Spiral Bound Journal

Inexplicable Horror

Dana fiddled with the badge slung around her neck and cast her eyes around the ballroom. Despite its name, she could see it was similar to equivalent spaces in the US: flat walls in a neutral color, low pile carpeting (aside from a laminate dance floor at the far end), a bounty of round tables decked out in cream table cloths along with various metallic table runners. While it was nice to get out of the Olympic Village for a meal and enjoy some alcohol, the current phase of the evening did not set her mind at ease. She had arrived at the ballroom later than she would have liked thanks to underestimating the severity of Paris traffic. True, she could have taken a train, but she figured she would be doing a lot of that over the next couple weeks. A drive to see the city was in theory a nice way to change things up. In practice, the drive confirmed what are dad had told her when she was a pre-teen: Paris is a dump.

After getting to the hotel and checked in for the dinner, she found she arrived smack in the middle of cocktail hour. A number of her competitors had already grabbed drinks and formed small groups. This left Dana scrambling for something to do. While she had met a fair number of her competitors beforehand in other pre-Olympic events and meetings, she struggled to connect with any of them well enough to consider any of them friends. Hell, she'd had better luck befriending the Norwegians in her part of the Olympic Village. In fact, prior to this dinner, she told Karl about her evening plans. Karl winced when she mentioned the cocktail hour portion of the dinner. He understood what she meant when she grappled to find the words to articulate just how hard she needed to work to not dissociate without the distractions of a meal available. On cue, her stomach rumbled, and she set off to find anything resembling a worthwhile appetizer.

It took Dana a minute to find some suitable veggie canapes, but once she had some of those, she ventured over to the bar. Here she found herself stuck. She enjoyed wine as much as she enjoyed drunk college kids stumbling down her street on a Saturday night. Given that she was in France, her booze options whittled down to beers not worth much of anything in her eyes and spirits that could have her on the floor in a heartbeat. She sighed and began scanning the liquor options. Her eyes were drawn to a bottle with a foil etching of a parsnip on it.

"Well," she muttered. "I wasn't expecting to see that here."

She stepped closer and flagged down a bartender.

"Piger Henricus, neat, pur," she requested.

The bartender nodded and gave an appreciative smile "Oui."

Dana let out a whoosh of a breath and leanded against the bar top. The bartender had just finished pouring her gin when a cheer erupted from near the main entrance.

"What the...?"

"You can say that again."

Dana glanced in the direction she heard the remark and found a gentleman with greying but still sandy hair standing near her.

"Do you know what those are?" he asked her, pointing at two people in costume.

"Those," Dana started, "I think are the mascots."

The two of them looked on in horror as the duo stepped further into the room. Indigo legs supported what appeared to be carmine triangles. The doe eyes sported at the top of these triangles exaggerated eyelashes. Below each set of eyes was a logo: one for the Olympic Games, the other for the upcoming Paralympics.

"Well, at least they're not as horrifying as the abominations we saw in London, but they're still going to haunt my nightmares."

The guy's remark pulled Dana back to reality enough for her to determine that the guy chatting with her was British and that she did not have a drink in hand. She turned to find the find the bartender still holding her drink instead of placing it on a coaster for her.

"Merci," she mumbled as she accepted the proffered drink.

"Yeah, you will need that to erase the memorie of those things."

Dana shook her head. "I doubt this is the last we will see of them."

"You're right. Oh, I'm Tim, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Tim. I'm Dana."

"Pleasure to meet you. I cannot say the same about meeting the mascots."

At that, Dana snorted. "Not wrong. Man, I hope they're not here for the entire dinner."

"Agreed. The bar will get completely cleaned out otherwise."

"Ha! On the other hand, people did cheer when those abominations showed up."

"Maybe they're already completely pissed."

"That would make sense. Meanwhile, what am I doing holding this damn glass? Looking at those things sober I'm pretty sure violates the Geneva Convention."

"I'm pretty sure you're right," Tim agreed as he raised his half full glass. "To avoiding those possibly sentient reading pillows as much as possible."

"To avoid the things that make reading pillows look bad!"

With that, Dana and Tim clinked glasses before sipping their drinks. Well, at least the parsnip-infused gin had a savory backbone in addition to the sharp bitterness. Dana decided this gin would be more than sufficient for getting through the mascot-riddled evening.