Edith Explains

Unending BE - episode 23028

Jim ate and then rested for a while, to keep Edith happy. (He realised that he would have to get used to being under her constant surveillance; he would not be able to tell her that he was going to do something and then not do it. He preferred not to think about how embarrassing he would find it when he - or for that matter she - needed to defaecate.) After he had rested, he questioned her some more about the situation in which they found themselves.

Apparently an immensely wealthy but very eccentric uncle had included in his will the condition that they must remain chained together if they wished to inherit his fortune. Whilst such a condition would probably not have been allowed under US law on the Earth from which Jim originally came, apparently in this universe it was looked upon as a little eccentric but perfectly valid. The uncle had died a couple of years ago, and Jim and Edith had been chained together ever since, with still another seven years to go until Jim (a year younger than the nineteen year-old Edith) was twentyfive.

They had recently been permitted an advance on their inheritance sufficient to buy a luxury yacht, and since they were both keen and experienced sailors they had decided to sail it across the Pacific. Though their being chained together meant that they amounted to little more than a single crewman, the yacht was sufficiently state of the art that they could handle it without too much difficulty. They had set off from San Diego some five weeks ago. All had gone well for the first three weeks. Then one night they had been woken in their bunk by water lapping around them. The yacht was sinking! They had got up on deck to find that the liferaft was missing, which left little doubt that this was sabotage. Edith surmised that someone had hidden a transponder somewhere on the yacht before they had started their voyage, so that they could be readily tracked.

It appeared that whoever was resposible, presumably the next in line to inherit, had been careless, though. In the bright moonlight, they were able to see an island a mile or so away. The saboteur(s) may have assumed that this was too far away for them to swim to it, especially handicapped as they were. He (or she or they) had been wrong, however. Or perhaps the yacht had drifted closer to the island after it had started to sink.

After Edith's long explanation to what she assumed was her not only deluded but also amnesiac brother, Jim searched for a tactful way to ask the one further question that he badly needed to have answered: were they still lovers in this reality? Eventually he plucked up the courage to ask it.

  1. "Yes, of course, silly." And she squeezed his arm.
  2. *"No, but I'm open to persuasion."
  3. He got his face slapped for his trouble.
  4. Not only were they lovers, but Edith thought she was carrying his child (though she was not yet showing). This could be Blue Lagoon all over again (except that they were far less innocent than the principals in the film).
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JH

Sat Mar 13 12:43:42 1999