“Oh come on,” he continued, “sure you can leave the room, the ship, even the galaxy if you want to, but ultimately you'll find yourself to be a prisoner of the universe.”
“What do you mean?” asked the guard who was now sincerely interested in what he was saying.
“Okay, take that coffee of yours, it is what it is, that is instant coffee. It may want to be fresh coffee, but it is instant coffee and will always be instant coffee.”
“So?”
“Well it's the same for you, you can't change what you are however hard you may try. What's your name?” he asked softly.
“Clive.”
“Well Clive, it's like this, you're a Clive and always will be. You may strive to be a J6G, or a Klangpal, or an Eric, but a Clive you are, and a Clive you will remain.”
“Well I like being a Clive,” said Clive.
“Sure you may like being a Clive now, but believe you me, a time will come when you'll want to be something else, and then you'll discover that you're actually a prisoner of Clive. Understand?”
“Yes,” he lied in a small voice.
“Good,” said Fendel.
“So what can I do about it?” he asked desperately, patently aware now that he should be greatly alarmed by something or another.
“Oh nothing.”
“What, nothing, nothing at all?!”
“Nothing,” repeated Fendel.
Now Clive was greatly distressed by all of this, and horrified by the fact that nothing at all could be done about it. What it actually was however, that nothing at all could be done about, seemed hardly relevant any more.
“But there must be something that can be done?!” said Clive frantically.
“Nope.”
“But there just has to be!”
“Nope.”
“Don't you care?!” shouted Clive, beginning to panic.
“Oh me no,” replied Fendel.
“What?!” he cried aghast.
“I don't care, because it doesn't affect me,” explained Fendel calmly.
“It doesn't affect you, why?!” he demanded.
“Ah, because I am somebody else's responsibility, and therefore free within that context.”
“But you're a prisoner,” said Clive.
“Yes, but as a prisoner I am free, free to live my life by my own rules, in my own way. Okay I admit my life may be a simple one, strolling my little cell before lunch is served, a short snooze before dinner, and then perhaps a little more strolling before bed, but it is the life I choose to live, and as such, makes me happy. Do you see?”
“Yeah,” he lied again, nodding altogether too seriously.
“Can I ask you a question Clive?”
“Sure.”
“Are you happy?”
“What?”
“Are you happy Clive?” Fendel repeated.
“Well,” he began, taking a sip of his instant coffee (which was now cold), “I used to think I was, but now I just don't know what to think.”
“You're the real prisoner here,” said Fendel softly, “with all the pressures of the universe on your shoulders. I doubt if you get to have a nice little stroll before bed, or even sleep in until lunchtime.”
“I have to get up in the morning,” sobbed Clive, starting to cry.
“That's it, let it out,” encouraged Fendel.
“Why is life so cruel?” moaned Clive, who now appeared to be having a full-blown mental breakdown.
“Who can say,” replied Fendel bluntly, “there is a way however of improving your lot.”
“There is?” said Clive, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes Clive, there is.”
“What is it?”
“We can swap places,” answered Fendel, “I'll become a prisoner of the universe, and you can sleep and stroll in freedom to your hearts content.”
“But why would you do that for me?”
“Let's just say it's because I like you Clive, because you remind me of an old friend,” explained Fendel, who was remembering one of his first pets, a giant space amoeba named Spot.
“Wow, I don't know what to say,” he replied, starting to cry again.
“Don't say anything, just unlock this cell and you can begin your wonderful new life!”
Clive approached Fendel beaming at him as though in love, and Fendel half-smiled back contemplating the quite unforgivable stupidity of this Co-leen guard. The universe had been around for billions of years and its one guiding principle was the survival of the fittest. He now watched Clive, who had dropped his set of prison key-cards causing them to spill all over the floor, and was now scrambling around on all fours, desperately searching for a key-card with which he might lock himself in a prison cell. What had been the point he wondered fruitlessly, knowing only too well that the universe was run by Clives, who pushed little buttons and felt terribly important doing so.
“Finally,” he gasped, holding aloft a key-card as though it might part the heavens above.
“Great,” said Fendel nonchalantly, who was eager to be getting on his way, “now just open...”
“What's going on here?!” barked a Co-leen officer, who suddenly appeared through the door to the prison.
“Nothing sir!” shouted Clive, stumbling to attention.
“Good!” shouted back the officer, “I've come to relieve you, so on your way soldier.”
“Yes sir,” replied Clive, who looking apologetically at Fendel, then made his way despondently from the prison.
Fendel watched his freedom ticket leave with a resigned manner. Okay he had been in the prison cell for a little longer than he had expected, yet this did not bother him, he was rather beginning to enjoy himself. He looked at the Co-leen officer and gave him a sly smile.
“What's so funny worm?” growled the officer.
“Oh, it's not funny, it's deadly serious.”
“What is?” asked the officer, genuinely intrigued.
“Well,” he replied, with a growing smile, “I was just wondering how it felt to be locked out there like that?”
4.
Pete figured that his suicide attempt had gone wrong, it had in fact gone so wrong that, rather than having left the earth and his life onboard it, he was now its representative and its only hope. This bothered him, much in the same way as it might bother a tortoise who found himself disqualified from the Olympic one hundred meters for a false start. Still, he decided that even though he may not be the obvious choice for savior of the world, he was going to give it his best shot, and try to make something out of the life he had been given a second chance at.
Pete followed the lights around a maze of corridors, and finally emerged in a gigantic hall full of aliens. This took a few seconds to register in his brain, and having checked his pulse, and his watch to see what time it was, he suddenly blurted out:
“Hi there, does anybody want to know the time?”
“No,” said an alien.
He stood dumbfounded and likened the experience to what seemed like a million buckets of alien eyes being thrown at him by a custom-designed machine of sorts, whilst trying nonchalantly to appear as if he really knew exactly what it was that he was supposed to be doing, which it must be said, he did not. It would then be equally fair to say that even if he had been handed an entirely explanatory manual made entirely of pictures, and was then given the rest of his life to study it and then ponder any ramifications, would he have then been any closer to the faintest form of a coherent understanding of events as they transpired around him. Pete, for all his efforts, fainted.
“Mr Martin.”
“Wah, who?” he slurred, as he came to.
Pete opened his eyes and was greeted with a sight that gave him an immediate urge to shut his eyes again, so he did.
“Mr Martin please.”
Now, he was very skeptical as to whether after such a short amount of time having passed by, opening his eyes again was really the best option available. After a tiny consideration however, he
concluded that when greeted with a hall of alien life, one could probably benefit from utilizing all the human senses, sight included, and therefore, opened his eyes.
“Ah Mr Martin, have you decided to join us finally?” asked an alien.
“Er, yes, I have,” he replied nervously.
“And will you accept the role as representative of your puny planet and attempt to defend yourself and your species against the accusation of being utterly inferior?”
“Er, yes again, I will.”
“Very well, we shall begin,” announced the alien.
He watched as all the aliens seemed to float towards the sides of the enormous room, and was then startled to discover himself gliding gently backwards until he found himself sitting in a chair facing the aliens with a sense of foreboding.
“Before we begin, do you have any questions Mr Martin?” asked an alien stepping forward.
He stared at the alien, who it has to be said had neglected to appear quite as alien as the stereotypical ones he had become accustomed to growing up, and who instead had chosen to look altogether human were it not for the abnormally long chin which seemed to possess more dimensions then the three he had traditionally expected. The fact that the aliens all seemed to be wearing a pair of jeans and t-shirt was perhaps the oddest thing that struck him, but it was rather the lack of sense of occasion that this afforded that rattled him most, for he was perhaps the best dressed being in the room for the first time in his particularly scruffy and fashionably makeshift life, that distressed him more then any length of chin possibly could.
He managed to tear his eyes away from the alien's quite incredible chin for a moment in order to ask:
“Yes, where in the hell am I, who the hell are you, and, well, hell I don't know?!”
“Please remain calm Mr Martin, it appears that your minuscule intellect is finding this all a little difficult to get to grips with, I will however, enlighten you presently. You, Mr Martin, are on board a Co-leen fathership, we are the Co-leen, rulers of everything and anything else that we may have missed in the course of ruling everything, and what the hell you don't know is none of my concern, nor do I imagine that, deep down, it's actually yours either.”
Pete nodded.
“Now, it is our intention to remove your planet from the cosmos, do you agree that this would be in everybody's best interests?”
“It certainly wouldn't be in my best interests,” he answered, sounding more than just a little hurt.
“Now, now Mr Martin, this is no time to be selfish, your insignificant little planet is taking up a quite undue quantity of space with respect to what it has given back, and we must remember that we are all but mere tenants of the universe, and if we can't pay the rent then we really must be moving on.”
“Oh so you'll be moving us somewhere else then?” he asked excitedly.
“No, we'll just be removing you altogether, it works out much cheaper that way,” answered the Co-leen in a voice that communicated finality.
“Look,” he began, his eyes beginning to twinkle as if he possessed ideas in his head, “what do you mean my planet is taking up too much space, the universe is massive and can easily accommodate my planet and my people,” he finished with an air of challenge.
“Ah but we fear that you are confused Mr Martin, would you kindly tell us your opinion as to how big your Earth continent of Africa is?” asked the Co-leen deviously.
“Oh Africa's huge,” he replied, emphasizing the “huge” and making a grandiose, sweeping arm movement.
“Huge you say?”
“Yes,” he affirmed.
“And how much bigger would you say “massive” is to “huge”?” asked the Co-leen with a sly look.
“What?!” he stumbled, his eyes dulling as he said it.
“I said, how much bigger is “massive” to “huge”?”
“Well, it's all a matter of context isn't it?” he replied, feeling a little out of his depth.
“Go on,” coaxed the Co-leen.
“Okay,” he continued, his confidence growing, “a mountain is massive in regard to a mouse, but in regard to the land mass it is a part of, it can be tiny.”
“But if Africa is huge and the universe massive, then your entire planet, of which Africa is but a part, must be taking up far too much room in the universe!” stated the Co-leen matter-of-factly, creating a roar of approval that echoed around the hall.
Pete, realizing that he was in a hall full of alien idiots, sighed and sank back into his chair; not only was he the best dressed life form in the room for the first time, he was now probably the smartest too. As a result, his first impressions of outer space were not favorable, it was much like being held back a year in high school, an experience that he was not keen to repeat.
“Look, I'll say this slowly,” said Pete slowly, “it's not that the universe is massive and the continent of Africa is huge in relation to each other, in fact Africa is tiny with regard to the universe, and my planet takes up less space in the universe than a mouse does in a billion African continents!”
“Yes,” responded the Co-leen with an air of superiority, “but if a million massive mice are huge in respect of the continent of Africa, then the universe must be too big to hold your planet responsible for anything smaller than a very tiny mouse indeed...”
It should be said that Pete actually dozed off here, though it must be remembered that it had been an awfully strange day for him and he can therefore be forgiven for dreaming of numerous massive mice, all wielding multi-dimensional chins and the most absurd logical misgivings.
“...And given that mice only rarely appear bigger than the most stubborn African continent, all in favor of destroying the human planet say “of course”,” concluded the Co-leen.
“Of course!” echoed around the hall.
Pete awoke to discover that he and his planet had been found guilty of being thoroughly inferior, and both were to be thoroughly destroyed as a result. He did then decide however, to give it one more shot.
“Now look here,” he began rallying, “how can you say that we're inferior, can't you see all that we have accomplished?”
“Mr Martin, millions of your earth years ago, the first glimmerings of what was to become man crawled out of your planet's oceans as small, slimy creatures, hell-bent on evolution. Having evolved at a quite astonishing rate into the species that you are today, and having established only the very basic foundations of civilization, you then began to pour all of your collective energy into the manufacture of what you call “quality entertainment”. Having decided somewhat enigmatically along the way that “God was dead”, after many thousands of years fighting each other over indeed which God it was that was supposed to be living, it now appeared that your race could no longer function beyond what was needed to maintain the absorption of this “quality entertainment”, which was done through small black boxes central to every one of your family units. Your species' devotion to these boxes and the absorption of “quality entertainment” through them is quite remarkable, it is so however, only in so far as it is fanatical; because of this, you and your species are a disgrace to those small, slimy creatures who worked so hard at evolution which was at the very end, all for you,” finished the Co-leen dramatically, making the word “you” sound like a particularly nasty disease.
Pete found this affront all rather difficult to take, and felt as if he had woken up having been unknowingly moved to the smart kids' class. As a result of this, he discovered that before he had been given enough time to compose himself and re-evaluate the intellectual relationship that he had with his foe, he had interjected, with sadly misplaced optimism, the defense:
“What about animal documentaries?!”
This was answered with a two minute silence, in which Pete avoided eye contact by actually watching a hundred and twenty seconds pass on his watch.
“Mr Martin, you and your planet must go, the charge against you and your race is that of being inferior, how do you
plead?”
Pete was beginning to lose hope, and imagined himself becoming more inferior by the second. In a last desperate bid he asked:
“What about philosophy, science, and art?”
But even as he said this, he knew that the Co-leen already had some smart alec response, that would make him feel even worse about himself and his kind.
“Well,” began the Co-leen, as if rehearsing an introduction between Pete's neck and a guillotine, “one of your most famous thinkers, one who indeed set the philosophical stone rolling, a Greek named Socrates, reached the most remarkable and revealing conclusion that all he knew, was that he knew nothing, and philosophers since have been arguing as to whether this knowing nothing is really an impediment to philosophy at all. Your science has put men on the big lump of rock circling your planet, where they put up a picture of stripes and stars and made it presumably what you Mr Martin snub “American”; it has also gone as far as creating devices that can open tins electronically, as well as seeing to the death of millions of your race due to the scientific curiosity you hold with making things on your planet explode. And as for your art, it includes perhaps most famously a picture called the Mona Lisa, which it seems has transcended art due to the fact that it is no longer seen, but is instead flashed at with small hand-held contraptions by people who wish to prove that they were near it. Does this Mr Martin answer your question?”
“Yes,” he replied in a small voice, “thank you.”
“And, having taken into account all that we've discussed, do you, Mr Martin, still maintain that you are not an inferior species and totally unworthy of the attribute existence?”
At this point, it must be mentioned that Pete was feeling about as low as a particularly low patch of low pressure which, having reached the bottom of the deepest valley anywhere in existence, discovered that the valley's bottom was actually false, and as a result, proceeded to go much lower.
Renegade T.M. Page 4