How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

by Charles Fudgemuffin

  “Well I’ve only seen her a few times, like,” Eric pointed out. “And there just hasn’t been the right situation to ask her yet.”

  “Well, if you’re not wanting to get serious then what have you got to lose by asking her,” Monty suggested. “She can only say no … and anyway, if she’s not that keen on the idea then no worries cos you’re not that serious anyway.”

  “Here, I’m not comfortable talking about stuff with specific lasses,” Eric answered. “It’s a bit disrespectful talking about specific lasses.”

  “How’s that, like?” Garth inquired.

  “Just cos some lasses don’t like you talking about the stuff you’ve got up to,” Eric explained.

  “Aye, you’re right,” Garth acknowledged. “But at the same time, lasses don’t have that rule. Lasses totally gossip about what they get up to with specific blokes, so realistically I don’t see why we should have such a rule either.”

  “It’s not out of respect for lasses,” Eric clarified. “It’s just cos I’m generally not comfortable discussing specific lass stuff.”

  “Garth’s right, though. It’s total double standards,” Monty insisted.

  “Ar, yeah. I agree,” Eric concurred, before adding, “but don’t worry, I’m not gonna stick to the rule. I’m just pointing out what the rule is. I’m not saying I choose to follow it. Merely that I realise the rule exists.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Garth smiled.

  Monty and Garth then stared anticipatorily at Eric for a few moments.

  “What?” Eric eventually shrugged.

  “Howay, man,” Garth cajoled. “How come you’re saying there hasn’t been the right situation to ask Rachel for a lemon juiced bap licking session, then?”

  “Just cos I’ve never had the bottle to ask her,” Eric explained. “I mean, she’d probably be up for it, like,” he then added with mock bravado. “Well not now, obviously. Cos she thinks I’m a chump now … but before she realised I was a chump she probably would have. I mean, before she mistakenly thought I was a chump,” he quickly corrected. “But anyway, Rachel’s not a stranger so she’s not relevant to any discussion about fantasies.”

  “She’s not a stranger?” Monty quizzed. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Well just cos it’s not a proper fantasy if it’s not with a stranger,” Eric explained. “No dude thinks, ‘Oo, I’d love to do this really pervy thing … with my girlfriend.’ For a proper fantasy it has to be with a stranger, obviously.”

  “I didn’t realise Rachel was your girlfriend,” Monty remarked.

  “She wasn’t,” Eric refuted. “But I’d seen her a couple of times so she wasn’t a stranger.”

  “Not all dudes are just into strangers,” Monty contested.

  “Yeah, I like doing some right pervy things with my lass,” Garth declared.

  “Yeah, so would I,” Eric acknowledged.

  “You’d like to do pervy things with Sarah[23]?” Monty stirred.

  “No, man. I meant … like, if you’ve got a girlfriend then you obviously want to do pervy things with her,” Eric explained. “But I didn’t mean I want to do pervy things with Garth’s lass.”

  “What’s wrong with Sarah, like?” Monty inquired, mischievously.

  “Ar, I don’t mean… I mean, like, if…” Eric was starting to get a bit flustered. “Like, obviously Sarah’s canny… Well, I just mean she’s… Well anyway, high five for your pulling skills and all that, Garth … but I wasn’t specifically referring to Sarah.” Monty sniggered to himself at Eric’s apparent discomfort. “Like, I imagine I would enjoy…” Eric continued. Garth gave him a funny look at this admission. “Not that I’ve imagined…” Eric quickly protested, holding his hands up in the guilty Italian footballer gesture. “I’m just saying I obviously enjoyed doing pervy stuff with Rachel, but it was more enjoyable the first time when she was a stranger. Cos strangers are more fun, like,” Eric maintained, before quickly adding, “Like, just when you’re single, though. I’m not talking about going with strangers when you’ve got a girlfriend, obviously. Cos obviously loyalty is important and all that. Like, I’ve always been loyal my entire life, like. Although if I’m honest, my loyalty is as much due to lack of opportunity as it is moral integrity.”

  “Very honest,” Monty smirked.

  At that moment a text came through on Eric’s newly acquired mobile phone. It read:

  ‘We’ll probably be at Earth in about five minutes. Where do you want to meet?’

  “The aliens are nearly here,” Eric announced. “They want to know where to meet. Shall I tell them just to come here?”

  “Na! No way!” Monty protested. “I thought we agreed not to drag Garth and me into things. There’s no point us all getting killed.”

  “Ar thanks, like, for your moral support,” Eric whinged.

  “Well I’m just being realistic,” Monty defended. “We can probably trust them after that text they sent us, but just in case they’re dodgy it makes sense for me and Garth to live so that we can warn the rest of mankind.”

  “It’s good to know you’re so concerned about your fellow man,” Eric laughed. But he quickly added, “Nar, man. Fair enough … aye, I can see your point of view. I’d be a bottler as well if I was in your shoes.”

  “I’m not being a bottler,” Monty insisted. “I just don’t want to die.”

  “Tell them to meet you on the beach[24],” Garth suggested, getting to the point.

  “Where’ll they park their spaceship, though?” Eric queried. “They can’t leave it on the beach in case someone sees it.”

  “I thought they’ve got that light refraction thingamajig device to stop people seeing it,” Monty pointed out.

  “They have,” Eric acknowledged, “but it only works at twenty metres. What if someone wanders closer than twenty metres?”

  “There’ll be no-one on the beach at this time of night,” Monty reasoned. “Anyway, why are you so concerned about their privacy? A few minutes ago you were convinced they were gonna kill you.”

  “Aye, fair point,” Eric accepted. “I’ll tell them to meet uz on the beach, then.” He typed out a text and pressed send. “Yous’ll come with uz, though, won’t you?”

  “Well, no,” Monty remarked. “That’s what we’ve just discussed. There’s no point us all getting killed.”

  “No, man. I don’t mean to meet the aliens,” Eric clarified. “I just mean to walk along the path next to the beach like a couple of casual passers-by, like, just to keep an eye on things.”

  “Well okay, if you want,” Monty reluctantly agreed, “but there’s not much me and Garth are gonna be able to do against a couple of aliens.”

  “Honestly, man. They’re not that hard,” Eric declared. “I purely chinned Azleev remember. And you’re harder than me.”

  “Yeah, true,” Monty bragged, smugly, nodding his head in agreement. It was Monty that had first gotten Eric interested in Tae Kwon Do and Monty was therefore a few months ahead of Eric and had already achieved his black belt. His smug agreement was ironic by the way. I wouldn’t want to portray him as being a bighead when in actual fact his arrogance was purely for the purpose of comedy.

  “I’m not getting involved, though,” Garth remarked, cowardly.

  “Aye, fair enough,” Eric replied. “You wouldn’t be much use anyway, to be honest.”

  “Ar, thanks, like,” Garth retorted. He had also done a bit of Tae Kwon Do training but he quickly lost interest and dropped out at yellow belt.

  “Nar, man. Just joking,” Eric appeased. He was joking, but it was a joke based in truth, i.e. he was joking by virtue of his light-hearted attitude, rather than joking in the sense of a lack of factual accuracy. “Anyway, they’ll be here in a minute so are we off?”

  Monty and Garth agreed and they headed off down to the beach.

  “Do you think I should tell Jixyl about his lass shagging that black dude?” Eric inquired, as they made their way.

  “
I wouldn’t advise it,” Monty recommended. “It’ll just make him angry and if he has come to kill you then you’ve got more chance of a pain-free death if he’s not feeling angry.”

  “Aye, good advice,” Eric agreed. “Very good advice.”

  Eric walked on ahead of his mates until he was a good thirty or so metres in advance of them. This still didn’t satisfy Garth’s paranoia though, and so as Eric glanced back Garth nervously motioned for him to put even more distance between them. Eric did as he was motioned and before long he had arrived at the beach feeling a multitude of emotions. Fear, nervousness, terror, trepidation, fear again, dread … have I mentioned fear yet.

  In fact it was safe to say that as he stepped onto the beach this was possibly one of the top three most frightened occasions Eric had experienced in his entire life.

  Chapter Nine – Happy People Don’t Question

  Eric wandered nervously along the beach but there was no sign of the spaceship. Eric put this down to their light refraction displacement technology though, and so continued on down the beach, which was deserted just like Monty had predicted. He had only travelled a few steps before he heard Jixyl and Azleev’s voices calling from behind him.

  “Alright Eric.”

  He turned around. “Aye, alright,” he responded. “Well apart from the Earth getting destroyed and all that.” He let out a nervous chuckle.

  “Aye, that’s a gutter that, like,” Jixyl agreed. “Basically I reckon that dude on that TV show was probably being serious, like.”

  “Gutter,” Eric replied. “So how come you only reckon? Surely if you’re going to kill everyone then you should have a pretty definite idea of what’s gonna happen.”

  “It’s not us that wants to kill you all. It’s some other aliens,” Jixyl professed. “Well that’s what I’m guessing anyway. I can’t say for definite but from what you’ve told us about that dude on the TV show that’s what it sounds like, like.”

  “Can you tell us exactly what the bloke on the TV show said, though?” Azleev added.

  “Well, just that these aliens pretended to be really friendly with him,” Eric recalled, “a bit like yous … but then at the end one of them must have been feeling a bit guilty cos they confessed to him that they were secretly planning on killing everyone on Earth.”

  “Yeah, it definitely sounds like the Femlings,” Jixyl remarked.

  “The who?” Eric quizzed.

  “The Femlings,” Jixyl repeated. “They’ve been planning something like this for a while now. It looks like Earth’s drawn the short straw. And we know exactly how you feel cos according to our Fyraling spies we’re next on their list after Earth.”

  “Flip! What snides!” Eric exclaimed, before adding paranoidly, “And that’s, like, true, is it? Like, it’s not just a clever bluff, is it, to throw uz off my guard before you kill uz with some powerful alien technology.”

  “Nar, swear down,” Jixyl insisted.

  “We can understand you being a bit paranoid,” Azleev acknowledged, “but I bet you the aliens that abducted that bloke off the telly had five fingers, did they?”

  This threw Eric for a moment and he looked temporarily confused. “He didn’t say,” Eric shrugged, once he had digested the comment.

  “Well there you go, then,” Azleev replied. “If they had only had four fingers the abducted bloke would have mentioned it when he was on the telly.”

  “Hmm…” Eric mused, considering the logic of this.

  “Think about it. I’m right,” Azleev insisted. “If they only had four fingers he would definitely have said, ‘I got abducted by these aliens that looked just like humans … except they only had four fingers,’ so the fact that he didn’t mention a finger count means that logically they must have had five fingers in order for him to deem it not worthy of mentioning.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with having four fingers,” Jixyl proclaimed.

  “Hmm, I sort of see what you’re saying, like,” Eric half-agreed. “But to be honest I’m still a bit paranoid, like. Cos there’s this as well…” He began rolling up his sleeve. “When you took that blood sample off uz it left this mark.” Eric pointed to the small star-shaped red mark on his upper arm. “And the dude on the TV show had an identical mark.”

  “A lot of contact planets share similar technology,” Azleev explained. “I can only assume the blood analysing vessel we used must be the same model they use on Fem.”

  “Actually, I’d already thought that might be the reason, like,” Eric admitted.

  “Look, I promise you we’re not lying,” Jixyl insisted. “If we wanted to kill everyone we’d just do it. We wouldn’t care whether you believed us or not. But trust us, we’ve seen first hand the bad side of the Femlings, so we’re on your side.”

  “Ar, I’m not saying I definitely think yous are lying,” Eric explained, his manner suddenly becoming more convivial. “In fact I’m starting to think that it’s quite probable that yous are telling the truth. All I’m saying is that I’m still keeping an open mind about things … just to be on the safe side.”

  “That’s fair enough,” Azleev accepted. “Just as long as you keep an open mind about us telling the truth … cos we are.”

  Eric nodded in a sort of friendly but non-committal sort of a way. “So how come they want to destroy all life on Earth, then?” he then inquired. “And how come you’re next on their list?”

  “Cos they’re a bunch of mad psychos,” Jixyl answered.

  “Basically they’ve decided that they’re so much better than everyone else that in their deluded logic they’ve decided that anyone whose lives are inferior to theirs must be so rubbish that they aren’t worth living,” Azleev elaborated. “So basically, as an ‘act of kindness’ they’ve decided it would be kinder to put the likes of you and us out of our misery and kill us all, rather than force us to endure the miserable existence that we’re currently experiencing.”

  “Eh? What are they on about? Yous have got a totally class life!” Eric enthused, looking mystified. “You can fly to other planets! And you’ve got totally cool mobile phones!” Eric looked totally dumbfounded. “How can they say yous have got a low standard of life when you’ve got stuff like G.O.T. and cool spaceships?” Eric truly was shocked at the unfathomable attitude of the Femlings.

  “I know, man. They’re total psychos, man,” Jixyl explained. “But just think, right … if they think we’ve got a poor quality of life, then imagine how much lower they must think your lives are here on Earth.”

  “Flip! Aye, you’re right,” Eric agreed. “I mean, some of our phones haven’t even got bluetooth!”

  “So that’s why we reckon it sounds like they’ve picked Earth as top of their list to eliminate,” Azleev remarked.

  “Aye, I see what you’re saying,” Eric admitted. “Well … as long as this isn’t a clever bluff, that is.”

  “Look, man. How many times do I have to tell you … we’re on your side!” Jixyl insisted, starting to appear rather impatient with Eric’s scepticism. He then had an idea. “Here, look … there’s an old smuggled video clip on the Galactic Information Network somewhere from one of our spies. It shows you what a bunch of snides the Femlings are. I can look it up for you if you want.”

  “What’s in the video, like?” Eric inquired.

  “It’s just the Femling Grand Emperor making a speech about their ‘Quality Of Life’ proposal,” Azleev replied.

  “Well, aye. I suppose I could have a look, like,” Eric agreed.

  So Jixyl looked up the clip on the G.I.N. and handed his mobile phone to Eric.

  Eric stared at the screen filled with curiosity and began to watch the clip. “Fellow citizens of Fem,” the Femling Grand Emperor announced, “I stand before you in a time of unprecedented prosperity for the planet Fem…”

  And so Eric listened as the Grand Emperor of Fem delivered his speech about the Quality Of Life proposal. When it got to the point about eliminating suffering from the res
t of the galaxy Eric appeared quite confused. “He seems like a pretty sound dude to me, like,” he remarked.

  “Keep listening, though,” Azleev instructed.

  And then as the Grand Emperor outlined his ideas regarding the elimination of life from certain planets that were beyond hope, Eric’s opinion rapidly changed from respectful agreement to utter shock and disbelief. “Eh! What an idiot!”

  “I know,” Jixyl agreed.

  “What a total snide!” Eric exclaimed. “He wants to eliminate life from certain planets just cos he reckons the level of suffering is too high! Proper sly or what!?”

  “I know!” Jixyl repeated. “That’s what we’ve been saying. They’re totally crazy, man.”

  “Anyway, from what you’ve told us about that bloke on the TV show, it seems that the Femlings are planning to make the ‘Quality Of Life’ proposal a reality,” Azleev concluded. “And unfortunately for Earth it seems that it’s yous that have drawn the short straw.”

  “Eh! I cannit believe that, like,” Eric remarked, shaking his head.

  “Well, I don’t know what else we can do to convince you,” Azleev shrugged. “You’ve seen the video…”

  “Ar, nar. I don’t mean ‘I cannit believe it’ as in ‘I literally don’t believe it,’” Eric explained. “I mean ‘I cannit believe it’ as in ‘I do obviously believe it cos I’ve seen it with my own eyes, but I just think it’s totally snidey.’”

  “Ar, right,” Azleev replied, as he began to grasp the intricacies of Geordie slang.

  “Right anyway, so yous have sussed that it’s the Femlings that want to kill everyone,” Eric summarised. “So what’s your plan to save everyone, then?”

  “We don’t have one,” Jixyl admitted.

  “Ar, great! Well that’s good, like!” Eric moaned, sarcastically. “Thanks for travelling all this way just to tell uz, ‘Ar, don’t worry. We’re not gonna kill you … but some other aliens are, so unlucky but you’re still gonna die anyway.’”

  “I didn’t say we weren’t going to help, you sarky git,” Jixyl retorted. “I’m just saying we haven’t got a plan as yet. You need to tell us everything you know before we can decide what we can do to help.”