The Stilts of Slaughter

Walking around the farmers market in humid heat, the former part of the atmosphere of the day being a byproduct of the heavy monsoon last night which was the first of its kind here in Tucson this year, and in quite a number of years to be frank. Other than that extenuating the already blistering as is typical of the Sonoran Desert; it was a clear (for now) and dare I say it, beautiful day. Just short of downtown and right near the University of Arizona's agricultural wings. I'd gone on this Sunday with my grandmother to get some salad material— fresh grown basil, lettuce; hoping to find some tomatoes, which unfortunately only resulted in a bunch which were dried and cracked on this occasion. Oh well, Whole Foods should have a decent selection as backup. 

Also stopping to grab a pack of homemade flour tortillas and then heading back to the car. Amongst the tented vendors and moving bodies about them, a figure emerged. Raising to an astonishing height above the crowd this tattooed young woman in a grey dress that obscured her actual walking limbs was standing above the mass on a a set of metallic stilts. 

While on the way back to the car, just reaching the gravel parking lot when out of the corner of my eye I saw the stilted woman lift up one leg— far higher than should be possible on stilts— as her skin began to shed off, making it clear the extended ligatures were actually part of her whole body. She proceeded to bring down the leg, stomping onto the moving shoppers surrounding her while blades like a mace sprung from each side. The face of this entity, ridden entirely of the skin and hair it had just minutes before, was clearly that of some automation; scanning the panicked crowd as she—it— went on a rampage, stomping on everyone moving to escape. Uniquely the mechanical being left those too stunned to move away unscathed beyond splashes of blood and other bodily fluids spraying them as a result of their mayhem. 

Luckily by that point I'd already reached the car and was sitting in the passenger seat watching this all unfold. Suddenly from the nearby ditch, somewhat wet from the aforementioned storm last night, a troop of velociraptors emerged and attacked the slaughtering stilted being. It took out one of the four swiftly before the other three managed to pin down the mechanical monster, snapping off its extended ligatures before dragging it back down into the ditch from where they came. As quickly as it had began it was over and the local news affiliate helicopter could be seen in the distance before even ambulance sirens for the wounded and dead could be audible.

End of Story.

I find it interesting having written this, with the brief inclusion of velociraptors, that as I finished jotting it down and typing it up that Sam Neill who played Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park franchise has died. Personally, I don't particularly care all that much beyond enjoying the movies, and finding it an interesting synchronicity; especially as his character in the series is introduced at the excavation of a raptor bone site, demonstrating in a cynical explanation with a dug up claw to a curious tubby kid just how the beast of prey would kill him.