Blowfish Fugue -- Zargan, character insights

     Zargan gnawed toothlessly at the webbing between his thumb and forefinger on his left hand. He remembered the last day he was a human and snorted.
     Zargan pinched the tip of his tongue between the first two fingers of his left hand and stretched it all the way out to, oh, about seventh position for a trombone. He tensed it up and twanged it with the sticky nubbin on his right index finger.
     Changing the tension and length of the stretch, Zargan began, vaguely recognizably, a tongue-twang rendition of "Oh, Susanna". There were a few stops and restarts as he nudged his technique a few inches along the bumpy, miles long road to perfection.
     He discovered quite by accident that by inflating his throat-pouch he could amplify the volume by a truly disturbing, window-rattling amount and add a weird baritone tremolo, sounding like a plucked didjeridoo, if there were such a thing.
     The board meeting, by fits and starts, tried vainly to go on around him and over him, seated as he was on the middle of the giant boardroom table. Board members surrounded Zargan, craning necks nervously to try see one another's faces.
     Attempts to remove him had been farcical. He was steadfastly invisible and intangible to the security staff -- both physical and overlay. They had even changed rooms. Twice.
     Zargan simply got up and followed them, pausing only to get a drink from the water cooler.
     Eventually he put his tongue away, leaned back on the table, and farted into the mahogany. The current speaker sputtered but continued warily.
     No way in hell I'm ever going back, Zargan swore to himself. I'd have to be nuts.

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