DISCLAIMERS: George, in another life we were married... nah,
just joking. Or was that 'hoping'? The boys belong to
Lucasfilm. The idea sprang from the frighteningly mad gray clay
I call my brain.
WARNINGS: Violence against a device that should be banned from
earth.
AUTHOR`S NOTES: This hasn't been beta'ed, it's just a quickie
written while I was at the InternetcafÈ in Mainz,
Germany, where I am currently stuck. Greetings go out to Tilt
and Sheila - stay you you.
It was the loud screeching sound coming from his Master's
bedroom that woke Obi Wan. He was up and out of bed in seconds,
and running before he had even opened his eyes. He opened them
enough to palm Qui Gon's door open and not run straight into
it, fell into more than entered the room, lightsaber drawn and
activated - and skidded to an abrupt halt, feeling his jaw
muscles unravel and come undone.
This had to be a dream. Right?
"Good morning, Padawan," Qui Gon greeted him drily, amusement
colouring his voice.
Make that a bad dream. Obi Wan withstood the sudden urge
to check if his jaw was still in place and stared at his Master
instead. Qui Gon was sitting upright in bed, propped against
the headboard, his lightsaber next to him. On the floor a few
feet away from the bed, a pitifully beeping alarm clock, or
rather the smoking remnants thereof, was wheezing its last
breaths. While Obi Wan was watching, the device seemed to gear
up the last of its strength and attempted a fully fledged,
much-loathed-throughout-recorded-history, hated by generations
of working people, sound...and failed miserably. The fading
'sqeeeeeeeeee...' reminded Obi Wan of a pierced balloon.
"Obi Wan?"
He dragged his eyes away from the dead clock. Qui Gon's eyes
were alive with badly-disguised mirth, and the slight shaking
of the blanket that covered the Jedi Master's nether regions
told the Padawan that a laughing fit was being fought.
"Obi Wan," Qui Gon pressed, and, when he had the stunned young
man's undivided attention, added "Close your mouth or you'll
catch flies."
Okay, at least his suspicions about his jaw's state of
slackness were confirmed. He shut the body part in question
with an audible click, then cautiously moved further
into the room. Only at Qui Gon's pointed look did it occur to
him that his lightsaber was still powered up; he deactivated it
almost as an afterthought.
"Uh, Master?"
"Yes, Obi Wan?"
Obi Wan watched Qui Gon move around as if nothing was the
matter. The older man poofed up his pillows, then settled back
against them with a sigh of contentment. And then stared at Obi
Wan with the presumed - innocent face of a cat who had milk
still clinging to its whiskers.
"Uh, what, I mean - I heard this noise, and...what the HELL
happened here?"
Qui Gon took a curios look around, then caused his left eyebrow
to climb astronomical heights.
"Well, Padawan, I woke up, I beheaded my alarm clock - how the
hell did you sleep?"
Obi Wan decided a trip to the Healers was needed, very soon,
and very badly. His brain, or his ears, one of the two organs
had just taken a leave of absence.
"You beheaded your alarm clock."
"Yes."
"With your lightsaber."
"Yes. " A frown was added to the mountain-climbing eyebrow.
"Padawan, are you alright? You look a bit pale."
"You beheaded your alarm clock with you
lightsaber."
"Rather drastic, I know. " Qui Gon sighed, then a mischievous
expression crossed his features, and he conspiratorially
blinked at his Padawan. "But don't tell them, okay?"
In his current state of mind, Obi Wan would have said 'Yes' to
being asked if the sheen on Master Windu's head did indeed copy
the sheen of another, uh, bald part of his body. He nodded,
desperately scanning the Force for any signs of sudden tangles,
abnormalities, anything to explain this rather absurd
situation he was in. Was this a test? Had someone stole into
their quarters and replaced his much-loved Master with a droid?
But no, everything seemed quite all right. Seemed.
"After all, we don't want them to find out, do we?" Qui Gon
added, still looking at his Padawan as though the young man had
suddenly grown a horn.
"Find out."
"Yes."
"About what?"
The second he asked, he wasn't sure he really wanted an answer
to his question.
"The Secret Burial Ground," Qui Gon said brightly, and beamed
at him like the seven suns of Juma.
"Wraaghhl."
"Obi Wan, are you certain you are not ill?"
Firmly holding his jaw in place with both hands, Obi Wan just
stared. Qui Gon sighed, and lifted a corner of his bed spread.
And sure enough, there, in a small cavity designed for travel
bags or other store-away things, lay dozens of horribly
mutilated alarm clocks in varying states of decay.
As the bed spread was once again lowered over what undoubtedly
had the be the work of years, Obi Wan gaped at the clock
on the floor. It was sending innocent-looking tiny clouds of
white smoke up to the ceiling.
"They always do that," Qui Gon said with a slight frown. As he
registered his Padawan's entirely dumbstruck expression, he
elaborated "Call for help. You saw the clouds, didn't you?
That's their language. Their last call for help."
He dropped his voice to a level that could only be described as
'smoky, with a dangerous edge to it', and added, "Sadly, their
pleas for help always go unheard within these chamber walls."
Obi Wan turned on his heel, walked back into his room and shut
the door. Locked it. Put a heavy commode and a chair against
it. Set Force-traps all around it, just in case.
Then he crawled into bed - literally. If not for the fear of
slowly suffocating, he'd have piled the entire bed on top of
himself.
Beheading. Alarm clock.
Obi Wan decided 'this morning' just hadn't happened.
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