A Dehydrated
Bud Lite
by Ken Samuel
One day, the universe was destroyed.
It was completely and irreversably destroyed.
It didn’t really end, but at that point, many people wished it had, and, the following day, ninety percent of the universe’s population left.
This horrible catastrophy wasn’t merely a natural consequence of the passage of time. It wasn’t a result of the very improbable random movement of molecules into such an unsightly arrangement. It wasn’t even caused by the United States government.
One man.
One single man.
One single, stupid man.
This is the story of that man.
When he was beginning to experience some friction.
CHAPTER ONE
I escaped from prison.
I know it was wrong, I know it was selfish, and I know it was illegal. But I just had to get out. They never gave me enough to drink, and I was fed up. (Don’t take that literally. They didn’t give me enough to eat, either.)
It wasn’t easy to escape, though. See, I had a cell on the tenth floor. (There weren’t really enough prisoners to require a ten-story building, and for some strange reason, I was the only one with a cell above the third floor.) But, clearly due to an oversight on somebody’s part, my cell’s window had no bars. So, I leaped out of the window, plummented a hundred feet, and masterfully dived into a paper cup full of water. (It’s not really as hard as it sounds, because I had plenty of time to correct my trajectory on the way down.) Then I had to hold my breath and duck underwater until the heat died down. Several hours later, I realized that the heat had evaporated all of the water, and people were staring at me, because I looked like I was storing nuts for the winter in my cheeks. I climbed out of the cup very quietly and inconspicuously and walked away, whistling.
* * *
I had broken the law. I knew that. The police were after me. I knew that. The forty-second root of forty-two is 1.0930720579348236486794121447019279003143310546875. I knew that too. I juggled these three facts into each of the six possible permutations and arrived at a conclusion. I was in trouble.
Suddenly, an incredible thought hit me. It hit me really hard, and I winced in pair. I massaged my brain soothingly. Anyway, the evil intruding thought said, “Hey, Bud!”
I stopped and looked around. “Uh, who? Me?” I asked.
“Yeah, you. Listen! I’ve got a great idea!”
I peeked behind some garbage cans and then whirled around suddenly, to no avail. “Um, an idea?”
“Yeah. Hey, what are you looking for?”
“Um, some water. I’m quite thirsty.” I looked up, but the sky was clear. I did notice a bright lightbulb hovering above my head.
“Yeah, my throat’s a bit dry, too,” the voice said. “But about my idea. You can trick the stupid cops if you get a disguise!”
“A what?” A walked over to search in a warehouse for my mystery friend.
“A disguise! Change your appearance! Look different!” As I walked through the warehouse door, the lightbulb smashed into the wall, breaking into a thousand pieces. “Uh, what was I talking about?” the voice asked.
“A disguise!” I shouted. “That’s a great idea!”
On an unexpected burst of initiative, I walked up to a complete stranger and asked, “How can I change my appearance?”
The wise old man gazed at me knowingly. Then he spoke in a deep, mysterious whisper, enunciating each syllable softly and clearly. (Make sure you read this very slowly, to get the full effect.) He said, “Go... jump... in... a... lake.”
I was rather surprised to get such helpful information out of him so easily. But I kept my composure and asked, “Which lake?”
He jumped back, apparently startled by my intelligent question. Then he leaned in again and uttered with great force, “A lake that is far, far away.” Then he turned and fled.
* * *
I was driving west on Route 35. I was certain that “far, far away” was much too far to walk, and for a while I had considered that it might be airplane distance, but I finally decided that I could save a little money by driving instead. (This was probably a foolish argument, considering that I didn’t have any money, and I had to steal the car, anyway.)
So I was speeding west in a brand new Corvette --- I wouldn’t settle for less. Besides, I hear the chicks go for Corvettes. Whatever that means.
I was about halfway there, when I noticed a building on the side of the road. You may not think that that’s a strange sight, because the side of the road is a rather popular place to put buildings, but this building had an unusual sign hanging at a slant above the doorway. It read, “God II” in big bold green letters. I had never seen that exact shade of green before, so I decided to go inside and ask about it.
There was a clean-cut young man sitting behind a desk. I’m sure he was about to say, “Hello,” when the phone suddenly rang.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I have to answer the phone. Would you hold, please?” He handed me a brass handle. I held it.
I looked around the room. It wasn’t quite the kind of building that you’d expect a god to work in. There were four walls and most of a ceiling, to be sure, but the room was rather drab and dirty. Nothing was green.
“Sorry for the wait,” said the man, after a short conversation with somebody who was apparently more important than me. “So, are you interested in supporting our cause?”
I tried to take that literally, but there was simply no humor to be found, so I said, “What is your cause?”
“We are People Who Think That God is Really Stupid and He Should Be Replaced.” He pointed at a card on the desk that said, “PWTTGRSHSBR.”
I don’t really believe in God, but I think that slander is a terrible crime, even when it’s directed against an imaginary being. So I asked the man to justify his claim.
“Well, just look at all the stupid mistakes He has made. Everyone knows that giraffes are much too tall to fit into any normal-sized being. Who would create such a silly animal? And, if He had been thinking, He would have made the nerves on our face more sensitive, so you would know that you have an embarrassing piece of food sticking to your chin.”
“I see,” I said, thoughtfully stroking my chin with a handkerchief.
“And any God who had half a brain would never have made a creature who was capable of thinking and learning. Inevitably, this species would become more intelligent than God, Himself, and then an organization like this would put him out of business. When I’m God, the first thing I’ll do is kill off all of the human beings!”
“My God!” I shouted, dropping my handkerchief and the brass handle.
“Don’t bother calling. You’ll just get His voice mail.”
“But, if you succeed, what would God end up doing?”
“Why should I worry? He has His problems, and I have Mine. Now, are you going to make a donation to PWTTGRSHSBR?” he sputtered.
“I don’t have any money,” I said. I bent down to pick up my handkerchief in order to wipe the spit off of my face, and I noticed a twenty dollar bill lying on the floor beside the counter.
“Now, now. Don’t lie to Me. Hand it over.”
Sadly, I laid the twenty on the counter.
“Now you already have one mark against you for lying to your next savior. If I were you, I’d take one of these business cards and send money to Me as soon as I possibly could.”
“Yes, sir! I mean, my father. Or daddy. Whatever.” I nervously grabbed a card and ran out, as the man placed the twenty back on the floor.
* * *
I zoomed past a mere Chevrolet. I whizzed by a Honda. I easily passed a pink Cadillac. Before I knew it, I was far, far away from the city. A sign by the side of the road said, “Lake”, and it had an arrow pointing toward some bushes.
I parked the car in the middle of the highway (after first making a careful check for “No Parking” signs) and walked toward, and into, the lake. It coldly shouted, “Splash!”
I sat there in the two-inch deep water, contemplating my situation. The nice man had told me to jump in the lake, but I had more or less fallen in. So I climbed out of the water, stepped back, and dove smoothly into the lake, scratching some important portions of my skin on a few cruel rocks hiding at the bottom.
Once again, I sat in two inches of water, trying to figure out what to do next. I tried to swim, but my swimming class had never covered swimming in such a small quantity of water. So I basically splashed to the other side of the lake.
After climbing out and drying myself with a tree, I looked in the lake to see if I had a disguise now. Well the results were phenomenal. I looked very different from before. In fact, I no longer looked human, but I lived in New York City, so that wouldn’t matter.
It’s rather difficult to explain exactly what my disguise looked like. Several sections of my body were wiggling and flowing to the left and right, regardless of where the rest of my body felt like going. My face was blurring in and out until I began to feel dizzy, so I went back to the car and threw up.
CHAPTER TWO
I was driving back home. About a mile outside the city, I decided it was best to leave the stolen car behind. Of course, I left the doors, the windows, the trunk, the hood, the sun roof, the moon roof, the glove compartment, the air vents, and the ashtrays wide open, with the key in the ignition and the radio playing, “Take me, Baby!”
When I arrived at my house, I found the spare key in its secret hiding place (the keyhole) and opened the door. A man sitting on my favorite easy stool suddenly jumped up, pointing an empty beer bottle at me, shouting, “Hey, you’re... you’re you!”
I glanced at the hall mirror and discovered that he was absolutely right. Then I did a double-take and realized that it really was my reflection in the mirror. My disguise had worn off. Looking at the man on the stool, I saw that he was sort of wearing a police uniform. (His jacket’s buttons were in the wrong holes, his shoes were on the wrong feet, his cap was upside down, and his fly was open, but the basic idea was there.)
He fell down. Then he tried to stand up and failed. He tried again and bounced from wall to wall until he crashed into me. Then he slickly whipped out his handcuffs and attached my right wrist to a nail stuck in the wall.
“Here, hold this,” he said, handing me the key. “I always seem to lose it.”
He stumbled back across the room and attempted to pick up the telephone. When he finally achieved that goal, he looked at my list of important phone numbers on my bulletin board, searching for the word, “police”. Finally, he embarked on the more complex task of dialing.
I realized that I had nothing to worry about. This policeman was a brainless drunkard. Those two qualities barely even add up to a human being. So, I squeezed out of the handcuffs (sticking them in my pocket, as they might come in handy), and headed to my bedroom.
The house hadn’t changed much since I had been arrested, three days earlier. There was my bed. Here was my wallet full of money (which I quickly stuffed into my pocket). And there was my jar, full of candy hearts, with a label reading, “This jar is adored.” (Get it? Well, maybe you will later.)
As I returned to the front hall, I heard the policeman saying, “Duh, hiya, Boss! I’ve... uh... I’ve...”
“Got him,” I said.
“Duh, yeah! Got him! I’ve got him!!! Hey, Boss! I’ve got him, got him, got him!!!”
In a sudden fit of excitement, he threw the phone, which landed directly in my garbage compactor and instantly disintegrated. “Duh,” he said, thoughtfully.
Suddenly, his walkie-talkie thing started beeping furiously. The officer rushed to the front door and opened it. He leaned out, looked left and right, lost his grip, and went tumbling down the steps.
I snuck out through a window.
* * *
I headed for the city airport as fast as my legs would carry me. Fortunately, it was only a block away.
Now the fact is, I had never really been on an airplane. But I was a little embarrassed about it, so please don’t have told anyone. Anyway, I walked around to the back of the airport, because that’s where all of airplanes were. Most of them were locked, but I finally found one with an open door.
I followed the line of people who were walking from the airport to the plane. We climbed up a ladder and walked down the aisle. I found myself an empty seat and started to read all the little signs, sounding out the long words.
Then a beautiful girl sat down beside me! She had a cute face with bright blue eyes and dimples. She was attractively thin, and I fell in love with her at once. But I played it cool. I said, “Hello there. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a plane like this?”
She giggled softly, so I continued. “Do you come here often?”
She continued her girlish giggling. I could tell she was crazy about me. She started to say, “I... I...”
“... love me?” I finished for her. She was laughing out loud now.
Then she became very serious. She looked up and caught my gaze. Our eyes locked in a passionate embrace. Her eyes sparkled youthfully as she felt the power of true love hit her for the first time. She continued staring at me with her mesmerizing eyes and stretched her hands out toward me. I offered my right hand, which she took with a smile. Her soft, smooth hands gently caressed mine. I was starting to get excited.
Slowly and sensually, she pulled my hand toward her mouth and began sucking longingly on my index finger. I could feel her tongue doing erotic things to my finger. I was starting to sweat.
Slowly, one by one, she opened the buttons on her shirt, revealing the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. I gulped. She pulled my moist finger down her bare chest, sliding it smoothly between her breasts, down over her belly button, to the edge of her diaper.
Her mother turned and said, “Elizabeth Marie Smith! What have you done to yourself?” She quickly buttoned up the baby’s shirt as I stared innocently out the window.
* * *
A man came down the aisle and looked at me. “Excuse me,” he said. “I believe you’re in my seat. May I see your ticket?”
“Um, show me yours,” I said, thinking quickly.
He showed his ticket to me, and I said, “Oh yeah. You’re right.” I got up and found myself another empty seat.
Soon a lady came by and said, “Hey, that’s my seat.” An airline stewardess with a big scar running down her face came by. I quickly switched seats.
When a big man with bulging muscles began staring at me from the aisle, I jumped up and ran toward another seat, crashing into the stewardess with the scar on accident.
Finally, I found an unclaimed seat, and the airplane took off. The sensation of flying was absolutely miserable. I started to feel very sick. Fortunately, I hadn’t eaten since the last time I regurgitated, so I couldn’t re-regurgitate.
I decided to look out the window. I saw the entire city spread out before me. After searching for a bit, I found my house. I noticed a man sneaking out the back door with my television set. The police officer was still lying on his face on my front lawn.
Looking upward, I saw a thick layer of clouds above. The airplane was heading up toward that white barrier. Apparently the pilot didn’t see it. As we got closer, I began to get really frightened. Suddenly, I shouted, “Oh my God!!! We’re going to crash!!!”
Well, that certainly made things more interesting. People started getting up and running all over the place, screaming. When I turned, I saw Scarface staring harshly at me. I closed my eyes and pretended I was asleep.
The intercom called out, “Please calm down and return to your seats. The idiot in seat 12A was lying, and I suggest you take care of him when we land.” Opening my eyes, I saw that everyone had noticed me. I gave my audience a feeble wave.
* * *
Before long, Scarface came by and offered me a tray of food. I couldn’t find a table, so I just placed it on my lap. Scarface seemed satisfied with that. She asked, “Would you like anything to drink?”
I noticed she had a small earing in her nose. I said, “Yes. Could I please have a Dr. Pepper?”
“I’m sorry. We don’t have Dr. Pepper.”
“Well then, just mix some Sprite and Coke in a glass.”
“What?” She rolled up her sleeves, exposing her muscular biceps with a tattoo of a naked woman.
“Just mix the Sprite and Coke, or I’ll report you.”
She glared at me, just to make sure I knew she was bigger than me. Then she turned and left.
So, I did what any self-respecting guy would do in that situation. I ate my food, though I was still quite thirsty. But the meal was delicious. I never figured out how to get the cutlery out of the plastic wrapper, so I just used them with the wrapper on. As I ate, I read everything in the pocket in front of me.
Eventually, Scarface came back to take my tray. “That was delicious,” I said. “May I please have seconds?”
She gave me one quick glare and left.
I spent the rest of the time staring out the window. The clouds were gone. (I guess the plane had some sort of ray gun to destroy clouds.) And I could see a glorious, but rather boring, empty desert. Suddenly, I noticed a structure in the distance. It looked sort of like a building, but as we approached it, I saw that it had no walls and no roof. All it had were twelve girders arranged in the form of a cube. It was the simplest structure I had ever seen. I was fascinated with it immediately.
I hit the stewardess button several times before Scarface finally showed up. I said, “I’d like to get off here, please.”
Suddenly, she smiled. “Come right this way, Sir.”
As she walked to the front of the plane, she said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to send your baggage separately.”
“Oh. I don’t have any baggage. I always travel lite.”
“Oh good.” She smiled again. She was missing three teeth.
When we reached the front of the plane, she opened the hatch and pushed me out. I desperately grabbed the edge of the door. I hung there, clinging for my life, yelling, “Hey! Is there a cup of water down there?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Oh, okay.” I let go.
CHAPTER THREE
I fell.
Then I fell some more.
I fell because of that overpowering force that we call gravity. Despite popular belief, gravity is not really a physical force. The physicists of the world want you to believe that, so you keep sending them donations in fear that they might turn the gravity off at any time. But in reality, gravity is more of a spiritual force. Suppose, for example, that a person flies five light years away from the Earth and survives. According to the physicists, this silly person would feel no significant pull from the Earth’s gravity. But actually, the idiot would feel the spiritual tug of his heart from the place that he calls home, and he would soon return, even if he had to walk back. On the other hand, if he was only a few thousand feet above the Earth’s surface, this pull is completely subconscious, and the nutcase would return to Earth without even thinking about it. This is what I did.
So, I fell.
My velocity increased at an alarming rate. Eventually, I achieved terminal velocity, but since I’m such a man, I surpassed that as well. After all, I had already broken so many laws. Who would mind one more.
I continued to fall.
It was a long way down, and I got pretty bored with the monotony. So I looked around at the scenery. Basically, there was nothing interesting at all, with the exception of the girder structure that had first attracted me. So I looked at that. Something was clearly wrong with it. It looked like it was blurry, but it didn’t really look blurry. Is that clear?
Suddenly, I figured out what was wrong. Taking a careful count, I realized that this cube had 32 edges and 16 corners, instead of the 12 edges and 8 corners that any respectable cube would care to have. But it still appeared to be a cube, despite the fact that four edges met at every corner, all at (I took another look) right angles to one another!
While I was marvelling at this physical impossibility, I crashed into the ground, just a couple of feet away from the cup of water.
* * *
I was unconscious. I wasn’t quite sure what one should do when unconscious, as it had never happened to me before, so I just lay there and waited. When I felt cold water splash into my face, I decided that was my cue to wake up.
“Hey! Why don’t you look before you throw water!” I sputtered.
“Hey! Why don’t you look before you lie down right where I throw water!” sputtered an old prospector holding an empty paper cup.
“What’s the big idea of wasting water, anyway!” I shouted. “I’m thirsty!”
The old man threw the cup at me and walked away. I realized that I probably didn’t make a very good first impression. So I ran up to the man and said, “I’m sorry,” as I slipped him a couple of bucks.
He smiled. “Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” I said. I was never one for small talk, so I got right to the point. “Could you tell me why that building over there is so strange?”
A misty look hovered over his eyes, as they turned around to read the memories off of his brain. He seemed to be possessed as he related his story. “Ah. One day, the helicopters descended. The men began running helter-skelter, erecting a great building. Then the hailstorm began, and they rushed for the shelter of my little shack. One of them looked at my map and realized that this wasn’t really Manhattan. They quickly said hello, goodbye, and they left.”
When his eyes returned, I said, “No. I mean why does the cube have 32 edges and 16 corners?”
He turned to look at the structure and then realized how stupid he was to look. So he kicked some sand in my face and walked off.
I stared in disbelief. The structure was a normal cube. I counted 12 edges and 8 corners. I shook my head and counted again.There was absolutely nothing wrong with this building (besides the fact that it had no walls, but that was insignificant).
Looking around me, I saw nothing but sand in every direction. I was stranded in a desert. What a perfect place to be when you’re dying of thirst. I hit myself on the head for being so stupid.
I walked up to the building, entered it through a wall, and looked around. A perfect cube. Probably the most perfect cube in the whole universe. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the image I had seen before. Soon, I saw the weird cube in my mind. “If that cube was really here,” I thought, “then I should be able to get to the other side by walking in this direction.”
I walked. As I continued walking, I opened my eyes, and then, shocked by what I saw, quickly shut them again. Slowly, cautiously, I reopened them.
My feet were moving, but the view wasn’t changing. I wasn’t walking forward. I wasn’t walking backward. I couldn’t have been edging left or right, and I certainly wasn’t going up or down. But I was definitely moving.
I stopped. Everything was the same, except I was sweating up a storm, my teeth were chattering, my body felt weak, and I was more thirsty than ever.
I decided to walk in a normal direction. Forward seemed to be a good choice. Walking forward felt especially good. I tried walking backward, but I tripped and fell, so I stuck to forward. I was starting to relax. I was on sure ground, so to speak. Then, just when I was beginning to smile, I saw it!
It was vaguely human. I mean, it had a head, two legs, two arms, and a body. But each of these separate parts were much smaller and rounder than normal. They were elliptical paraboloids (look it up in a geometry book) connected tangentially (study a geometry book). Then I noticed the little spheres located where hands would normally be. But, the hands weren’t actually connected to the arms. So they just hovered in the air, suspended in the appropriate positions, going against everything I had ever believed in.
One of the hands reached out and grabbed me. I screamed, and it released its hold.I ran away faster than I had ever run before. When I thought I had escaped, I began walking in the strange direction again, but going the opposite way. When I had walked for what I felt was about the same distance as before, I turned (in real directions). There was the prospector standing in front of me, glaring coldly with fire in his eyes. (You try that sometime.)
The angry old man squeezed his words through clenched teeth. “Who the hell are you?”
“Hi,” I said with a smile. “My name is Bud. What’s yours?” I extended my hand.
He spat on my hand. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Oh, just talking a little walk. I didn’t get your name...” I offered my hand again.
He grabbed it and twisted it until I screamed. “Like hell you were.”
“Uh, yeah. Just like that. So what’s your name?” I generously stuck out my other hand.
He took my hand with a good firm grip, shook it up and down a couple of times, and threw me over his shoulder. “You had me scared as hell.”
I got up, rubbing my bruises. “How scared, exactly, is hell?” I asked.
“Shut the hell up!” He turned and walked off.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
I couldn’t quite make out the single word that he muttered, but I think I know what it was.
CHAPTER FOUR
I walked in the new direction. After all, there was nowhere else to go, so I walked in the new direction.
I think I should probably come up with a name for this new direction, because it’s really growing rather old. Let’s see. We already have forward, backward, left, right, up, and down. So the obvious choices for the new directions are “ana” and “kata,” unless you have any better ideas. (I was considering “climatry” and “juminalake,” but I felt the puns would grow old quickly.)
So I walked ana. (I like it already.) Since there were no other interesting attractions, I watched the building as I walked. Suddenly, the girders disappeared, and only the corners remained. There were eight cubes of solid metal, four of them hanging in the air, and the other four sitting on the ground below them. Then, after I walked further ana, the girders reappeared. I wondered if I was going in circles.
But as I continued walking ana, the entire structure vanished, leaving me alone with my thoughts. So I became very lonely. But I continued walking ana. After a while, I became dizzy, because, according to my eyes, I simply wasn’t moving. But my feet insisted that they were doing overtime, and they wanted a raise. My eyes were getting rather cross, because they thought my feet were just pulling my legs. My feet told my eyes to just shut up. My brain, which was getting tired of all this arguing, agreed that my eyes should shut up. So, with a pout of disgust, they did.
I continued walking ana, without the benefits of vision. Inevitably, I tripped over a rock that I hadn’t seen.
“Hey, Stupid!” I shouted. “Why don’t you watch where you’re sitting?” I tried to go ana again, but I tripped over the same rock.
I clearly had a problem, so I decided to have a talk with my eyes. “Hey, eyes,” I said. “Now look...”
“No!!!” they cried.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
“Eye see...”
“And... I’ll never overlook you again.”
“And you’ll show us dirty magazines?”
“As soon as I get home.”
“Okay.” And my eyes reopened.
“Oh no!” My feet stamped. “We won’t stand for this! We’re walking.” And with that, my feet went on strike and I tumbled to the ground.
So I crawled ana on my hands and knees.
* * *
The desert sand stretched on and on and on and on... and so on. I crawled slowly, with my parched tongue hanging from my mouth, desperately searching for some good wet dihydrogen oxide. My head spun, my hands burned, my eyes stung,... get the picture?
I considered falling asleep, like my feet did. Perhaps I would dream about water, which might quench my thirst. Then I saw the mirage! I knew it was a mirage --- simply an optical illusion caused by the sun’s reflection off the sand, coupled with a psychological longing for water. These thoughts rolled through my head and out my ear. I was so thirsty that I was determined to drink from the mirage.
I began crawling toward it. It slowly slid away from me. I crawled faster, and it slid faster. I crawled even faster, and it moved so fast that it was extending its lead. Then I stopped suddenly, and it drew to a halt.
Thoughts meandered throughout my head. “Forget about it.” “Sneak up on it.” “Try to reason with it.” “Bribe it.” “Maybe the problem is that you have bad breath. Drink a glass of water or something.” I was hopelessly delirious.
As I was doing all this intellectual reasoning, the mirage grew bored and faded away.
* * *
I continued my endless trek ana. Perhaps, I thought, I should have gone kata instead. How was I to know? I should have checked a map first.
Maybe I should go back. But there was no water waiting for me to come drink it there. And there was no water here either. There was no water anywhere! I lay down and wept, but my tears dried up before they reached my mouth. Suddenly, I heard voices! Female voices! An entire village stretched out before me! And two aliens were approaching! (Getting exciting, huh? Can’t put it down?)
CHAPTER FIVE
The two strange alien creatures resembled human beings in many respects, but they were only one foot tall. That is, they probably would have been a foot tall if they were standing, but they were crawling on their hands and knees, clearly imitating my example.
Each alien had light pink skin, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, ten fingers, ten toes,... I think you get the idea. But these female aliens were entirely naked except for a tight pair of short, short shorts. My eyes perked up instantly and began scanning for a better look, only to be sadly disappointed. Both aliens were actually male. But they spoke in female voices, leaving me completely confused.
“Ah ga ga doo doo,” one said to the other.
“Boo ig zoot goo goo,” the other replied.
Then the first alien spoke to me. “Ah ha ha.”
The alien language struck me as strangely familiar, from somewhere deep in my past. I concentrated on the words, and slowly, I remembered. “Uh, ah ha ha,” I said cautiously. It had been so long since I had used this language.
But the alien must have understood me, because he/she started giggling and clapping his/her hands.
Then the other one asked me, “Goo ah ga da da?”
I smiled and replied, “Ah zzt ga bee bee ka ka <burp>.”
Instantly, he/she started crying loudly. His/her friend glared at me and crawled off, soon to return with another alien. This new alien was huge! I mean he/she must have been almost one fourth my size! And he/she had a tattoo of a heart on his/her arm. Or maybe that was just drool.
He/she said something to me in a whisper that was too soft to understand. As I leaned in to hear more clearly, he/she quickly clubbed me over the head with a heavy rattle. I guess I must have fallen to the ground.
* * *
I awoke with an incredible headache. There was nothing I wanted more than an aspirin washed down by a glass of water, but neither was readily available, as I was locked in a jail cell. Fortunately, due to some kind of construction oversight, this jail cell was missing a roof. Unfortunately, I was really too dizzy to do any extensive climbing. Fortunately, due to another construction oversight (Boy, somebody’s gonna get it!), the cell walls were only three feet tall. Unfortunately, the jail cell was so small that I was completely incapable of moving the bottom two feet of my body (as well as part of my two legs). Fortunately, due to a third construction oversight (Okay, you’re fired!), the cell walls were wooden, and they looked weak. Unfortunately, I’m also weak. Fortunately... Fortunately... Fortunately... Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of any more good news.
For the first time, I noticed my audience. Millions of aliens (or twelve) crowded around, staring at me. Just for fun, I snarled, and they backed up several feet. Then, one of the smaller aliens crawled up out of the pack. (Do aliens come in packs? No, I think it’s swarms.) He/she was sobbing softly, and I noticed, with mild jealousy, that his/her tears were not evaporating.
The alien approached and handed me a doll. It was one of those female teenage dolls. I rubbed my hands skillfully over her plastic skin. 36-24-36, I estimated.
The alien then handed me a plastic left arm. Coincidentally, the doll was missing a left arm. I didn’t think it was right for such a beautiful doll and her left arm to lead separate lives, so I pushed the arm into the hole on the doll, and it popped inwith a snap. The strenuous effort left me breathless. But the alien started jumping up and down, screaming with pleasure. I thought he/she must be having an orgasm, so I handed him/her the doll, because I thought it might help.
Meanwhile, a hush had developed over the crowd. Another alien crawled forward and handed me a toy truck with a wheel that had fallen off. I fixed it, and everybody started cheering. So I took a bow.
* * *
Over the next few days, I fixed toys, changed diapers, breast fed (well, tried several times), built houses, invented automobiles, and developed nuclear weapons for the little society. In return, they gave me an endless supply of water. I was very happy there.
But in time, I became rather waterlogged, and I desperately longed for a toilet. So I decided to return home. Everyone came out to see me off. They all waved bye-bye and I began crying from the sadness of the moment, and the tears rolled down my face, forming a small stream. (The aliens later named it “Whatzisname River.”)
So I began the long trek kataward. And when my feet began to scream in agony, “Is it much farther?” I didn’t even humor them. I just yelled, “Hold your tongue!” But my eyes were in a very pleasant mood, because they were completely filled with water as the air was very humid. They were enjoying the trip, pointing out tourist attractions along the way. “On your left you’ll see a cute little puddle.” “There’s a large lake to the left.” “Isn’t that a magnificent ocean on the left... and also on the right.” The ocean continued to grow, and when it was over my head, I stopped walking.
Then I swam forward until I reached the east coast of the United States. Then I went kata a little more. Then forward when the water surrounded me again. And by zigzagging in this manner, I ended up in New York City. Although it was pouring rain, I still had to walk five miles in normal space to my house. So I followed the gravity home, wondering why I was still writing this story, since I had clearly achieved my quest to quench my thirst. I was just about to put my pen down when I became compelled to add a trailing link for my next story.
“You never sent a donation, did you, Whale Slime?”
I whirled around to see nobody. Then a bucket of water was poured on my head from above. I looked up, and squinting through the rain, I saw a vaguely familiar young man who was floating above me. He seemed to be completely unaffected by the rain. Suddenly, I realized who he was. “Oh my God!” I shouted.
“It’s God II to you, Whale Saliva.”
“Um,” I said, “I was just about to send you a donation when...”
“It’s too late now, Sperm Whale Semen. I’m the new God now. And as I explained before, my first goal is to eliminate the human race from the face of the universe. Now since you’ve really gotten on my nerves, I’ve decided to give you the unenviable honor of being destroyed first.”
He smiled and whirled his hand in the air. Suddenly, nothing happened!!! He mustered another smile and tried again. Still nothing. Slightly frustrated, he tried turning his hand in the opposite direction. This time, a lightning bolt materialized in his hand. He was so startled that he almost dropped it.
He looked at me with a wicked smile. The lightning bolt thundered loudly in his hand. His teeth were clenched tightly together, and his eyes were watering furiously, but despite the pain, he managed to spit out a few very important words: “Die, you gravy-sucking pig!!!” Then he threw the lightning bolt at me. All I could do was flinch, so I did that several times. The man in the air cackled as the lightning bolt crackled. And then, just when it was millimeters away from my gulping throat, it turned away. It shot off into the sky and dissolved in the storm clouds.
“God damn it!” the man shouted. “Wrong charge!”