Sock Drawers & Secrets

January 20, 2026, “Sock Drawers & Secrets,” Episode 233

🛸🎙️ A quiet weekend in Perswayssick County turns anything but quiet…

With canine-humanoid Diroctor Bizzig “Zig” Gneeecey finally out of the mansion, stranded Earthling Nicki Rodriguez dares to enjoy a rare moment of peace—no Markmen, no Quality of Life meetings, and no brain-melting stress. But nightmares linger, fueled by mierk, missing journalists, burned-down offices, and the unsettling feeling that something very dark is tightening its grip on Perswayssick County.

When fellow stranded Earthling and GAS Broadcast colleague Cleve Wheeler shows up unexpectedly—with takeout from King Oggle’s and more than a few dangerous revelations—their much-needed reunion quickly spirals into a tense, heartfelt, and chilling deep dive into corruption, conspiracies, and the true cost of being trapped between dimensions.

🔥 From secret nighttime activity at the mierkolatory
 📰 To the suspicious disappearance of a reporter on the verge of exposing a major scandal
 💔 To a devastating story of friendship, loss, and survival across worlds

This episode blends dark comedy, sci-fi mystery, emotional backstory, and surreal absurdity as Nicki and Cleve piece together clues that suggest the Markmen’s influence may run far deeper than anyone imagined. And just when things feel almost normal… a familiar horn blast signals that danger has returned.

🎧 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy continues its serialized comedy-fantasy-sci-fi saga with laughs, tension, and revelations that may change everything.

🔔 Subscribe for more interdimensional chaos
👍 Like, comment, and share if you love weird sci-fi comedy
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We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! We thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, and Aileen Bean for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com.

Artwork/Vicki Solá & ChatGPT 

Transcript

Transcript / “Sock Drawers & Secrets,”  – Episode 233, by Vicki Solá.

(Based on material from THE GETAWAY THAT GOT AWAY by Vicki Solá  (© 2011, Full Court Press) 

All content © 2026 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy. 

SFX: [Scary Ambience]

NARRATOR VICKI SOLÁ: In our last episode, “Pamphlets, Poison, and Power Plays,” things went spectacularly—and dangerously—wrong for canine-humanoid Diroctor Bizzig “Zig” Gneeecey during an urgent, pre-election meeting of the Perswayssick County Quality of Life Commission. Certain he had the numbers, Gneeecey boldly assured his sinister, mierk-loving alien gangster associates—the Markmen, whom he very much fears—that Referendum 345, calling for a ban on the deadly substance, would be struck down without a hitch.

But when the motion failed, those assurances evaporated quickly. And let’s just say… the Markmen did not take the news well….

SFX: [Magic Spell] [Crowd Group]

NICKI RODRIGUEZ: “C’mon, ya Iggarooney,” snarled Gneeecey, sneaking out through the courthouse’s back door.

SFX: [Door Open]
 Gneeecey stopped short when he saw the mob of Markmen puffing away on cigarettes in the dark, dumpster-scented alley. SFX: [Scary Ambience]
 Red-haired, broken-nosed Mark—a frequent visitor to the mansion—loosened his flashing necktie. “Ya told us ya had all the votes lined up.”
 Gneeecey wedged his left sneaker underneath one of his wet armpits. “Thought I did.”
 “You’ll hafta do better’n this,” warned a tow-headed Markman, whose Blirg-lit buzz cut glowed lavender.
“Yeah,” agreed a curly-haired, graying Markman, looking Gneeecey up and down. “Ya got beat up by a coupla girls.”
I bit my tongue.
The redhead blew smoke in Gneeecey’s face.
“Careful wit’ them cigoogarets,” advised the good diroctor, coughing as he pulled his left sneaker back on. “Youse guys catch fire easy. I eat my cigars.”
 “Don’t worry about us,” replied blond, big-nosed Mark, unbuttoning his tight vest.
“An’ we’re thinkin’ ‘bout chargin’ ya for them pamphlets,” said the brown-haired creep who had cooed sweet nothings in Imbroglio’s ear.
“An’ your driveway,” added the blond. “Even your good buddy Seemingwhale jus’ told us ya better get’cha act together, or else.”
One by one, each scowling Markman stepped up to the curb, stamped out his cigarette, and stole away into the Blirgian night.
As Gneeecey fumbled with his laces, a blue-helmeted sparrow—chased by two green-clad adversaries—slammed into his snout. Their microscopic football bounced into his wet eyes. SFX: [Football Referee Whistle]
“Lousy birds!” he yowled, walloping his schnozzle until the feathered footballers rocketed up into the violet, cloud-streaked skies.
“C’mon, Diroctor,” I whispered. “let’s go home.”
A tear trickled down his dirty cheek. 

SFX: [Cinematic Boom A] [Music Logo Big Band] [Magic Spell] [Misgivings & Misfortune]

NICKI RODRIGUEZ: I loved having the mansion all to myself. Not that I’d planned to throw any wild parties. A Gneeecey-less weekend simply meant that I’d enjoy a respite from brain melting stress. And Markmen. 

The miscreants had been populating my nightmares ever since that last Quality of Life meeting, chasing me down the Perswayssick’s toxic, mogg-covered riverbanks, guns drawn. I’d run for my life, but they’d always close in, shedding the amber skins, created from mierk, that gave them form.
 Paralyzed—unable to scream—I could only watch as their disembodied eyeballs floated toward me.
 I’d bolt out of bed and tear down the hall to the bathroom, waking fully once I spied Gneeecey, sitting in the gloomy shadows, enthroned upon his rich people’s Electronic Water Cyclone 3000 commode, glaring my way with wide-open, bloodshot eyes.
 Drenched with perspiration, I’d slink back to my room, shivering.
 Surprisingly, he never mocked me.
 This Someday afternoon, I tried to push it all out of my mind—even the shocking news that the Pooper-Scooper’s offices had burned to the ground the morning of that last Quality of Life meeting. Frank Salvador’s 98.6 Normal Radio—where Cleve and I had recently filed applications—had been housed on the third floor.
 I have to admit, I’d become good—way too good—at compartmentalizing my life. Heading toward the kitchen, I felt almost giddy. Not actually happy, mind you, but as close to not unhappy as I’d been since my second arrival in Perswayssick County.
 Refreshed, I relished the thought of sleeping in again, on Snatturday. I was even getting used to time traveling backwards.
 Klunkzill, Gneeecey’s scrawny, gray-striped half-cat-half-motorcycle, watched warily through a jagged slit in the shower curtain as I padded past the bathroom. He wasn’t any trouble—a greased bike chain and bowl of motor oil kept him happy, for hours on end.
 As usual, Gneeecey’s pet goths snarled and butted their heads against walls, furniture and each other. But I wasn’t worried. The charred oil furnace Gneeecey had flung into the snarling little futuristic prehistoric monsters’ playroom would keep ’em busy for days.
 Much to my delight—and Gneeecey’s utter dismay—their eggs had not hatched. Dr. Quackagoo—a goth fertility specialist located two hundred miles away, in Spittle’s Spray, located on ritzy Telephone Book Hill—dared to suggest to an infuriated Gneeecey that he use the lifeless orbs as paperweights.
 Chuckling, I entered the kitchen where instantly, my appetite evaporated. I did a three-sixty and shuffled back to my room, wondering if I’d make it back home in time for my twenty-fifth birthday—November 29th—or Octvember 60th, according to Gneeecey’s Blirg conversion calculator. It was a little more than a week away.
 My legs were stronger, and this weekend I could search for my portfolio in peace. I’d worked my way up from the creepy, cavernous basement to the fourth floor, picking through piles of petrified t-shirts and ankle-deep layers of newsprint, and strange-titled tomes like Your Local Arthropod: Golf Buddy or Meal? and the gored-up Good Goths’ Collection of Bedtime
Prayers.
 Along the way, I’d encountered a six-foot-long periscope, welded to a sofa on skis, and a commode that had been converted into a planter-on-wheels. Spoked alloy wheels. A dead cactus resided in the red-striped racing bowl.
 Up in the third floor library, I’d unearthed a cache of rusted surgical instruments, several colossal orthopedic devices, scores of test tubes, and miles of tubing clogged with substances of all hues imaginable—and some not so imaginable.
 The white-and-black canine-humanoid had told the truth about one thing—the only functional
 toilet in the house was the first floor’s Electronic Water Cyclone 3000. (The, uh, basement’s recently-used “facility”—a round hole cut into the cement floor, complete with carved indentations to accommodate long feet and tails—didn’t count.)
 The good diroctor’s parting words still echoed in my mind. “No compoopany!” he’d warned, as he schlepped his monotony birds’ ornate golden cages and two bulging, electric-brown suitcases out of the living room window and down the front steps. “Don’t want nobody comin’ in my house while I’m gone!”
 The second he’d left, I latched all the windows and locked all the doors. And leapt into the air, giving myself a high-five. 
 It was quiet.
 So, adrenaline burned new pathways through me when I heard loud, rhythmic rapping, coming from The Grate Room. SFX: [Door Pound]
 I grabbed the bent-into-a-u-shape putter Gneeecey had hurled, in a fit of after-game fury, into a psychedelic, quasi-Hellenic urn. Wielding the club like a baseball bat, I limped into the room on rubbery limbs.
 My jaw dropped, and my weapon fell to the floor. SFX: [Bang]
 There, on the other side of the giant picture window Gneeecey had installed over his front steps—to fool burglars—stood a grinning, denim-clad Cleve Wheeler. My GAS Broadcast colleague. My friend. And my fellow stranded Earthling. On the top step, by his sneakered feet, sat two King Oggle’s take-out bags.
 “Bad evening, madam,” he greeted me.

Straining, I slid the window open. “What a surprise!”
 “I brought dinner—or is that breakfast?” Roaring, the six-footer stepped inside and bear-hugged me.
 “What’s that?” I asked, as he dragged in a rectangular mahogany box and set it down on a chair.
 “Thought we could rearrange our sock drawers together,” answered Cleve, mischief sparkling in his ebony eyes. “You think Gneeecey would mind?”
 “Probooobably,” I shrieked, in the canine-humanoid’s high, nerdy voice.
 “If he finds out,” Cleve squealed back, “He’ll schedooodle us for hangin’, by the guillotine!”
 “Hangman’s sharpenin’ his ax!” I shrilled.
 We hung onto each other, doubled over.
 Once we’d caught our breath, Cleve tossed his fleece-lined jacket onto Gneeecey’s recently purchased ten-piece lime green sectional.
 “C’mon, Nicki, let’s eat before it gets cold.”
 “We’d better hurry,” I replied. “He can probably smell this all the way from Booolabeeezia!”
 Sitting cross-legged on Gneeecey’s new circus-yellow shag carpet, we scattered two foil-wrapped heroes, a couple cups of freshly brewed coffee, and a pair of pie-shaped dessert containers, all over Gneeecey’s mustard, faux-marble—actually heavy-duty, mierkolated-plastic—coffee table.
 My mouth watered as I unwrapped my oogdenplantzil hero, smothered with melted Parmesan-like cheese.
 Cleve hoisted his Styrofoam cup. “To our beloved boss in Booolabeeezia, benefactor of this humble feast,” he proclaimed. I lifted my steaming vessel. “And to 98.6 Normal Radioand The Pooper-Scooper newspaper. May they find new headquarters—and fast!”
 Cleve frowned. “I’ll drink to that, even though it’s not gonna happen.”
 “Why not?”
 “Something real strange is going on.”
 “Something real strange is always going on, isn’t it?”
 “Well, playing back some of my conversations with Justin Imbroglio, I’m beginning to put a few of the pieces together.”
 I leaned forward. “Pieces of what? Have you seen Imbroglio since the meeting?”
 “Nope. I did run into his brother, Ethan. He’s a cop—looks just like him, except his hair’s shorter. He says Justin’s left town.”
 “Left town?”
 “Yup. and Ethan’s thinking of quitting the force—said something about being outnumbered by creeps.”
 “Can’t say that surprises me—when we stopped by the Squirrel Squash Road precinct, I got a pretty good look at some of our county’s cops. These Markmen are taking over.”
 “For real. I still can’t get that picture out of my mind—them surrounding us, at the courthouse. Imbroglio and I were just chatting. Minding our business.”
 “Our wonderful boss didn’t like that too much—did you see the look he gave you?”
 “Uh-huh,” answered Cleve, sipping his coffee. “I saw from clear ’cross the room. And speaking of looks, I didn’t like the looks those Markmen gave me, either. That stocky blond with the big nose strikes me as being particularly vicious.”
 “They all strike me as being particularly vicious.” I laughed nervously. “Maybe they burned down the Pooper-Scooper building.”
Cleve’s mouth opened.
“I mean,” I continued, “you can’t always believe what you read—”
“The Perswayssick Tims said it was faulty wiring. And that’s a buncha bull. That rag and all its puppet editors, have been in Fred Seemingwhale’s pocket forever—he’s been a major stockholder since the beginning of time. Imbroglio was on to something.”
 I picked up the other half of my sandwich. “sounds like you know something I don’t—”
 “Imbroglio and I’d been running into each other, every day, at Shisskey’s Bakery. He’s okay, once you get past that egotistical exterior—y’know, once he lets his defenses down.”
 I listened, rapt.
 “We’d usually sit by the front window. He’d joke about how he was getting on certain people’s nerves, giving voice to the environmentalists’ side of the 345 controversy.”
 “Just Imbroglio’s being at the courthouse made Gneeecey mad.”
 Cleve took another bite of his hero.
 “He threatened,” I remembered, “to buy the Pooper-Scooper, saying then Imbroglio would have to work for him—unless someone torched them first.”
 Cleve stopped chewing.
 “Cleve, you don’t think—nah, he was probably just joking—”
 My friend gave me one of his famous, piercing “ya never know” looks. “Imbroglio said he was on the verge of breaking a real scandal. Involving some big names.”
 “Did he mention any?”
 “Seemingwhale, his guys at MierkoZurk and PassGas, and the folks who run the Mierkolatory, and Freak O’Nature Foods, too.”
 “Interesting.”
 “And—get this—our own dear boss!”
I dropped my sandwich. “Whoa—when were you ever gonna tell me all this?”
“I was going to—I swear—”
“With the Pooper-Scooper gone, where’ll Imbroglio break all this—if he ever surfaces?”
“Dunno,” replied Cleve. “Now, the Tims is the only game in town.”
“And Gneeecey’s GAS Broadcast Network owns the airwaves. But when Salvador finds a place
and hires us—picture Gneeecey’s face when we both give notice—then Imbroglio can come on board too and—”
“Ain’t gonna happen.”
I crumpled my foil. “Why not?”
“Even if Salvador finds new digs, Gneeecey’ll tie him up with so much red tape, he’ll look like a freakin’ Christmas present. With our boss sitting up in Knapsackville, it’ll be impossible for Normal Radio or the Pooper-Scooper—to ever start up again.”
Groaning, I popped a StomQuell. Gneeecey could ruin anything, even a good meal, from miles away.
Cleve looked down at his empty paper plate. “Last Someday, I decided to go check out the old Mierkolatory. After operating hours. Imbroglio was right—something’s going on there.”
“Cleve, be careful—I’ve got a feeling something really bad’s gonna go down—”
“Tell me. There were lights on in the basement—just like Imbroglio said. I saw a buncha guys rolling barrels outta the rear entrance, and loading ’em onto trucks. Freak O’Nature trucks.”
“You recognize anyone?”
“Nah—it was so dark, and. . . .” He stared across the room, at Gneeecey’s digital drapes. The stupid things were on the fritz again, flashing times like 86:73.
“And?”
“Someone took a potshot at me. Actually, several. But as you can see, they were bad shots.”
My coffee went down the wrong way, and I spilled the precious brew all over Gneeecey’s table.

SFX: [Splash Water 4 & 5]
 Cleve slapped my back. “You okay?”
 “Yeah,” I spluttered. “Aside from almost drowning in my coffee, and you being shot at. And I might as well have drowned—y’know, when he sees this table—”
“Don’t worry—that’s why they’re called coffee tables.” Trying a little too hard to be funny, Cleve poured the rest of his java on top of mine. SFX: [Splash Water 4 & 5]
“Who’d shoot at you? And why?”
“I didn’t stick ’round to find out. truth is, I ran like my butt was on fire!”
“Don’t go back—don’t go getting yourself killed—”
“I’ll try not to,” he whispered, stroking my hand and giving me that “let’s not talk about it anymore” look I knew so well.
Just as Gneeecey’s  curtains began blinking 00:00 and RESET, something slammed against the side of the house.

SFX: [Wood Demolition Bang]
 Cleve jumped up. “What the hell was that?”
 As the blood rushed from my head, I realized it was just Gneeecey’s pet goths going at each other. “Thank goodness, he triple-locked that playroom before he left.”
 “Man!” exclaimed Cleve, wiping his brow. “How d’ya live here at Three Bimbus Crack Drive, without going nuts?”
 “I dunno. And I hate this idiotic address, too—you should see the looks I get when I fill out forms.”
 “I can only imagine. And now, you’re living with the enemy—not that you weren’t—”
 “Cleve, promise me you won’t go back.”
 “Back where?”
 I crossed my arms.
 “Hey, Nicki, whaddaya say we try some of this sloggenberry pie?”
 “Okay. that shouldn’t kill either one of us.”
 Ignoring my remark, Cleve hopped up onto the table. “Let’s not stand on ceremony—let’s stand on this instead!”
I couldn’t help but crack up as Cleve smooshed a glob of cheese into Gneeecey’s fake marble, with his heel. “Improves it, don’cha think?”
“Absolutely.”
He bent down, stabbed a white plastic fork into a slice of pie, and handed it to me.
“Y’know,” I began, savoring my first mouthful of the strawberry cheesecake-like dessert, “I wonder whatever made Gneeecey so rotten in the first place?”
Cleve jumped from the table down to the floor. “We both know, as a kid, he was a super geek. And it didn’t help that his fiancée jilted him—”
“Fiancée? I can’t picture him having a girlfriend!”
“Oh he did—back on Planet Eccchs.”
“Get out!” I scraped up some sloggenberry sauce with my flimsy utensil.
“Her name was Goonafina Blopperdang. She was a golden retriever type. A doctor. When she found out he was stranded here in this dimension, she jilted him—by e-mail.”
“Cleve, how long have you been stuck here?”
He put his fork down. “Five years.”
I was speechless.
“Five long-ass years. And my limp, y’know, from dimension burn, hasn’t gotten any better. I think it’s worse.”
“I never think of you as having a limp—I mean, only when you mention it do I ever become aware. and even then—”
“That’s sweet of you—”
“I mean it—I never see you as moving with a limp.”
“But I do.  And I’ve seen what happens when you try to leave here too soon, before your legs heal. . .like my buddy Julio. . . .”
“Is that the Julio that Flea and Gneeecey always talk about?”
“Uh-huh,” Cleve replied, eyes watering up. “Julio Rivera was my best friend. We were both ten when Grandma, my sis and I moved to Hackensack, from the Bronx.”
“Where in the Bronx?”
“Good ol’ banana-shaped Kelly Street.”
I sat up straight. “That’s where my mom and dad grew up—I lived there till I was two! Y’know, so many great musicians came from there—Manny Oquendo, Orlando Marín—”
“Y’know, I think I own every recording those guys ever made.”
Goose bumps spread down my arms. Cleve’s heroes were mine. Cool guy.
“Getting back to Julio and me,” continued Cleve, “we loved messing with chemistry and electronics—almost blew up our apartment building one day.”
“You what?”
“We were trying to invent an electronically powered, organic hybrid vomit monster.”
“Maybe you invented Gneeecey,” I suggested, throwing a handful of napkins over all the spilt coffee covering the table.
“Maybe! Anyway, lucky for us, our little explosion—food coloring and all—fizzled out pretty quickly. But we gave everyone a major scare, with all the smoke.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Green smoke that smelled like exhaust, with a dash of rotten eggs. After the firemen left, Grandma Eleanor grounded me. And Julio’s mom grounded him. But we managed to get ’round the rules.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“In high school, we started our own band—the Latin Hackensoul Brothers. A real garage band—We practiced inside Santos Auto Repairs, at night. Julio played percussion, and I played guitar.”
“Wow!”
“There’s this green beauty I’ve been paying down on, practically ever since I’ve been stuck in this wacko dimension. Over at Murgatroyd Music. Looks just like the Gretsch Country Club waiting for me back home.”
“You must miss it.”
“I think I’m finally gonna go pick that baby up. You wanna take a ride downtown, one day next week?”
“I’d love to.”
“Great!” Cleve paused for a moment. “Julio and I did college radio, like you. And we both ended up working in New York City, at WZXL-TV.  And then. . .we both ended up here.”
Sighing, I picked crumbs off Gneeecey’s carpet.
“Julio always had a shorter fuse than me. And Gneeecey was even worse back then.”
“Worse?”
“Trust me—he’s mellowed.”
I shuddered.
“Anyway, Gneeecey had just told Julio his paycheck had been held up—again. Then he threw one of those old-fashioned reels of audio tape at him and ordered him to make it into a TV show. Before lunch. And in the same breath, he told him he’d be working weekends—indefinitely.”
“Little jerk—”
“Julio threw that big ol’ reel of tape back in Gneeecey’s face and told him to stuff it—in English and in Spanish. Then he tore outta the building.”
My stomach was killing me. I knew this story didn’t have a good ending.
“I ran outside and pleaded with him to come back,” continued Cleve. “We’d only been here a coupla months—we were both kinda weak, with shaky legs. The dimension burn had hit him extra hard.”
Chills ran through me.
“But Julio shouted out those words and. . . .” Cleve studied Gneeecey’s newly-painted cadmium yellow ceiling. “My best friend vaporized—right in front of me.” After a moment of silence, he smacked his thighs. “Dunno if I’ll ever leave here. But I don’t want you to try before you’re
ready, ya hear? I don’t wanna lose another best friend.” He wiped his wet face on his sleeve.
I couldn’t speak.
Cleve pulled a blue plastic tube out of his sock drawer. “I know you—nobody’s gonna talk you outta leaving when you think you’re ready. This is a special salve—rub it into your legs before you go to sleep. It’s meant for sore muscles. Counteracts some of the numbness.”
“Thanks.” I unscrewed the top and sniffed. “Smells like lavender.”
“It’ll help you more.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re younger.”
“C’mon, by two years. I mean, big deal—so, you were falling off your tricycle when I was born.”
“Or turning it into some kinda monster.”
I smiled.
“One more thing, Nicki. Remember I told you ’bout my kid sister?”
“Yes. Lauren. You said she’s seventeen now.”
He nodded. “I call her whenever I can—I’m always trying to explain why I can’t just pick up and come home. And it kills me when she says I need to try harder.”
“This whole dimension thing’s hard enough for us to wrap our minds around.”
“You got that right. And Grandma Eleanor, she’s pretty progressive, if not a bit unconventional—I think I told you, she’s a retired office manager, and now she’s into astrology. Has clients.”
“Yeah, I remember you mentioning that.”
“But she’d never believe any of this. She’d slap me through the phone! She thinks I’m away on some secret assignment, working for the government.” Cleve reached for his wallet. “This is the last photo I have of Lauren. She was twelve when I disappeared.”
I looked down at the face of a bright-eyed preteen, wearing a white blouse and gray plaid school uniform, and an expression of innocence. Impish innocence, framed by shoulder-length braids. “She’s beautiful. You have the same eyes.”
He beamed. “She’s always been wise beyond her years. Says she wants to be an astrophysicist, so she can bring me home. Loves chemistry, too.”
“Just so she doesn’t almost blow up any buildings, like, uh, someone I know.”
“Grandma Eleanor and Lauren still live in that same apartment.” He shook his head. “Lauren was a newborn when Mom and Dad died in that accident. Now, here I am—gone out of her life, too.”
“You said you still talk to her.”
“Except now, during Blirg, when we can’t call outta here.”
First thing I planned to do—if I was still stuck in Gneeeceyland when Blirg ended—was to phone my poor mom.
Cleve walked over to the window. “See that star?”
“That big bluish one?” I asked, joining him.
“Yeah. If I look at it long enough, I swear I can see Earth circling ’round it.”
“I think I can almost see it,” I agreed, squinting.
Brushing his lips against my cheek, he squeezed an arm around my shoulder. I slipped mine around his waist. “Every time I talk to Lauren—usually when it’s nighttime back home—I tell her to look outside and pick the most brilliant star she can find. Then I tell her we’re both
looking at the same one.”
We gazed through Gneeecey’s smudged window, out into space. Whenever I was with Cleve, I forgot about Carlos, back home.
“I was wondering, Nicki, if you get back home—”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, when you get back home, could you do something for me?”
“Sure, Cleve—anything!”
He removed a small box from his sock drawer and lifted the lid.
“Could you make sure Lauren gets this?”
“Of course.”
“Eighteen carat,” he said, as he clicked open a heart-shaped locket, attached to a shimmering box-link chain.
“I’ve always said, you’ve got great taste.”
“Better not be spelled ‘g-r-a-t-e’.”
“No, it’s not. And look whose picture’s inside.”
“Don’t want her to forget me. And here’s our phone number. I know you’ll find a creative way to make contact.”
My stomach fluttered as I stuffed Cleve’s tiny scrap of paper into my pocket.
“You’re gonna leave on a whim, one day after you’ve found your stuff and Gneeecey pisses you off—”
“Cleve, I don’t wanna leave you—you’ll come home soon, too—”
“I dunno,” he replied, fastening the delicate chain around my neck. “But when you leave all of a sudden—like I know you’re gonna—you’ll have this, and I’ll be with you.”
I tucked the pendant inside my maroon blouse.
“But don’cha dare leave before your birthday—we’re going out to celebrate!”
A blaring nose-honk rattled the windows. SFX: [Duck Horn] We froze.
“He’s not supposed to be back till tomorrow—I mean, yesterday,” I whispered.
“Someone’s with him,” said Cleve. “I can’t tell if the voices are coming from up the hallway, or right outside the window here.”
“Quick, Cleve—hide!”
He grabbed his sock drawer and sprinted behind Gneeecey’s upright white piano.

SFX: [MusicLogoBigBand] [Cinematic Boom A] [Magic Spell]

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! We thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, and Aileen Bean for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com.

And thank you for tuning in to “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.” We hope you enjoyed traveling to this loopy dimension with us and that you’ll come along again! Our new episodes drop every Tuesday morning! Please make sure to tell a friend! And keep on laughing! 

Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###