect another painful day."

As tears rolled down his face, and Tacy's laughing began to cease I released my grip, only to squeeze one final time as I yelled "Understand, Granger?" With a whimpering yes I released my grip as he collapsed into the water. I jumped out, soaking wet and walked back to Wyler. With my newfound strength I kissed him, only to open my eyes to a relaxed and pleased face. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to start walking, leaving the scene behind us to the onlookers. We got to his truck and before we knew it we were kissing again. I had never expected him to feel the same way about me as I did for him.

All the students at our school were called into the theater to watch an informational movie the next day. As we walked in to the theater Wyler and I were talking about different things. I mentioned needing to loose weight, but knew I didn’t want to do all of the work. I'm one of those people who love food, and even though I'm not overweight, I could use to loose 15 pounds. As I walked into the theater I saw the regulators, these small pill shaped light orbs that fly around to make sure no one is being disruptive. I had heard that if you swallowed one it would "regulate your body" No one was watching so as one flew toward me I grabbed it and swallowed it. My eyes closed and like a movie was playing on my eyelids I saw the inside of my body go from being loose and flowing normally to working within tight restraints. Everything was glowing gold.

I woke up to find Wyler and myself in a closet like room with a scientist. It didn’t occur to me that we must be on Tangquery, but I continued to follow through with his experiments. Placing medium sized aluminum pans on my head. Nothing happened. The scientist looked bored and kind of in a different place. It was almost as if he was just letting us play with his tools. I was just coming back to life, because even though I seemed coherent to everyone else, I wasn’t. My body had been functioning without my mind or my thoughts. I laughed at the funny thing on my head and walked to a shelf full of larger ones. I threw the small one on the shelf it belonged on and grabbed the largest one and as I placed it on my head I said, "How do I look?" to Wyler. The tip of my nose began to hurt though.

"Ow, my nose...Oh ow!"
The scientist perked up.

"Extraordinary! The Feaster causes a reaction! A shame there is no time to study it, and never will be." he said, very forlorn.

That’s when Wyler realized he and I were in danger.

"We need to go, now!"

I flung the feaster off of my head and tried to swing the door to the room open. It was heavy though and my body could barely stand it. Wyler stuck his fingers in between the door and the door jam and swung it open. He tried to push me out, but in my delirium I had decided that my socks needed to come off. They were a bit wet and were bothering me. I couldn’t though my hands wouldn't do it. Wyler, annoyed grabbed the sock and flung it off. I laughed and as I tried to get the other sock that seemed to be a bit easier to get off, realized I was extremely weak because of the regulator. The sock came off, and I began running down the corridor that lay in front of me. I caught sight of the guards and their guns, but not before I saw the Opal. The opal was designed by the scientists to sit in and fly over others to observe with out disruption. I climbed in it, strapped it on and flew right into the guards knocking them all down.

"Shiloh, No! Come Back!!" Wyler yelled at me as I flew into a large glass dome like room full of scientists.

Something was seriously wrong. As I flew around I could see that Tangquery was coming dangerously close to another planet. The scientists were directing it there. I knew something horrible was happening. There were scientists with navigation markings, and maps. They had come up with a way to fly their planet, knock it out of orbit and travel through space. I remembered hearing about those reports. No one knew though, that Tangquery had become suicidal. I could see it, hear it. They were all counting down. I flew around trying to distract them, trying to make them change the course, and then I felt it. Tangquery had entered the gravitational pull of the other planet. Through the windows I could see the reds and whites of the planet, it looked beautiful. I flew to the very top of the dome, and as the planet crashed and dust covered the dome, I saw the lights of a city that we were crashing near. A large yellow and blue neon sign was the last thing I saw. And as it all ended a song played, "Our Suicidal Tangquery".