Self-Sucking Strife

By Hamish Dee

AP Report, NYC, NY

Genius inventor Dr. Martin Montgomery made a name for himself today by unveiling his latest laborsaving device at the World’s Fair in New York City, the Self-Sucking Straw. The remarkable invention will eliminate the need for inhaling to procure our tasty beverages. One need simply use their lips to put a slight amount of pressure on the rim of the straw and the liquid is carried to their mouth as if by magic.

Montgomery gave a demonstration with his prototype. He placed the device of thin, transparent plastic in a tall glass of Cola~Cola and put his lips snuggly around it. Then to the amazement of crowds and reporters, the carbonated drink steadily climbed the cylindrical chamber and into his mouth. When asked how it tasted the Doctor said, “Refreshing!” He then invited the doubtful to test his device, telling them not to inhale. The self-sucking straw worked every time.

One especially doubtful stander-by turned the straw upside down before sucking. Many jumped to the defense of Dr. Montgomery, believing that it would be the undoing of his contraption and his career, but he held them back. The doubter put his lips to the straw while in the opposite direction and again the straw gave a powerful suck. Dr. Montgomery addressed the crowds, “You see, the Self-Sucking Straw is bi-directional. It has an internal Gyr-o-meter that tells it which way is up.” To this his audience clapped and cheered his name, to which the modest Doctor waved and bowed humbly.

The device will be ready for public release next month and it will be made available to all beverage-sucking nations of the world. When asked if it would suck all beverages, Dr. Montgomery responded that this model could be used only on drinks with a consistency near water, including soda and most juices, but a wider, more powerful model is in the works for milkshakes. With that, the Doctor left the adoring public and all declared that it is, indeed, a marvelous day for science.

It’s been over five years now since they gave the world this miracle device. Now, I don’t know if there’s anybody left, but if there are other survivors I feel I have to warn them. This should have stopped when the lungs of young children began to atrophy from lack of use, but the scientists found an answer, a quick fix. The world’s population started on a smoking regimen where they would deeply inhale tobacco. It worked, at least for a while. Then a year later they released the Self-Sucking Straw 2000 that could be used for all liquids, from the thinnest broth to the thickest milkshakes. The mad fools, if only they knew where it would lead.

My story began on the naval base in South Carolina. They called me Sergeant Pinbrook of the US Navy. I was well respected amongst my men and my superiors, for effectively ridding the platoon of the homosexual element. My young wife and infant daughter lived with me happily on the base. So I spent many a day ordering men to run to and fro for no particular reason. In the evening, I came home to a warm meal and the arms of my doting wife. Then I spent the rest of the night drinking in front of the television. If anybody could love me more than God and my men, it was my family.

The Self-Sucking Straw was a normal fixture in our day-to-day lives, and had become part of the American dream. Like people worldwide, I was excited by the invention at first, but also like everyone I came to forget the days when I lived without it. There came a point when the non-suck straw became so rare that you could only find them in museums. Of course, some radicals rebelled and began drinking without straws at all, but their drive to make their teeth cold was not widely understood and they were heavily marginalized within the community.

Then came the SSS-2000, the straw to end all straws. Advertisements started popping up in magazines and newspapers with young couples sharing a hearty milkshake, gazing into one another’s eyes and each with an SSS-2000 at their lips. The world fell in love with the upgrade and, for a short time, there was peace.

Two years ago, war with communist Russia broke out because the United States had decided to take the moral high ground and put a stop to their evil ideology. Only they had a secret weapon this time, sunglasses that could absorb the rays of the sun and release them as a concentrated beam of energy. Russian soldiers could walk into the battlefield and shoot the beams just by blinking hard in the direction of the opposing military forces. When hit by these beams, death was instantaneous. Either we had to come up with a weapon to match theirs or surrender to the dark, evil forces of communism.

At that same time, a peculiarity was noted in the SSS-2000. A few FBI calls had been made concerning straws that were self sucking without any provocation. People would use the straw for its designed purpose and then simply leave it in a beverage, as they went about their day. There were a few cases where trace amounts of fluid were found beneath the end of the straw, as it hung over the rim of the glass. A couple times the complainant witnessed a straw shooting fluid like a cannon without anything touching it at all. We quickly silenced the rumors by equalizing the witnesses, but head military figures were beginning to wonder why the SSS-2000 was acting on its own.

We put the straws under strict observation to see if there was something concrete or methodological to these reports. I was ordered to supervise the project. We left several straws in full glasses of water to see if one of them would spit. We attempted sample after sample over the course of weeks, but had no luck. Then on a day like any other, I was alone in the laboratory and looking over the straws. I took out my clipboard and began checking for activity. For one straw, I squinted my eyes to peer down the straw chamber and received a sprits of water. The SSS-2000 had spit in my eye. Shocked and gasping, I dropped my clipboard, freeing my hand to wipe evidence of the assault from my face. I turned and fumbled with the doorknob, in my excitement, and from there ran to the officer’s club, repeatedly yelling, “It attacked me!” They crowded to hear the story, but I was in too much of a frenzy to explain. I merely sputtered and began waving, signaling that they should come with me. When we returned to the lab, I was still short of breath, but grunted and pointed at the offending straw in the presence of a general, three corporals and their mistresses.

“Do you mean to say that this thing acted on its own accord?” asked the General.

“Uh-huh,” I screamed with my mouth hanging wide open.

“Good gravy, it’s true then!” The General turned to all of us, “Nobody hears of this. Is that understood?”

We all nodded in agreement.

Over the following days we studied the straw, and we didn’t need to wait long for a recurrence. It wasn’t only that Self-Sucking Straw. Others began exhibiting the same behavior. We learned that it was a very specific shipment of straws from New Mexico that had started acting on their own. Teams of soldiers were sent out to collect these faulty straws and, since secrecy was key, an atomic bomb was dropped to neutralize the state.

I lead the team of researchers on the straws and what we found was a startling pattern of behavior. On the first use, the SSS-2000 would behave normally, sucking any beverage you might like, but afterward it was prone to squirt tiny amounts of liquid on its own. After the initial squirting phase, it would spray increasingly large amounts of fluid until the glass had run dry. We were still arguing that it was a glitch caused by malfunctioning pressure receptors at the lip of the straw, until we were greeted by a further complication.

The straw that first sprayed me had learned to spray as continuously as a fountain, and anytime it was given water it would spit it out. Once when the bottom of its glass was dry, it continued blowing air. It was an interesting act, but I thought it was futile, that is, until it started sucking in the opposite direction. This made very little sense to me, but then the suction became strong enough to propel it from the glass. The little straw wasn’t content just to be out of the glass, but continued sucking its way to the water it had already spit out.

After my assistant woke me from a fainting spell, I again ran to the officers to tell them the news. We determined that the SSS-2000 was not malfunctioning at all. It was intelligent. The pattern of behavior was learned by all of the SSS-2000 models and they all sought out fluid that they could pass. We deliberated on what to do with this perpetually thirsty machine.

We started a committee to decide what to do with the Self Sucking Straws immediately. Teams of army engineers came to present not only explanations, but ways to utilize the contraption. One group of men in snappy, white coats showed us how we might irrigate vast tracts of land with the device and another group said it could be used to find clean, drinking water for third-world populations that have none. These ideas were shot down, as we informed them that the military had no interest in saving lives. The committee suffered through many similar presentations. By the time the last engineer entered, night had already fallen. The man was in dark clothing and had a startling widow’s peak. I impatiently told the shadowy figure to get on with his presentation.

He said, “I brought no poster boards or charts, Gentlemen. My idea is simply this. Why not use the straws to combat your enemies, the Russians?”

The slovenly corporal to my side snickered, “Is that so, Blackpants? How we gonna do that?”

The man answered, “The SSS-2000 seems very fond of most fluids, especially water. However, it would be quite simple to recalibrate it to thirst after only one substance.” Then very suavely he added, “Human blood.”

The General stood and yelled, “You quack, how are will we to do…?”

“Just feed them blood and send them,” Interrupted the figure. “They will fight your war for you.”

All eyes turned to the General who began sliding and then slumped in his chair. He said, “I-I-I don’t know. I guess it could work.” He turned toward the stranger and said, “I’m sorry, what was your name ag…” But the man in dark clothing had disappeared and a breeze came through the open window, causing the loose curtains to flutter. I got up to close it.

Leaning against the sill I said to the General, “Sir, you can’t really send straws to fight this war. Even if it is possible to train them to suck the blood of our enemy, it is barbaric.”

“Don’t be insubordinate,” he screamed. “These are savage times and the days of the gentleman soldier are long past. Let me decide what is or isn’t humane, and you will follow orders. Is that understood?”

I paused for a moment, but in the end I chose the path of the soldier and saluted. If I could do it again, I might have spoken up a second time. But since I conceded that time, they rightly assumed I would continue to do so. I was put in charge of the research project that would convert milkshake straws into murderous, blood-sucking implements of death.

It took only a short time to convert the straws. All we needed to do was give them a taste of blood. The straws did the remainder of the work. After feeding them gallons of blood donated by our own research team, the SSS-2000 would suck it and ignore all other liquids. We tested this by putting water in one cup and blood in another. When they would always go for blood, overcoming all obstacles to get to it, they were primed for battle. All that remained was to prove that they would kill for it.

For two weeks, we starved the straws of their precious blood. They were sucking at the air and flying about the room in a frenzy due to this period of fasting. Of course, it was too dangerous for any of the staff to go in. Instead, we constructed a holding cell that attached to the testing area and we put a sheep inside. The scientists and I were waiting at the window, rubbing our hands and licking our lips in anticipation. I pushed the blinking, red button. There was a buzz and the door slid open. The sheep shyly wandered from its cell, looked around and gave a confused “Baa.” Then from every corner of the room the white cylinders flew at the beast. They lodged themselves beneath the skin and streams of blood spurted in a hundred directions at once. Within seconds, there was only the wool and husk of the sheep, and blood coated the laboratory walls. We did another demonstration for the superior officers to their great delight. They decided that the SSS-2000 was ready for the battlefield.

It couldn’t have come too soon, either. We were losing thousands of men a day to the Russians and their specially adapted sunglasses. I requested more time for testing, but the President had already been told about the straws and was anxious to see them in action. I reminded them that, as far as we knew, the straws were invincible and there was no way to stop them. I was quickly silenced and told we would take care of that problem as it arises.

On the following Christmas Eve, US soldiers were told to fall back from their lines and allow the Red Army to advance. That same day we gathered our straws in solid glass cages, luring them with the blood they so craved. The General came to greet us in his formal dress, and we all stood at attention and saluted. He stood directly in front of me and asked, “Is the cargo ready?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Spee-lendid!” he exclaimed. “Well I have good news for you, Pinbrook. As gratitude for your hard work on the thingies, you’ll be flying out with the first airborne division plane to drop them on the enemy and release the killing machines into the greater world. How does that sound?”

I replied with a tear in my eye, “It would be an honor, sir.” Little did I know that it would be the greatest crime against humanity since the beginning of the world. If I had known I probably would have been much more hesitant.

The General continued, “Spee-lendid! You take off at twenty two hundred hours.” We saluted again and he walked out.

I went home to beat my wife and kid just one last time. They forgave me though, they always did. At the appointed hour, I was at the airfield wearing my cargo suit and parachute, just in time to see the crate marked “Doomsday Device” loaded onto the plane. I climbed the steps into the plane and my superior officers were standing by to salute. It was a long salute, fifteen minutes, in fact. I usually don’t time my salutes, but it was windy and cold. Still, it’s bad manners to stop saluting first to a superior officer, even if they do have Alzheimer’s. So I just stood there, thinking of how I would describe it in an Apocalypse journal. With fifteen minutes you think I could do better, but no, just standing, standing and saluting, saluting.

My joints were stiff by the time I was allowed to leave. I tried to sit on the Doomsday crate, but was reminded by the pilot that I probably shouldn’t. It was a standard cargo plane with a trap door, through which we would drop the crate. The only other seat available to me was that of the copilot. I asked the pilot if I could help fly and started turning knobs at random, but he slapped my hands.

It was a smooth take off, and there was nothing but the stars lighting our way. We arrived at the drop point in just over a day. I mean, we were flying all the way to Russia. It was the dead of night, and I imagined the Russians were nestled within their little tents, cuddling with their Matryoshka dolls. The pilot turned to me and said, “This is it.” I nodded sternly and then shrugged my shoulders when he turned away. He flicked one of the several switches overhead. There was a slow motorized whirr and the air began to tug at us within the plane. I watched as the trapdoor slowly opened and allowed enough space for the crate to get through. I blinked and it had disappeared. I realized then it was the most absurdly designed plane I’d ever seen, but I guess our engineers never were the best. When the cargo was safely dropped, the pilot hit the switch again and door began to close. It was then that I spotted an intruder. A Self-Sucking Straw was fighting its way back into the plane. It had somehow escaped its cage.

I screamed at the pilot to warn him, but too late. The straw made it through the opening and plunged into the pilot’s forehead. He struggled to pull it out, but it refused to release him. He passed out within seconds. Knowing I would be next, I did what was natural and chucked the pilot’s body out of the plane just as the trap door closed behind him. I took a great sigh of relief because I knew I was safe. All that was left for me to do was fly back to American soil as a hero.

I crashed in the Vietnamese jungle and have been living in a cave there ever since.

This particular cave was a lucky find because it received an English language newspaper everyday. The former inhabitant, i.e. the skeleton leaning against the opposite wall, probably forgot to cancel his subscription. Those first few days were pretty nice because I was given regular updates about the totality of the Red Army’s demise. Then the unstoppable straws began raiding the villages, filling the rivers with blood and then draining the bloody rivers. A vicious cycle, really. I can’t help but feel somewhat responsible.

The SSS-2000 continued its rampage throughout the world. The inventor apologized, saying his intentions were good. Yesterday’s paper read “Everyone Dead. Only Newspaper Staff and Delivery Boy Survive.” As luck would have it, there’s no news today. I think the subscription finally ran out. Too bad.