I'm Only the Trombone Player

Day 4 ~ Andre's Five Day Mini Challenge

January 13^th 2022 ▼

The Bermuda Triangle

5 Day Mini Challenge #4

Andre says he once drove to the Bermuda Triangle and doesn't recall having any unusual experience there.

He did report the feeling that he was missing the memory of a little time that passed while he was there, around 36 hours.

I believe that vodka may have played a role in Andre's missing time. Still, the reputation of the area leads one to ponder the reasons for the many stories.

What's the Secret of the Bermuda Triangle?


Unless you've never been near a drugstore paperback rack and don't surf cable channels late at night, you've undoubtedly heard of the Bermuda Triangle, aka the Devil's Triangle. It's an area of water between Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda that, according to pop mythology, contains some sort of malevolent force that causes ships, planes, and people to disappear, never to be seen again.

Some have put the blame on extraterrestrial invaders capturing humans for study, on inter-dimensional vortices, and even on oceanic flatulence (methane gas erupting from ocean sediments)

The Bermuda Triangle

We all know that Andre is noted for his recalcitrant attitude. So when I decided to ask about his Bermuda Triangle experience I didn't really expect an answer. Boy. was I surprised!

Several years ago Andre visited the Bermuda Triangle, during his visit he claimed there were 36 hours he couldn't account for. A bottle of rum later, and I found it wasn't a matter of couldn't, more like wouldn't.

Here's the story as told by a weepy-eyed Monkey.

Just as Andre was parking the car (!?!), having driven to the Bermuda Triangle, a rather large rolling dark cloud blocked out the Sun. There was lightning and the smell of burning sulfur. The Earth seemed to quake and shimmy, and the darkness deepened. The temperature dropped, and a cold rain began to fall.

Andre took a long, hard swig of his vodka and got out of the car. Suddenly a beam of bright light surrounded our simian hero. Andre found himself rising up the beam, headed for a portal opening in the cloud. On the way up he chugged the last of the vodka, after all, he might need the bottle for a weapon, and ya' don't wanna waste good vodka.

Andre passed through the portal and found himself aboard some kind of ship, not a ship, ship, more like an airship. He tried to walk back out, but the portal slammed shut. When Andre turned around a small gray guy, not much taller than he was standing there.

"Greetings Earth Dweller." The voice didn't seem to come from the guy, more from the ship's walls. "We come to learn from you and—"

Andre was surprised when his chatter in return turned into words. "Listen Bub, I don't know who you are, and I don't give a rat's—"

"I am M'telios, a scientist sent to study your people—"

"Like I already said, I could care less." Andre started to look around. "Say, you got any vodka on this dingy?"

"Vodka ... Dingy?"

"Yeah, you know booze, firewater, joy juice?'

The little guy shook his head up and down and said, "No, we have none of those things, but I can offer some very fine Kelifica." With that, he turned away. "Please follow me."

As Andre followed the little guy, he mumbled to himself. "Great, I get picked up by the only dry cruise ship in the Caribbean."

The little guy led Andre to a small nook with a table, opening a cabinet, he took out a small dish of cookies and a bottle of iridescent liquid. He poured a small glass for each of them.

Andre picked up a cookie and sniffed it suspiciously before nibbling off a small piece. "Hey, these taste familiar."

"I made them myself." The little guy puffed with pride. "I got the recipe off a rock in a place called MassaShoothits. The little guy was alarmed when Andre down the glass of Kelifica in one gulp. "Kelifica is quite strong, I'm not sure what effect it will have—"

"Drink up Shorty, and pour us another round, this stuff ain't half bad"

Reluctantly, the little guy poured more Kelifica into each glass. "we really shouldn't drink much more." Trailing off as Andre chugged that shot down."

"Less talking." Pushing his glass for more. "And, more pouring Shorty."

Shorty knocked back his shot, and with less reluctance poured out another, and another, and several more, before having to stagger to the cabinet, to fetch another bottle of Kelifica.

"So Shorty, Andre, who seemed quite unaffected by the Kelifica said, "is this a ship, or just a hut parked in the cloud?"

"Ahhhh no, thish is a scientitistic, err scienestistic, ummm, it's a research vesshel."

Andre's eyes lit up. "So it can move?"

"Yesh, it's qui, really fash."

"Well, let's see what this baby can do—"

"Dat might not be a good i,idea in our cuurr, presss, the way were are now."

"Monkey Poop." Andre jumped up. "I feel great, let's go I'll drive!"

"Oohh Myyyy"

It wasn't long before they cleared Earth's atmosphere, and were headed into space. Andre rubbed his furry little fists together and said, "alrighty, let's see what this thing can do."

"Waitt, you can't engage that drive in the solar system ..."

Andre did it anyway, to him it seemed like they stretched in all directions, lights flashed in colors he had never seen before and Shorty changed color from light dusky gray to bright pink and back again.

They flashed clear across the galaxy and would have gone further if the Galactic Traffic Police hadn't grabbed them in a restrainer beam. The police were none to happy, it seem they had torn clean through a wormhole, leaving a family of space worms homeless.

There was a trial, it lasted almost four days (3.6 days to be precise) and in the end, Shorty was sentenced to life on Earth, where he now hides in exile at the South Pole, rueing the day he ever met Andre.

As for Andre, the court decided that they wanted no part of him, sending him back to Earth, when in some small quirk of intergalactic physics only thirty-six hours had passed.

That's Andre's story, and he's sticking to it.