The Jarvis Nebulae Files - Part One (other parts to follow)

© Duncan Wheeler 1997-2007

I was on my way back from a solo camping trip in the middle Highlands. I had been on the overland track for three days and somehow I kept passing the same bunch of Americans in their campsite on the shores of a lake. They must have been three steps ahead of me the entire time. I became sick of them laughing at me behind my back whenever I stumbled upon their camp every couple of hours (why they changed camp so often is beyond me) so I decided to head back to the car park, which amazingly was very close-by despite the fact that it had taken three days' steady walking to get to where I was. However, the real treat of my journey came on the trip home.

From the dusty window of my private compartment in the underground sonic bullet train connecting Hobart1s waterfront University to the Cradle Mountain Lodge, I noticed something quite unusual. Perhaps my usual habit of getting completely wasted in the restaurant car for the entire nauseating journey had never allowed me the option of seeing out of my window. Come to think of it, of seeing anything at all.

Anyway, even to eyes such has mine, unaccustomed as they were to the sights of the transcontinental underworld route, something in particular struck me as somehow wrong down there. I was just having a coffee, black no sugar, as suggested to me by my psychiatrist after the cold turkey situation, and biting into a very small smoked salmon and avocado sandwich. Incredibly small, it was. I could hold it between finger and thumb. The presence of the hot beverage, anyhow, tempted me to breath steam onto the window and draw pictures of breasts, which for some reason I find extremely satisfying and relaxing. I was in the middle of my third perfect pair for the day (size 56) when, through the nipple I saw a bright green light flash past the train in the dimly lit tunnel outside.

At first I thought, well, it's obviously a "go" signal - likely to be found at or near intersections such as the one shooting off to Swansea that the train must have just passed.” All very well and good", my consciousness said. I happily blew steam and drew breasts for another few minutes before the waitress came to my table and asked if I would like another drink.

I replied "No, thank you, but you know what I would really like, apart from dragging the stars from the skies and pulling out your eyes...” (Sweetest smile I could manage)

"...And that is your phone number..."

By which stage she had seen my steamy breast pictures on the window and blown any chance I might have had. Briefly she looked at me as if I was a cross between a dangerous criminal brandishing an extremely big weapon and a tiny little cutesy dog, and whirled off to the next table.

It was at that moment that I realised what had bothered my under worked sub conscious mind (whilst my overworked conscious mind packed it in) a few minutes earlier. Instead of heading from the front of the train to rear, the weird green light had moved in the opposite direction, implying that it was moving faster than the train! "Baloney!", said my new waiter. How I love it; best-tasting fish-type crap I've ever had! I chomped into my pile of food, completely forgetting, indeed, repressing [twilight zone music] my strange and wonderful encounter with the unknown.

It was later on that night whilst watching the X-files on video that my repressed memory surfaced again (usually it takes years). I realised what I had seen. It was a UFO. In an underground tunnel.

I had been witness to the world1s first Underground Tunnel Unidentified Flying Omission. I would coin the abbreviation UTUFO. I would be "UTUFO" to the world, Jarvis to my friends.

I was gonna be rich! Newspapers and tabloids would be after me, offering any sum of money for my story. Maybe my especially close family would come to accept me again for the first time after our dispute over my brother's marriage with our cousin. And women would come rushing... and then see me and rush away again.

But I would be rich!!! Rubbing my itchy palms together whilst I thought of all the possibilities, I caused an accidental fire on the roof of my house. "Why was I on the roof" you ask; well that1s another story - perhaps another time. But I soon got back to thinking in a trance-like state about the future. A world of limousines and magazine covers, call-women and big dogs.

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