How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

by Charles Fudgemuffin

  “What about after the mission, then?” Jixyl suggested.

  “Maybe,” Azleev replied. “It shouldn’t really be a problem then though, cos the Femlings will already be dead. I was mainly just concerned about Monty warning Eric about the contents of the message, more than anything which might happen after the mission.”

  “I just meant to make absolutely sure that no-one can trace the Telix-17 virus back to us,” Jixyl explained.

  “Well Earth is a non-contact planet in any case so I can’t see us getting caught,” Azleev commented, “but there’s no harm, I suppose … although depending on what course of action we decide to pursue once Fem is taken care of, Monty’s silence might not be an issue in any case.”

  “True,” Jixyl agreed.

  “Anyway, what about the two messages you couldn’t recall?” Azleev quizzed. “Are those two blokes gonna be a problem?”

  “Nar, they’re sound,” Jixyl declared. “Ando Wirex has been a member of the Underground Anti-Fem League for years now, and I don’t know Flon Savion that well but I’m pretty sure he’s a member as well. So they’ll have been as pleased as we were when they discovered what’s going on.”

  “You still better tell them to make sure it goes no further, though,” Azleev counselled. “The less people that know, the less chance of anyone accidentally letting anything slip.”

  “Trust uz. They’re totally sound,” Jixyl reassured him.

  “Yeah, well just make sure they don’t get drunk one night and send out a load of random Supermail messages,” Azleev jibed, having a sly dig at his friend.

  Jixyl looked suitably guilty and apologetic, then placed his head in his hands and thanked his lucky stars that he only had a scale ten hangover to deal with, and not the failure of the mission.

  . . . . . . .

  Eric was the last to arrive at the agreed meeting point on the steps at The Hang Out Club.

  “Another new t-shirt,” Kesta observed. “How many t-shirts have you actually got?” This was more an acknowledgement that Eric seemed to have worn three different t-shirts every day since they had met him, rather than an actual question, but Eric answered it anyway.

  “Twenty three,” Eric revealed.

  “Twenty three!” Kesta exclaimed. “Eh! What do you need twenty three t-shirts for when you’re on holiday?”

  “Fashion isn’t about necessity,” Eric explained. “Fashion is about indulgence.”

  “Is that a quote off one of your t-shirts?” Hex asked.

  “Nar … but it mebbees should be, though,” Eric replied. “It could be the basis of a pretty cool t-shirt. Mebbees it would involve a canny few colours to fit in with the indulgence theme … but, like, dull colours. Not bright colours.”

  “Why not bright colours, like?” Kesta inquired.

  “Cos then it would look a bit gay,” Eric opined.

  “I thought you said gayness was about bumming dudes,” Kesta reminded Eric, “not about fashion.”

  “Well, aye,” Eric admitted, “but you can still have clothes that look a bit gay, like.”

  “Like what?” Kesta quizzed.

  “Well, say … a blue and white polo shirt, with khaki shorts,” Eric joked. This was the exact outfit Kesta was wearing. “I’d imagine an outfit like that would look extremely gay, like.” He then pretended to peruse the club before exaggeratedly noticing that Kesta was wearing the exact same outfit he had just described. “Ee … sorry!” he exclaimed, in a mock comedy fashion. “I hadn’t noticed!”

  “Cheeky git,” Kesta grunted. “But she’s not here if that’s why you were looking around the club.”

  “Huh?” Eric shrugged, pretending not to know who Kesta was on about, but in reality Kesta had got it spot on. Eric’s exaggerated perusal of the club was actually an attempt to conceal his search for Sveltish Indie Chick beneath a joke at Kesta’s expense.

  “Sveltish Indie Chick. She’s not here,” Kesta clarified. Not that any clarification was needed.

  “Ar … right. To be honest I hadn’t really thought about her,” Eric replied. Like virtually all sentences containing the phrase ‘to be honest,’ this was a blatant lie.[79]

  “Yeah, right,” Kesta smirked.

  Eric just chuckled, before replying, “Actually, I’m sort of pleased that she’s not out tonight.”

  “Yeah, course you are,” Kesta replied, disbelievingly.

  “Nar, honestly,” Eric insisted. “Cos if she was out then I would definitely bottle it, and then I’d be, like, totally annoyed at myself for being a complete feebloid. But cos she’s not out that’s okay cos it means circumstances are to blame for nothing happening – not my feebleness – and I can handle circumstances being to blame easier than I can handle my feebleness being to blame.”

  “Is Nine Out Of Ten out?” Hex inquired. He was eager to put a face to a name.

  “Huh? Ar … I haven’t really noticed, to be honest,” Kesta lied.

  “She’s not,” Eric stated, before adding, “I’m just gonna get a drink.”

  “Are you on the water again?” Kesta asked. “Or is that a stupid question?”

  “Nar, I think I might go crazy and treat myself to a lemange[80] juice tonight,” Eric revealed.

  “Woah! Are you sure that’s wise?” Kesta joked. “You don’t want to go too wild.”

  Eric grinned and headed off to the bar.

  “Hey, we definitely need to spike Eric tonight, like,” Kesta suggested to Hex.

  “Here, Kesta. You can’t go round spiking people,” Hex admonished. “That’s totally out of order.”

  “Aye, but it’s for his own good,” Kesta argued. “He totally wants to score and it’s never gonna happen if he stays sober.”

  “He’d notice the taste anyway,” Hex pointed out.

  “Not if I gave him saiju[81],” Kesta reasoned. “That’s pretty tasteless. And especially if I mixed it with an energy drink. All he’d taste is the energy drink.”

  “Look, if Eric doesn’t want to drink then that’s his choice,” Hex asserted.

  “Aye, you’re right … I suppose,” Kesta begrudgingly accepted.

  His reply didn’t contain the phrase ‘to be honest,’ but if it had of done it would have provided a more accurate clue as to the sincerity of Kesta’s response.

  . . . . . . .

  Flon Savion lay on his bed and contemplated what he had just learnt.

  Eight billion Femlings were going to die.

  In fact … eight billion Femlings were going to die!!!

  Like … flip!

  The entire population of Fem would soon be wiped out within a few years. At least, that’s what Jixyl had just told him via an A.T.S. chat conversation.

  Jixyl had explained all about the Telix-17 virus and how it was soon to start spreading throughout the Femling population.

  Flon had raised the same point as Eric, namely, ‘What about the ugly ones? Surely some of them will slip the net?’

  Jixyl had eventually conceded this point, but remained insistent that the vast majority of the Femlings would soon be dead. The planet Fem would be decimated. All the variables were loaded against the Femlings. Furthermore, Eric was located on a holiday resort. And backpackers on a holiday resort are probably the least monogamous of any section of society, which was perfect for ensuring a rapid spread of the Telix-17 virus.

  And even if, like Flon had pointed out, there were some Femlings that slipped the net, the cream of the Femling population, i.e. the fit young healthy energetic motivated creative Femlings, would most certainly not slip the net, as fit young healthy Femlings are the most attractive and therefore the ones that do the most snogging. So any Femlings that survived would almost certainly be the old, the very young, the weak and the unhealthy. In a nutshell, any survivors would be the percentage of the Femling population least likely to present a threat or to be able to defend themselves, so once the Telix-17 virus had decimated the majority of the Femlings, the worst case scenario is that a simple mop-up opera
tion would be required to take care of the stragglers.

  So at the end of his conversation with Jixyl, Flon was pretty much convinced that the Femlings were in trouble. Big trouble. On a scale of one to a hundred the Femlings were facing a trouble rating of seven hundred and fifty six.[82]

  And as a member of the Underground Anti-Fem League that should have brought Flon a great deal of satisfaction.

  But it didn’t.

  Because, you see, Flon had only ever saw this Anti-Fem malarkey as a bit of a laugh.

  To him, for example, it was a bit like the rivalry between Newcastle and Sunderland. Like, you want Sunderland to get beat and it’s really funny when they get relegated and stuff, but at the end of the day you don’t actually want anything bad to happen to any mackems[83] because that would be crossing the line into the realms of evil. Singing, ‘We hate Sunderland and we hate Sunderland. We hate Sunderland and we hate Sunderland. We hate Sunderland and we hate Sunderland. We are the Sunderland … haters,’ at the match is just harmless banter, and harmless banter is fine. But crossing the line and hoping for actual bad things to happen in real life is another thing altogether.

  And so this was a bit like the attitude Flon had towards the Femlings. He was all in favour of joining an anti-Fem group when he thought that all this entailed was making a few snidey comments about the Femlings, but when he discovered that the work of the group actually entailed the genocide of the Femling population, which, whichever way he looked at it was definitely a canny snidey thing to do, like, he was more than a little disturbed.

  And so as he lay on his bed and contemplated the Femling’s imminent fate he realised that he couldn’t just let it happen. He had to do something to try and stop it.

  But what? That was the question.

  And no matter how much he racked his brains, he couldn’t come up with an answer.

  . . . . . . .

  “Right, I’ve got one,” Eric announced. “Would you rather be blind for a week or deaf for a month?”

  “Deaf for a month,” Kesta replied. The pair of them had by now moved on to the pool party and were slouched against the side of the pool.

  “Deaf for a month?” Eric questioned, seemingly surprised at Kesta’s choice. “But you couldn’t listen to music.”

  “Aye, I know,” Kesta acknowledged[84], “but if you were blind you couldn’t see sights like that.” Kesta nodded towards the centre of the pool where three extremely fit lasses were currently engaged in a three-way topless snog.

  “Flip!” Eric exclaimed, clearly impressed with their snogging technique. “Aye, music’s over-rated, like,” he quickly concluded.

  The two friends were transfixed by the sight for a few moments before Kesta eventually commented, “They’re total attention seekers, like.”

  “Aye,” Eric agreed, nodding thoughtfully, “although in my case I have say their search for attention has been very successful.” Judging by the high number of attentive male eyes around the pool, it was safe to say that the three fit topless lasses’ search for attention had been successful in a lot of other cases as well.

  Before long though, Kesta arrived at the end of his drink and so decided to head off to the bar. “Do you want another drink?” he asked Eric.

  “Aye, but it’s my round,” Eric replied.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kesta shrugged. “I’ll get them in tonight and you can get them in tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow they would be back at Hang Out where the drinks were cheaper than at the pool party, so this was an arrangement that Eric readily accepted.

  “Ar, cheers,” he beamed. “I’ll have another one of those energy drinks.”

  “No worries,” Kesta remarked, and he headed off to the bar.

  Eric wasn’t usually that keen on energy drinks, as they usually left him feeling a bit shaky the next day, but it had been so long since he had last had alcohol that he decided he deserved a narcotic treat of some sort.

  Besides, the energy drinks on Fem, Eric had discovered, were a lot more to Eric’s liking than the energy drinks back on Earth. They had made him feel sort of light-headed and perhaps more confident. In fact Eric couldn’t help noticing that it was a similar feeling to the feeling on Earth of being drunk.

  The reason for this, of course, was because he was drunk. Kesta had been spiking his drinks. But, as Eric had been tricked by Jixyl and Azleev into believing they didn’t have alcohol on Fem, he was therefore not the slightest bit suspicious that his current state of mind might be caused by alcohol and simply assumed that the energy drinks on Fem must have different properties to the ones on Earth.

  Eric watched the three-way topless snog for a few moments longer until the three lasses apparently decided that they had enjoyed enough attention for the time being and headed towards the side of the pool. Eric’s gaze followed them across the pool until, suddenly, he lost all interest in the three topless lasses and became completely focused on something else.

  Sveltish Indie Chick!

  Like … excellent!

  Sveltish Indie Chick was at the side of the pool!

  Staring at Eric!

  And she was smiling at him!

  In fact she was beaming at him!

  ‘Flip!’ Eric thought to himself. But it wasn’t a nervous ‘flip,’ the way it normally would be. It was an excited ‘flip.’ For some reason he felt more relaxed than he usually would. ‘Maybe it’s the energy drinks,’ he told himself.

  And then things got even better. Sveltish Indie Chick started dancing towards Eric, her face still beaming happily.

  ‘Flip!’ Eric once again thought, again with excitement rather than nervousness. ‘Sveltish Indie Chick is coming towards uz! And she’s got a pure ‘come on’ face!’

  Sveltish Indie Chick danced a few steps closer.

  “Flip! This is my chance!’ Eric thought. ‘Don’t mess it up. Don’t mess it up. Don’t mess it up,’ he told himself.

  And within a matter of seconds Sveltish Indie Chick had danced right up to Eric until she was standing right next to him, her face still beaming.

  ‘Flip!’ Eric thought to himself once again as she put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Sveltish Indie Chick!’

  He frantically racked his brains for something cool and impressive to say, but Sveltish Indie Chick spared him the bother as she spoke first…

  “Hey, your mate is really sexy.”

  . . . . . . .

  “Do you reckon it would put you off scoring with a fit lass if you knew she was an alien?” Garth asked Monty.

  “That’s a bit of a random question,” Monty answered. “What prompted that?”

  “Just with Eric being on another planet and having to snog loads of alien lasses and all that,” Garth elaborated.

  “Yeah, I was actually joking,” Monty clarified. “I obviously know why you asked it.”

  “Ar, right,” Garth muttered. “Well, would it?”

  “I dunno,” Monty shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”

  “I think it would put me off,” Garth opined.

  “I doubt it’ll put Eric off, though,” Monty proclaimed.

  “Why not?” Garth asked.

  “Cos he’s a horny little fucker,” Monty remarked. “And it’s been a few weeks since he last scored, so he’s gonna be even less fussy than usual by now.”

  “Aye, true,” Garth acknowledged.

  “Plus, he always goes on about foreign lasses having more appeal cos of the exoticness and all that,” Monty added. “So I’d imagine he’d see alien lasses as even more exotic and therefore more appealing.”

  As it turned out Monty’s theory about alien lasses being more appealing to Eric was wide of the mark. Eric, in actual fact, found them no more appealing than the lasses on Earth. Unfortunately for the Femlings though, Eric found lasses on Earth very appealing indeed, and therefore Femling lasses likewise. In fact you could say that Monty’s theory about Eric’s lack of fussiness was a very accurate theory.

  “So I think we�
�re going to have to pin our hopes on Eric being a bottler without alcohol,” Monty purported, “rather than him being fussy about scoring with aliens.”

  Unfortunately for the Femlings though, Eric was no longer without alcohol.

  Which meant that he was therefore no longer a bottler.

  Which in turn meant that the future of the Femlings looked rather bleak.

  Chapter Eleven – Ants

  Eric awoke from his sleep and looked across at Sveltish Indie Chick, or Elskar as he had now discovered her name was, asleep beside him. A big smile appeared on his face.

  A myriad of thoughts ran through his head. On the one hand he was totally chuffed that he had finally become acquainted with the girl of his dreams. But on the other hand he couldn’t help wishing he’d met Elskar under slightly different circumstances.

  For starters, in an ideal scenario they’d have both been native to the same planet. And for seconds, he wouldn’t have been carrying a disease that could potentially wipe out Elskar’s entire species. Whichever way he looked at things, that wasn’t ideal to the future of any potential relationship.

  Elskar opened her eyes and an equally big smile appeared on her face.

  “Alright,” Eric greeted.

  “Yeah, I’m better than alright,” Elskar responded. “I’m great.”

  Usually when someone responded to an ‘alright’ by talking about how they were, Eric would explain that ‘alright’ wasn’t actually an enquiry as to the general well-being of the asked person, and that it was just a Geordie way of saying hello, but in this particular situation he decided that it was probably best to ignore his usual response and instead return the compliment.

  “Yeah, I’m great as well,” he replied. Besides, the G.O.T. would have translated the sentiment behind his ‘alright,’ rather than the literal meaning of ‘alright,’ so maybe in this case he wasn’t just saying hello. Maybe he was also enquiring as to Elskar’s general well being. “It was excellent meeting you and all that.” Then they cuddled up to each other with big smiles on their faces.