Shaken, Not Stirred

Shaken, Not Stirred1

He was once again pacing back and forth in corridor B, just south of the nursing station.  To and fro he went, just as he did every sunny evening.  If anyone asked he told them it was because he loved watching the sunset which was visible through the windows on the west side of the hall.  Yes, it was true.  He did enjoy watching the sunset all right, but what made it thoroughly enjoyable was watching it through the flimsy night dress Emily Hasiuk always wore.  Every night she stood pressed, a moth against the glass, watching that heavenly body sink behind the auto dealership next door as if it were the last of her hopes as he watched hers.  It was a shame that one so young should be so senile, but it was his fortune that she was in the same nursing home as him.  Sometimes he didn't know which was more remarkable; that they would put her away and let her wander mindless looking like that or that no one else seemed to notice the show she kept putting on.2

Once he had been rich and famous.  He could have had all the starlets he wanted.  He had had all the starlets he wanted.  It was such an easy life.  The director would yell, "Action." and he would mouth such inanities as, "Bond.  James Bond." and "Shaken, not stirred." and they would pay him fortunes.  He'd gotten too caught up in the imaginary life. Everyone had been thrilled to make his drink for him.  Shaken, not stirred.  Shaken, not stirred; over and over again had wasted his money and his body, doing a good job of wrecking his mind for a few years too.  By the time he sobered up he was out of cash and friends and too old to get back into the business.  Ah, but his mind had come back, unlike poor Emily's.  As darkness descended and the orderly led her away he started back to his room.3

Suddenly everything seemed to freeze.4

"Goddamit no." he muttered.  "They told me I'd stop having flashbacks if I took my tranks."  He sat down on a nearby bench.5

As he waited for the spell to pass he heard a strange squishy noise from down the hall.  Closer and closer it came.  He looked up hopefully, expecting an orderly with a wheelchair to take him back to his room.  It was no orderly.  It looked like a giant snail, no, that wasn't right, one of those ones without a shell.  Suddenly it came to him.6

"Slug." he said, snapping his fingers.  "What are you, brain tissue rubbing against the skull?  They warned me the D.T.s might come back.  Or are you a flashback?  Yes; that's it.  A little LSD left over from that party at Goldie's in '84.  A blob of PCP lodged in some fatty tissue since that lost California weekend when that fat woman from Ohio said I got her pregnant?"  Yeah, that stuff had sure got the old willie wonkin'.  Not even Emily had got that going in a long time.7

"I am Shnorrorrer." it said; or rather the little metal box strapped onto one of it's eye stalks said.  "You are Bond, yessss.  James Bond?".8

"Sure.  That's me."9

"We have been watching your planet.  You have appeared as one of its greatest heroes.  Your planet is in great peril and although we of the Snithththththth would help we are only allowed by intergalactic treaty to instruct, not aid in any way."10

"Sure, sure.  Save the world.  Done it many times before.  Do I use a machine gun?  Kung Fu maybe?  Maybe I fly a space ship full of nuclear weapons into the middle of an invading fleet, ejecting at the last moment and landing on a tropical island as the heavens explode in atomic fury?"11

"No, Mr. Bond.  We have discovered that you project your thoughts in some manner that we don't understand when you speak.  Even in the recordings of you this comes through somehow.  We can take you to the area of the Phatipatoo fleet and you must find some way to eliminate their peril without our help."12

God, he'd forgotten how much fun hallucinations could be.  Suddenly; with no word of warning he was in a tiny capsule which was hurtling through space.  He clutched tightly to the arms of his chair.  One thing that didn't change, even in a dream was his agoraphobia.  He was scared spitless.  Suddenly he was overcome by an old craving he thought he had beaten.13

"A drink." he whispered.  "I need a drink.  Gotta have a martini; shaken, not stirred."  He hadn't been this bad in years.  The craving was like a physical thing.  At that moment he would have killed; he would have gladly died, for a martini.14

All through the Phatipatoo fleet the strange thought ran through the transparent brains of the gossamer creature that had come to destroy the human race and steal their planet.  "A drink.  I need a drink.  Gotta have a martini; shaken, not stirred."15

Mechanical translaters whirred.  Computers defined.  Reproduction units hummed and put forth cute little glasses, complete with olives.  Every Phatipatoo extended its delicate drinking member and drank its martini to the last drop as if its life depended on it.  They died immediately, for alcohol was deadly poison to them.  Spaceships careened off course and either crashed into planets or continued unstopped through the Solar System, depending on the state of their navigational computers.16

As quickly as he had left it he found himself back in that old naughahide covered chair in The Sunset Hills Retirement Home.  "Earthling; you have done well."  Commended Shnorrorrer.  "Perhaps we will meet again."  Turning he slithered away.  As he turned the corner by the nursing station the world resumed its normal motion.  He flagged down a passing orderly who fetched a wheelchair to take him back to his room.  Sipping his prune juice he inserted the Goldfinger DVD into the player .17