How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

by Charles Fudgemuffin

  In fact he was so confident that later in the evening when he found himself dancing on a podium next to a pretty fit lass that was smiling at him, Eric didn’t bottle it like he normally would when he was sober. Neither did he clumsily dive in too quickly like he sometimes would if he was drunk. Instead, he just smiled confidently back and carried on coolly dancing, calm and relaxed in the knowledge that the universe would fit everything into place.

  On reflection, however, perhaps he played things a little bit too coolly because after a couple of songs the lass assumed he wasn’t interested and went off to dance somewhere else.

  Eric wasn’t bothered, though. He felt safe and smug in the knowledge that the universe would sort things out for him.

  By the end of the night, however, Eric still hadn’t snogged any lasses and as he waited in the queue at Mr.J’s, the popular late night takeaway joint on Ko Pagna, he couldn’t help thinking that perhaps the universe could do with a prod or a wake-up call to get it to hurry itself up and get things kick-started.

  But then Eric suddenly became full of optimism once again. And the reason for his newly rediscovered optimism stood a few metres to the side of him in the form of a coolly fit lass looking in his direction. He didn’t have eyes in the side of his head obviously, but it was one of those occasions when you can just sense someone looking at you.

  So Eric turned to glance in the lass’s direction and as he did so she drunkenly stumbled towards him and bumped into his back, then rested her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Ar, class!’ Eric thought. ‘This is it! This is the universe working its magic!’ His eyes lit up. ‘And she’s canny drunk as well so she’ll have no inhibitions!’ he thought, before quickly adding as an afterthought to himself, ‘Ar, I mean … not that that matters, like. Cos I only need to snog her.’ He was aware that she probably wasn’t quite as drunk as she was pretending, and that she was simply employing a technique used by numerous chav lasses back in England whereby they pretend to drunkenly stumble into a dude that they like the look of in the hope of initiating a conversation, but that didn’t bother Eric. In fact if anything it only made him even more chuffed as it only increased the likelihood that he was definitely in.

  “You look like you’ve had a good night,” Eric commented.

  “Yes, but I think I’ve also had too much to drink,” the pretend drunken lass replied.

  “You can never have too much to drink,” Eric joked, and the lass smiled.

  “What have you ordered?” she inquired.

  “I’ve gone for the chork sandwich,” Eric revealed. “You should get one as well, like.” Chork was a meat that tasted like a cross between chicken and pork. Of course, on Fem they didn’t call it chork. In fact it had a name that sounded nothing like either chicken or pork. But the artificial logic in the G.O.T. programming decided it made sense to assign it a name that Eric would easily identify with, hence it had arrived at the name ‘chork’.

  “Are they good?” the pretend drunken lass inquired.

  “Ar, they’re lush,” Eric enthused. “Mr.J’s make the best chork sandwiches in Ko Pagna.”

  “Then maybe I’ll go for one also,” the pretend drunken lass replied. “Or maybe I’ll go for same same but different.” ‘Same same but different’ was a saying that was used quite frequently on Ko Pagna which Eric hadn’t quite grasped the exact meaning of yet.

  “What’s ‘same same but different’ actually mean?” he inquired.

  “It means it’s the same but also different, but not actually different because it’s the same,” the pretend drunken lass replied. Eric wondered if she wasn’t actually pretending to be drunk after all and if she was actually genuinely drunk.

  Within a couple of minutes Eric’s chork sandwich arrived.

  “Don’t go,” the pretend (or possibly actually) drunken lass requested, as Eric was about to walk off with his sandwich.

  ‘Ar, class!’ Eric thought to himself. ‘She’s a cling-on! That means I’m definitely in!’ Eric was always attracted to cling-ons. Not long term cling-ons obviously, but when he was on the pull, Eric, like most dudes, found a sense of neediness both encouraging and reassuring.

  “It’s alright. I’ll wait until you get your sandwich as well,” he remarked, before adding, “So anyway, where are you from?”

  “I’m from Nedland[51],” the needy lass replied.

  Eric had already suspected this from her accent[52] but it was nice to have it confirmed. ‘Ar, class!’ he thought to himself. ‘That’s perfect!’ Since arriving on Ko Pagna Eric, like most dudes, had formed a top three of Femling nationalities, and whilst Sveltish was obviously his number one, Nedlandish was definitely his number two. He just tended to find that Nedlandish lasses were more honest and direct than other lasses and didn’t play games. And whilst he would obviously prefer to score with his number one choice of nationality, unfortunately Sveltish lasses always made him nervous and flustered, by virtue of their total and utter complete lushness and their high status, so if he was playing the percentage game, which he was, then a Nedlandish lass represented a much greater chance of success than a Sveltish lass.

  Within a couple of minutes the Nedlandish lass’s chork sandwich arrived and so Eric suggested, “Shall we get somewhere to sit?” Inside Mr.J’s were three tables and during his period of sussing things out Eric had decided that sitting at one of these tables would present a good chance to initiate a scoring opportunity. He reckoned they were the equivalent of a late night taxi queue back on Earth.

  “Yes, a seat sounds good,” the Nedlandish lass agreed.

  So Eric quickly made his way around the food stalls through the gatherings of people and inside Mr.J’s to one of the tables.

  But then as he took his seat he turned around to discover that the Nedlandish lass seemed to have vanished. ‘Ar, man. Where’s she gone?’ he thought to himself. He wasn’t initially overly concerned, however, because despite her drunkenness he assumed she couldn’t have gone too far astray and he would therefore quickly catch sight of her once again.

  But unfortunately for Eric he scanned the crowds of people to find that she was nowhere to be seen. ‘Ar, fuck! I’ve blown it,’ he thought. Messing up a perceived potential score was one of the few scenarios that pushed Eric past the realms of remarking ‘Flip!’ and into the realms of fully entrenched swearing. ‘Ar, fuck!’ he repeated to himself. ‘Why did I walk so quickly?’ Eric had a habit of dashing off and walking too quickly and becoming separated from his friends. With his friends though, it wasn’t such a big deal, but with a fit Nedlandish lass it was totally annoying. ‘Ar, hey! I knew she was drunk. I should have walked slowly and held her hand or something so we didn’t get split up. Ar, what a total muppet I am!’

  Eric was right. He was a total muppet. He took as long as he could to finish his chork sandwich in the vain hope that she would eventually find him, but his hopes remained unfulfilled. So after he took his last bite of sandwich he headed home alone.

  ‘Ar, fuck! I can’t believe I’ve messed up the chance of a potential score,’ he thought to himself, as he lay down for the night. ‘Ar, man! I’m totally useless. Ar, rubbish. Why did I get stuck with this mission? Of all the people that could save the Earth, the responsibility had to be given to a total feebloid like me.’ Messing up a good chance (at anything, not just scoring) always left Eric feeling negative, but the added responsibility of saving the Earth meant that on this occasion he was doubly negative. ‘Ar, hey! I can’t believe my total utter rubbishness, like. I’m a proper useless chump. How am I meant to save the Earth when I can’t even get past the first simple stage like sitting down without dashing off and losing her?’ Eric was generally an optimistic person but right at that moment he was feeling totally and utterly dejected. Barely an ounce of optimism remained in his body.

  But then as he gazed around his room he noticed one of his t-shirts hanging over the balcony to dry. The one with the slogan, ‘Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not o
kay, it’s not the end.’

  A reluctant smile forced itself onto Eric’s face. “It’s not the end,” he told himself, speaking out loud. “Everything is most definitely certainly not okay – what with the human race probably gonna get obliterated thanks to me being a total feebloid and all that – so that means it’s not the end. So that means there’s no need to feel gutted.” He smiled once again to himself, this time not so reluctantly. “Things will be okay in the end. After all, the t-shirt wouldn’t lie.”

  Then he looked at his t-shirt once again. “I hope you’re right, t-shirt,” he mused. “I hope you’re right.”

  Chapter Five – The Catch-22 Solution

  Eric had given it another couple of days at trying to score, before deciding that he was too nervous and would have more chance of scoring if he was more relaxed, and the best way in his opinion of being relaxed was to not be on the pull. Obviously the drawback to this strategy was that when you’re not on the pull you don’t tend to pull, hence the expression ‘not on the pull,’ but at this stage of things it was all about getting into the right frame of mind.

  Hex had continued his form by scoring three times in the last week, and whilst this wasn’t an exceptional record it was nevertheless more than respectable, and therefore Eric reckoned it made sense to model his approach on Hex’s. And the biggest thing that stood out about Hex was how relaxed he was.[53]

  So that was what inspired Eric to forget the mission and stop being on the pull. Hex scored on a regular basis and Hex was always really relaxed and cool with lasses, so if Eric wanted to start scoring he decided he needed to be more like Hex, which meant being more relaxed, which in turn meant not being on the pull. It was a catch-22 solution, of course, but Eric told himself he’d adapt the plan later, once he had put the first stage into place.

  Of course back on Earth, Eric’s answer to his nervousness would have been to get really drunk. Talking to lasses when he was drunk was never a problem. Coming out with gormless drunken patter and acting like a drunken fool was sometimes a problem, in fact frequently a problem, but by the law of averages he would always occasionally come out with some moderately okay patter, which would be enough.

  But here on Fem, with his unfortunate immunity to the effects of diquintenol, getting intoxicated wasn’t an option. This was a fact that Eric had hidden from his new Femling mates, for obvious reasons.

  “Aye, so Eric, you have to get DQed up tonight, like,” Zonny cajoled. Zonny was another of Eric’s team-mates from the Beach Soccer Tournament. “It’s my last night. You can’t stay sober on my last night.” Eric and his beach soccer mates were currently hanging out once again at The Hang Out Club, which had quickly become Eric’s favourite club on Ko Pagna Beach.

  “Aye, you have to have a few beverages tonight, like,” Kesta encouraged.

  “I wish I could,” Eric reflected, “but there’s no point.”

  “What d’you mean?” Zonny inquired, looking confused.

  Eric suddenly realised that his comment was close to blowing his cover. “Ar, it’s just that, like … well, er…” He frantically racked his brains to come up with a way to explain away his careless remark. “Just, like … I can, er … proper take my drink much better than yous weaklings, so even if I had ten drinks I’d probably still be totally sober … what with uz being dead hard and all that compared to yous,” he boasted, thinking on his feet. He said all this with a jokey expression on his face and he was pleased that he seemed to have dug himself out of the hole he had nearly gotten himself into.

  “Have you heard him?” Zonny retorted. “You haven’t had a single drink the whole time you’ve been here and yet you’re bragging about your drinking capabilities.”

  “Aye, if you’re such a hardened drinker then prove it tonight,” Kesta challenged. “Howay, man. It’s Zonny’s last night, man. You can’t stay sober again on Zonny’s last night.”

  Eric wasn’t enjoying his non-drinking being under the spotlight and therefore decided to use diversionary tactics.

  “Right anyway, I’ve got one for yous,” he began, “you’re going back with a really fit lass to her room one night, but then she says, ‘There’s just one condition … you can only use your tongue or your hands.’ What would you pick?”

  Zonny, Kesta and Hex looked at each other for a few stunned seconds, before breaking out into surprised chuckles. “Hey, you’re weird, you, Eric,” Kesta remarked, smiling and shaking his head.

  “What d’you mean?” Eric replied, defensively. “What’s wrong with that? It’s a perfectly normal question to ask.” He put on the demeanour of someone who was affronted at being called weird, but in reality he was quite pleased that his question had had the desired effect and his Femling mates had been successfully distracted from their attempts to get him to join in with the DQ drinking.

  “Ar, yeah. The old ‘tongue or hands’ dilemma,” Kesta grinned. “That old chestnut. Yeah, many the time I’ve been going back with a lass and she’s said, ‘Right, here’s the thing … you can only use your tongue or your hands. What’s it to be?’”

  Zonny and Hex laughed at Kesta’s irony, and Eric also allowed himself a begrudged smirk.

  “Well you never know… It’s always best to be prepared,” Eric insisted, jokingly. “I’d hate to find myself in that position one night only to think, ‘Ar, no. If only I’d considered this earlier, rather than have to make a snap on-the-spot decision.’”

  “Eric, man. How likely is it that a lass is gonna get you back to her room and then say, ‘Right, you can only use your tongue or your hands?’” Kesta asked.

  “Well, not very,” Eric admitted, “but the point of the ‘Would You Rather?’ game isn’t to come up with realistic scenarios. It’s to come up with interesting dilemmas. It doesn’t have to be realistic otherwise in my case I would have asked, ‘Would you rather get bombed out by a Sveltish lass or a Nedlandish lass?’” To be fair, Eric’s biggest problem since arriving on Fem wasn’t getting bombed out. It was being a total bottler.

  “Well what does it matter?” Kesta inquired. “If you’re getting bombed out then either way, you’re getting no action.”

  “I’d rather get bombed out by a Sveltish lass,” Hex commented, “cos I’ve obviously been with a few Sveltish lasses before[54], but a potential Nedlandish lass would be a new nationality for the tick-sheet, so therefore a Sveltish knock back would be easier to take.”

  “Ar, here he goes again,” Kesta replied. “‘Oo, I’ve been with a few Sveltish lasses already.’ Would you like uz to help support your arms there, Hex?” This last comment probably doesn’t make much sense so perhaps I should explain that on Fem they use the expression ‘big arms’ to mean conceited, rather than ‘big head’ like we use here on Earth.

  “Well I’m just explaining my reason,” Hex shrugged.

  “I’d rather get bombed out by a Sveltish lass as well,” Zonny remarked, “cos it’s like if you were gonna get knocked out of the Triple F Cup[55] you’d rather get knocked out by Divington United[56] than Plankton Village[57]. There’s no shame in…”

  “Eh! Y’pure cheek!” Eric suddenly interrupted. “You can’t compare Nedlandish lasses to Plankton Village! That’s proper shocking, that! Nedlandish lasses are more like a Woolton Wanderers[58].”

  “Yeah, bad example,” Zonny acknowledged, “Although I’d say they’re more of a Blaydon Toon[59] than a Woolton Wanderers. But anyway, I just meant I’d rather get a knock back from the very best, rather than a knock back from almost the best.”

  “Blaydon Toon! What a pure cheek!” Eric screeched. “You can’t compare Nedlandish lasses to Blaydon Toon!” Eric was quite indignant at what he perceived as a blatant insult to Nedlandish lasses, but at the same time he was also quite flattered by this comparison, as Blaydon Toon was the football team he had naturally been drawn to support on Fem by virtue of the fact that they wore the same black and white stripes as Newcastle United. Realistically though, if he was being objective then Blaydon
Toon were a decent but under performing team, and so his anger at Zonny’s failure to recognise the high status of Nedlandish lasses was greater than his pleasure at the compliment this comparison was to his favoured football team.

  “I thought you supported Blaydon Toon,” Hex queried.

  “Aye, I do,” Eric confirmed, “but that doesn’t mean I see them through rose-tinted glasses. They’re no Woolton Wanderers … which Nedlandish lasses blatantly are.”

  “Well I’m entitled to my opinion, like,” Zonny shrugged, “and I’d still say Blaydon Toon are a pretty decent team, like.”

  “Well you must be blatantly mad if you don’t realise how lush Nedlandish lasses are, like,” Eric opined, rather cheekily.

  “Anyway, the relative lushness of Nedlandish lasses wasn’t the point I was trying to make,” Zonny explained. “I’ll put it another way … say if I tried it on with Jerga Nedson[60] and she knocked uz back then I’d be massively offended, cos Jerga Nedson’s blatantly in no position to be fussy.”

  “I’d be massively relieved,” Kesta remarked, “not massively offended.”

  “Well aye, I’d be relieved,” Zonny admitted, “but it’d be a massive insult as well.”

  “What’s Jerga Nedson got to do with Nedlandish lasses?” Eric asked, his eyes looking ready to get slightly annoyed again.

  “Nothing, man, Eric,” Zonny retorted, “but the point I’m making is Jerga Nedson can’t afford to be fussy but Sveltish lasses blatantly can afford to be fussy, so if they decided to be fussy with me then I wouldn’t be offended. I’d be disappointed … but not offended.”

  “Well Nedlandish lasses can afford to be fussy as well,” Eric remarked.

  “Well, yeah. Fair point,” Zonny admitted, “but Sveltish lasses even more so.”