“Yeah, I guess you're right. Pretty stupid, huh? But I tell you, I was so gonna go medieval on someone’s ass and hurt them with that gun!”
“Oh, come now, Twinkie,” Jeff said while taking a sip of coffee. “You couldn’t even hurt a fly and you know it. Nevertheless killing someone like Genghis.”
Jennifer looked over at Trent and saw that the coffee mug was frozen in front of his lips. His eyes were wide and slightly darting back and forth.
“I never told you that part of my dream,” She said.
The coffee mug was still frozen in Trent’s hand. He glanced over at Genghis, whose eyes were closed in exasperation. Jeff slightly lowered the mug, “I . . . ah. Well . . . ahh, YES you did!”
“No, I didn’t!” Jennifer said, while sitting up. “I never told you that part.”
“Yes . . . you did!” Trent looked at Genghis, then back to Jennifer. “You must have. I mean . . . sure you did.”
“No, I didn’t! It was real! You were there! How else could you know that?”
“You must have been talking in your sleep.”
“No,Iwasn’t!” She started to raise her voice. “It was real, you and Genghis were both there with me!” She turned to Genghis and almost in a whisper said, “He talked. It really happened!” Then she turned back to Trent. “What was that place? A spaceship?”
“No, Twinkie,” Jeff said. “There was no place, no spaceship. There’s no such thing as a space . . . he, he can’t talk! It was just a . . . dream, a . . .”
Genghis dropped his head and sighed loudly. He knew this was going nowhere.
Jennifer quickly looked over at Genghis. “See! He does understand what we’re saying.”
“No, of course he doesn’t.” Jeff said using a hand to gesture toward the Doberman. “He’s just a big, dumb, drooling canine – I mean dog!”
Genghis looked up with annoyance at Trent and thought, “Really! I mean . . . really!”
“Okay then,” Jennifer said, knowing that something unusual happened to her. “I say it really happened. You say I hit my head and it's all just a dream, so where's the bump?” She took her hands and started rubbing her head. “No bump, no scar, no pain! If I hit my head hard enough to get knocked out, it would have left a mark!” Jeff just gave her a blank stare. “Then go ahead, Mr. Psychoanalyst, explain it to me. Why did it feel so real? Huh? Explain that.”
Jeff Trent was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yes, I can do that.” Another pause. “That’s easy and easily explained . . . of course, ah, due to the blow to the head . . . ah, that you suffered,” He paused again. “You see, dreams . . . no wait!”
Genghis rolled his eyes skyward while Jeff stammered on. “You see . . . when one suffers trauma . . . to the ah, brain, it will, sometimes, in some cases, cause a . . . ah . . . manifestation . . . no . . . I mean, that sometimes . . . in . . . certain cases, I um . . .”
Trent paused again, searching for a plausible explanation for Jennifer, but he knew deep down inside that nothing he could say would convince her. Like Genghis, he too knew this was going nowhere. He looked angrily at Genghis. “You should never have said anything!”
“Ahh, Geez O’ Cow!” Genghis replied, rolling his eyes again.
Jennifer pulled her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, wide eyed.
“What was I supposed to do? She was on the verge of a panic attack.”
“OH!” Trent said. “And what do you think the realization of a talking canine did?” He gestured toward Jennifer, “You made her pass out.”
“I didn’t make her pass out,” Genghis rebutted. “The situation made her pass out.”
Jennifer, like watching a tennis match, just looked back and forth at the confrontation that was going on before her.
“You broke protocol!”
“Protocol! What protocol? We had no protocol in the event that I became a human talking canine!”
“Not that protocol!” Trent said. “The protocol of blending in and not getting noticed!
“Not getting noticed!” Genghis said, getting to his feet. “We've done nothing but get ourselves noticed ever since we got here!”
“No we haven't! One picture in one news-paper does not constitute getting noticed.”
“Well, it doesn't matter now that Twinkie went below decks of the cruiser.”
“Great!” Jeff threw his hands in the air. “Now we have to tell her everything!”
“Well, la-de-da, Mister Trent, what did you expect we'd have to do!”
Jeff angrily got to his feet and pointed at Genghis. “OH! Don’t start, Mister Khan. We now have a major breach in our mission. Everything from here on out . . .”
“STOP IT!” Jennifer shouted, hands cupping her ears. “Just, STOP IT! This bickering is giving me a headache! It’s like being back home.” She lowered her hands and looked at Trent. “I’ve rolled on some really wild pharmaceuticals before, but never on anything that made me hallucinate like this.” She glanced at Genghis, then back to Trent. “I am hallucinating, right? What did you slip me?”
“Slipped you?” Jeff replied, not understanding.
Jennifer looked at Genghis, then back to Jeff again. “You did give me something didn't 'cha, I'm on some kind of weird drug, right? Now that would explain everything.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, Twinkie,” Jeff said. “But we didn’t give you anything to make you hallucinate, to see thing, or in this case, see and hear things.”
Genghis added, “We can explain everything, Twinkie.”
“Shit!” She jumped, pulling her knees close again and looking at the Doberman Pinscher standing next to her bed. “I don’t think I’m ever really gonna get used to that!”
Genghis gave a derisive snort. “If I can get used to it, you can too.”
“Well, Twinkie,” Jeff said, “I
