DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything that doesn't belong to me and in case that sounded stupid, I'm sorry and really apologetic, but, you see, it is a form of truth and therefore, valid? Rating: PG Summary: Mulder is stuck in a sewer. Also, he can not get out. MULDER STUCK IN THE SEWER A Mercifully Short Story By Claire Kerr ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Mulder, are you stuck in the sewer?" Scully's voice crackled over the unfortunately named walkie-talkie, "Are you tying your shoes or what?" Mulder, who was indeed stuck in the sewer, replied, "Give me a minute," He reached as far as he could from his position, and managed to secure a hold on an abandoned cable; he prepared to haul himself out of his predicament. Pulling on his now sewer-sludge soaked gloves, Mulder summoned all his upper body strength and yanked on the cable. The effort was an astounding failure, as not only did Mulder fail to move himself out of the hole he was half-in half-out of, but his physical flailings and sprawling elbows had caused his walkie-talkie to slid down the tunnel and out of his reach. Truly, Mulder was in a pickle, or at least something very vinegary, indeed. "Am I in a pickle!" thought Mulder. His well-formed head, arms and torso poked through a hole in the tunnel floor, while his equally well-formed nether regions, including his new Doc Martens, dangled into what Mulder could only determine by kicking about, was vast space. "A chaotic void of nothingness," mused Mulder, alarmed, "or an air-filled area of non-objects!" This extremely abstract conception of a place without anything in it, was distressing to the sexy young agent; he bit the side of his cheek to keep from crying. "Woe," he whispered. He thought about all the events that had conspired to get him into this static state of going nowhere (he was upright, but there was no floor beneath his feet -- an incredible experience worthy of a movie of the week!). Mulder became filled with wrath -- he thrashed about helplessly, thumping the sewer tunnel and brusing his waist with his attempts to either pop out, or slide down. "Poor me," he thought, "next time, it's Scully that investigates the eerily suspicious dark corners of the villain's hideout." He would have been completely inconsolable had he known that "Sewer Sam", the serial killer he'd been tracking for months, was being quietly arrested in a Tim Horton's in Sudbury. This joyous event occuring at the same time that Mulder thrashed ineffectively amongst the residue of rats and other ick-type things. An ick-type thing hit his ear; the wails of frustration could be heard like, twenty metres away. His screaming voice was that good. And sewer acoustics aren't bad either. The walkie-talkie (so mockingly out of conceivable grasp) crackled again, "Mulder?" It was Scully! Joy and other assorted happy feelings raced through the trapped agent's blood; she would rescue him from this torment! "Okay Mulder," Scully sounded tired, "I know you aren't listening to this, you've probably gone out to eat with that...well-endowed... sewer expert. Fine, look, I don't need to know where you are all the time. I have a life. I have a life!" The walkie-talkie was silent. Mulder, who could neither walkie nor talkie, banged his head against a pile of rat bones and Campbell's soup cans. Rather than thinking of what Andy Warhol would have made of that treasure trove, Mulder was concerned only with his own suffering. Thinking about the...well-endowed...Dr. Fluffie made matters worse. "Fluffie..." he whimpered, as much from fear as from the effects of the noxious gases that floated about the sewers, "I want out...Scully? Scully? Help?" Nothing doing. He was right stuck. Mulder pulled a stubby pencil and a post-it note pad out of his high-tech (and ironically useless), black FBI storm-the-villain overalls. The pad said, "Thank you for staying at Holiday Inn!" Mulder furiously crossed out that motto and scribbled, "Help, FM trapped in tunel (sic) B-79. Serial Killer about. Get (and this was scrawled very small so as to fit on the teeny paper) D. Scully or W. Skinner or even my mummy. XXXX F. Mulder." With wild eyes and clearly no grasp on conventional reality, Mulder ensnared a passing (and totally innocent) rat. "My friend," he addressed the rodent, "take this to civilization!" He pried open the justifiably confused rat's jaws and fixed the post-it to the animal's tongue. "You CAN post-it anywhere!" he thought, amazed and proud of his country's pulp-and-paper innovation. He released the rat, "Go my friend, go!" he told the disease- ridden creature, "Scurry like the wind!" His friend tasted freedom and hoofed it. Mulder rubbed his red eyes and relaxed in his hole. It was getting difficult to breathe now, what with the green fog that was coming in from the Eastern tunnels, and all. He settled back to wait. Around the corner, an abused and bitter rat chewed contemplatively on a complementary yellow post-it note. She wondered what else she could get from The Black Noisy Thing. She wondered if her cousins and second cousins and third cousins would want in on the deal. She thought about how The Noisy Thing had such well-placed, soft-looking brown fur (rats have no word for or concept of "gel"). She considered it very nest-worthy material. the end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Claire Kerr -- In desperate need of some gravy and fries! So I'm off the computer now and into the caf! -- Ps. I am working this concept into a three novel format: Expect "Book One to Twelve: Mulder in Tunnel VI: Desolation!" to be out by December...I intend to possibly consider continuing the novels as giant serials, "Desolation!: Tunnel Terror IX, Must Get Out", but I'll need to see how my first anthology, "Tunnel Truth VII: No Hope For You Ha Ha", due April, goes.... Be expecting the first novel, "Sewer Sorrow: I Would Die For You, My Rat-- Part one" to be posted when I have the time. Byeee!