by Linda Jaivin
Pulling the craft into a sharp right turn, Doll threw all the switches. All the drugs flooded into the engine now. The amphetamines kicked the saucer into a faster and faster velocity. It vibrated and hummed with the speed and cocaine. The acid and mushies were wreaking havoc with the viewing screen, causing little green teddy bears and plates of purple spaghetti to loom up in Doll’s sights, but she steeled herself and ran straight through them.
As the saucer passed over the suburb of Wollstonecraft, it caused a giant sonic boom. Every window in every house shattered with a huge explosion of glass, every knick-knack and piece of crockery flew off every shelf.
‘Last time I vote for those bastards,’ exclaimed one distraught resident. ‘Cunts promised us no aircraft noise if they got into office.’
Eros was really picking up speed now, and growing hot with freefall. I’m not afraid to be heavy, he sang. Impact was minutes away. He was so excited just thinking about it.
‘What the fuck is this?’ said Baby, looking for some cocktail glasses and discovering, for the first time, the second copy of the Hidden Agenda. ‘Oh, yuk. More Nufonian crap.’ She opened a window and tossed it out. The volume somersaulted through space at a terrific velocity only to make a direct hit on Pallas, which burst into a thousand pieces of space debris. One of these spun out of control and smacked straight into Eros, which in turn exploded, with an enormous asteroidal shriek of pure bliss, into a million fragments of 100 per cent Pure Love, which now showered the Earth.
YES! cried all the Earthlings. Oh yes!
It was as good for Eros as it was for them.
In a scene that was repeated, with suitable variation, in capital cities all over the world, one particularly large fragment of Eros came hurtling through the atmosphere to Canberra. The prime minister and Cabinet were having one of their late-night meetings. They met at night because, if too much light were shined on what they were doing, they’d be out of office quicker than you could say ‘March of the Pigs’. BLAM. A piece of space rock crashed straight through the roof of Parliament House and into the meeting room, where it beaned the prime minister. Bouncing off his forehead, it hit each of his men—for they were all men there, even the women—in turn. For a few minutes they slumped unconscious in their seats. Coming to, they looked around with new eyes. The prime minister blinked a few times. ‘Where were we?’ he said, dazed. He glanced down at the agenda before him. The first item of business read ‘Preventative social justice—imprison poor people before they start stealing from the rich.’
‘That’s fucken ridiculous,’ exclaimed the prime minister, tearing off his clothes. He stood up on his chair and shook out his clothing. Coins and notes spilt out of the pockets and piled up on the table. ‘I believe some redistribution of wealth is in order,’ he declared. ‘And I think we in this room should set a personal example.’
‘Hear! Hear!’ All the ministers chorused their joy and approval at the prime minister’s suggestion. They threw off their clothing and soon the table sagged under the weight of their spare change. It was only some eight billion dollars, but it was a start. And they discovered they could have a lot more fun doing to each other what previously they had only done to the nation.
And so the Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space, with a little help from Eros, managed, quite by accident, to save the world.
Once Galgal docked into the mothership, the party began in earnest.
George made his way through the revellers and tapped Baby on the shoulder. He looked worried. ‘Uh, Baby. I didn’t realise we’d be taking off in such a rush. I had all the gear in my truck outside the cricket ground. I always thought, you know, we’d need it.’
‘Doll swooped it up with the Abduct-o-matic as we passed overhead. Sharp chick, that Doll.’
‘Well,’ said George, smiling broadly and cracking a tinny—for Doll had had the foresight to abduct the contents of three liquor stores and a Woolies as well—‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers, George,’ Baby replied, giving him a peck. ‘Oh, and I’ll have that tinny when you’re finished. Yours too, Eb.’
Doll thought she should take time out to thank God, who was now more popular even than the Beatles.
Thank you, God.
Pleasure. To paraphrase a Gadflys song, you know of all My children, darlings, you’re the ones I dig the most. Besides, I’ve always wanted to try out the old deus ex machina thing.
Leaving the other revellers for a moment, Baby snuck off to her room and picked up the Locate-a-tron. S-P-U-N-K-N-I. No, I won’t do it, she told herself. Just let him go. Let it be. She put the device away and returned to the party.
Jake, walking home slowly, studied the tattoo on his wrist. He put on his sunnies, though it was night, for a few tears had welled in his eyes, and that wasn’t very cool, was it?
He pushed open the front door only to find the entire house filled with Sirians and Alphas. They were pulling cones with Torq and Trist. ‘Cousins!’ the Sirians kept exclaiming between giggles. ‘Cousins!’
Jake walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Nothing but an old tomato and a tin of VB.
He looked at these two things for a very long time before closing the fridge door again.
Back at the cricket ground, the Channel Three helicopter hovered above the stage roof. The reporter inside was shouting at Qwerk through a megaphone. ‘Promise us an exclusive,’ he said, ‘and you can name your terms.’
‘Just get me off of here,’ pleaded Qwerk. ‘I’ll do anything.’
Revor and Iggy sat on their haunches side by side, snouts to the sky. ‘Wot sis tory more ningglo ree,’ said Iggy experimentally, leaning over and nuddling Revor. He was worried about Revor. The little fella hadn’t said a word for hours. Revor swung his head round, and forced his odd little mouth into an apologetic smile. He raised a paw to one eye and wiped away the tear which had formed there.
‘Oh, Ig,’ he sniffled. ‘I will miss them.’
‘I know.’ Iggy unhinged his big jaw and opened wide. Revor batted his eyes at the dog. He hooked his front paws around Iggy’s teeth and hoisted himself up, over and in. Turning himself around so that his snout projected just beyond Iggy’s lips, he settled down onto the bull terrier’s fat moist tongue, the edges of which curled up to cushion him. They sat like that for a long time, Revor’s breath coming in long sighs out of Iggy’s mouth.
A few weeks later…
Jake picked up a piece of greenery from the bowl on the table and studied it under the candlelight. ‘Wonder why they call it rocket?’ he said.
Kya, the yin-yang girl from the Sando, shrugged. ‘Who cares?’ She leaned over the table, rested her chin on her hands, and peered intently at Jake. She was rapt. She hadn’t been able to get him to come to her flat for dinner for yonks. Now if he’d only snap out of this strange mood he was in. He was still looking at the leaf. ‘You’re very spacy tonight,’ she ventured.
‘Sorry,’ Jake apologised to the salad. ‘I’m not very good company lately. I’d better go.’
‘No, no, no. I didn’t mean for you…Want me to open another bottle?’
‘If you want to.’
‘Why do you think they call it spacing out?’ Kya wondered, scraping her chair back and going to fetch more wine from the fridge. ‘Think about it. People who don’t quite have their “feet on the ground” are “space cadets”. We say they’re “off the planet”. But that can be a good thing too. If we want to praise something we say it’s “out of this world”. What do you reckon, Jake, is space as a concept good or bad?’
‘Dunno,’ he mumbled noncommittally, tearing a crust of bread into little crumbs on his plate. ‘Space is just a place. The place.’ He held out his glass and forced a smile. ‘Sun Ra said that, you know. “Space is the place”.’
The two of them sat drinking in silence for a few minutes. Kya reached out and put a hand on Jake’s arm. She noticed the flying saucer tattoo and traced its outline with a fingertip. More minutes passed without either saying a w
ord. ‘You really liked that girl, didn’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ Jake shrugged.
‘Young Bodies Heal Quickly,’ she said. ‘That’s how the song goes, anyway.’
Jake didn’t reply.
‘So, you gonna stay the night, Jake?’
Jake sighed. He looked up at Kya with sad eyes. He still thought about Baby all the time. Did she ever think of him, he wondered. Suddenly, his arse itched and emitted a low flat honk. A smile crept over his features. It suddenly occurred to him that Kya was a very cute girl.
‘Dunno,’ he drawled. ‘What do you reckon?’