The Twiller

by David Derrico

  “No matter,” Ian said, to no one in particular. “She gave me the creeps anyway.” With that, he confidently strode off in a random direction.

  With the Twiller in tow, Ian approached a narrow canyon. It curved into the face of the rock, and within minutes Ian had thoroughly lost his sense of direction. Since he had no idea in which direction he was going in the first place, this bothered him surprisingly little.

  “Quite a fine planet we have here, eh, Twill,” Ian bantered, making conversation with his little yellow friend. “Although, I must say, this being my first actual alien planet and all, I was hoping for a bit more … I don’t know … life.”

  The Twiller trilled warningly.

  “Yes, it is a bit odd, now that you mention it,” Ian replied, stopping and turning to look at the Twiller. “I mean, I haven’t seen a single living thing on this entire planet. I suppose it’s just uninhabited.”

  “Twill twill” trilled the Twiller.

  “Oh, no, you say? Very good then.”

  “Twill twill.” The Twiller sounded urgent.

  “No. Right. Not very good then, is that what you’re saying?”

  “TWILL!”

  “Okay, okay, no need to shout. I mean, you make it sound as if there’s a ravenous space dragon behind me or something.”

  “Twill,” it replied shakily, its eyes wide.

  “Now, I thought we agreed one twill for yes and two for,”—at this, Ian turned around, and came face to face with what was quite clearly a ravenous space dragon—“no.”

  “Twill,” confirmed the Twiller, and it hurried off.

  . . . . .

  Turning a corner in the ravine, Ian stopped just in time to avoid running directly into a very large, very solid rock wall before him. He scratched uselessly at the dead end for a moment, as if to make sure that this wasn’t some new sort of soft rock, and then turned back to face the approaching sounds of his nightmarish attacker.

  The dragon skidded deftly around the corner, filling the canyon with its considerable mass and completely blocking Ian’s escape. It advanced toward Ian, snarling ferociously in a way that only ravenous space dragons are really able to pull off. The sight would have petrified a great many creatures far more brave than the average Earthling, so you can imagine how terrified Ian was. After all, this is the same guy who routinely found himself whining like a little girl when faced with a common cockroach, which … well, which really isn’t all that bad when you think about it because cockroaches are actually pretty scary so there’s really nothing wrong with that.

  In any event, the space dragon bearing down on Ian was even scarier than any cockroach, not to mention larger and significantly more ravenous. Ian closed his eyes as he prepared to die.

  After what seemed like far too long a time, Ian realized that he was, in fact, still alive, and opened his eyes to determine why this was.

  What he saw was this: the dragon, on its heels, inexplicably backing away from its cornered morsel. It took Ian a moment to realize that the Twiller was hovering defiantly before him, between him and the ravenous dragon.

  “Twill,” it said.

  Ian could not be sure, as he had little experience in measuring the eyes of ravenous space dragons, but if he had to guess, he would have ventured that the look in this particular space dragon’s eyes was that of abject terror.

  . . . . .

  Ian looked warily at the Twiller. “Twill,” it said simply.

  Ian cringed and covered his head with his hands. Gradually, he peeked out to see the Twiller still hovering there serenely. “Twill,” it said again, very softly.

  “How did you … ?” began Ian, looking around. There was no sign of the dragon, which had sped off like its tail was on fire. “What did you … ? I mean—the twilling, and the dragon running away, and the still being alive … ?” Ian sat down on the packed dirt. “I am feeling very confused. I just never saw this sort of thing on the Discovery Channel.”

  “Twill,” the Twiller replied in an understanding tone.

  Ian was startled as an alien walked around the corner of the ravine. Ian momentarily jerked back in instinctive terror, until he realized that the being was completely harmless. He wasn’t sure how he realized this, but he could just tell. Then again, he had thought the Twiller to be completely harmless only a short time ago, and the dragon had obviously felt otherwise.

  The being sauntered up to him, sporting a wide smile that appeared to be far too large for its face. “My name is Cheez,” said the odd, human-shaped creature. It had a bushy tuft of neon orange hair on its head.

  “Cheese?” repeated Ian.

  “No, Cheez—with a ‘Z.’”

  “But that’s what I—wait a minute. How do you know how I spell words?”

  Cheez tilted his head skyward and appeared lost in thought. “I wonder what would happen … if gravity suddenly stopped working.”

  Ian was nonplussed. He was so confused, in fact, that he did not have a single plus. But the creature seemed to be awaiting some sort of response. “Uh … you mean, like some sort of strange local phenomenom?”

  “Phenomenon,” corrected the creature. “With an ‘N.’”

  Ian decided to start the conversation anew. “I’m Ian. This is the Twiller. Who are you again?”

  The creature stared skyward for a long moment. “Have you ever been to that star?” it asked, pointing.

  “Um, no,” Ian replied, not really sure if it were true or not. But he figured it was a good bet that he hadn’t.

  “Wanna go?”

  Ian looked to the Twiller for confirmation. The Twiller shrugged. How exactly to describe how a marshmallow-shaped creature with no shoulders shrugs is beyond the capabilities of this author, so please just take my word for it.

  “Sure,” said Ian, not sure how else he would get off the rock he was on. “Do you have a spaceship or something?”

  “Yeah,” replied Cheez, finally responding to a direct question, “but it’s a piece of crap.”

  . . . . .

  The spacecraft shuddered violently, threatening to break apart and spill its occupants into the void of space—which would have been an improvement, from a comfort and safety point of view.

  “What did you say this rust bucket was?” Ian asked.

  “A Buke’s Ummer Set.” Cheez pounded on the dashboard as the craft began to sputter and stall. “All the secret agents love it.”

  Ian began to ask for clarification, but quickly reconsidered. He had already learned not to ask too many questions of his bizarre traveling companion. When he did so, he just ended up with a headache, and was no closer to understanding the odd creature’s behavior.

  Ian made sure his restraining harness was securely fastened. The Twiller had retreated to the relative safety of Ian’s shirt pocket in order to avoid being bounced around the cabin of the shuddering vehicle. Ironically, Ian thought the spacecraft looked uncannily like a flying car—albeit a big, ugly, green flying car—right down to what appeared to be a broken tape deck on the dashboard. A pair of fuzzy dice hung from the windshield, and even the fact that they were covered in incomprehensible alien characters was not enough to make the scene sufficiently futuristic so as to be reassuring.

  “So,” began Cheez, “where did you say you were from again?”

  “Earth,” Ian said, trying to think of the most general answer he could give. “It’s the third planet of the …” Ian looked down at his feet. “Of the, uh, solar system,” he mumbled.

  “Hmm,” said Cheez thoughtfully. “You know, that’s really not particularly helpful. What’s the name of the closest star?”

  “Oh!” Ian brightened up. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “The sun.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Ian suddenly felt very small and foolish. Even the Twiller seemed several times its normal size.

  “No problem,” said the alien, relentlessly upbeat. “I’m sure we’ll find it in no time.” He looked over and gave Ian a reassuring smile. “
Don’t worry—I’ll take you as far as this baby will go.”

  With that, the engine sputtered and died, and the crippled vessel coasted slowly through space.

  * * * * *

  Part III

  The ship coasted for what seemed like a long time, floating silently through the black void of space. Ian became increasingly alarmed, but Cheez simply hummed or looked out the windows or often did nothing at all, but just stared straight ahead for long moments. Ian could not tell if he was deeply lost in thought, or just deeply lost.

  Ian shifted his attention from the side window to what was ahead of them. He noticed a spherical object—too small to be a planet—far away in front of them. Luckily, the ship did not appear to be heading directly toward it. Blissfully unaware of all but the most basic laws of gravity, Ian mistakenly believed himself to be safe.

  “Say,” Ian began, breaking the silence, “what do you think that is?”

  Cheez’s eyes slowly focused on the object. “Looks like a planet.” He thought for a moment. “Is it yours?”

  Ian’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s not. In fact, it doesn’t even look like a planet—it’s a bit too small, don’t you think?” Ian squinted out the window. It did appear to be slightly larger than it had seemed before, and the ship seemed like it would actually pass a bit closer to it than Ian had previously thought. A vague uneasiness began to settle about him like a palpable thing, but Ian waved it away with an elaborate gesture.

  “You’re right,” Cheez said reassuringly. “It does look a bit too small to be a planet.”

  Ian exhaled a sigh of relief.

  “But I imagine by the time we hit it, it will look just about the right size.” Cheez leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck. “I wonder if it will be warm there. It looks pretty close to that star.”

  Ian stared openly at his alien companion. “You wonder if it will be warm?” he repeated. “You said we were going to hit it! You said we’re going to crash!” Ian realized as he said it that the planet was in fact getting exponentially larger. It also appeared the ship was gaining speed, and was inexorably angling toward the planet.

  “It certainly appears so,” Cheez replied breezily. “So, tell me about this planet of yours. Earth, I think you called it? Do you have video games there?”

  “Video games?” Ian spat. “Video games? We’re about to die, and you’re asking me about bleeping video games?”

  “I like video games.” Cheez turned to face him. “Did you just say ‘bleeping’?”

  “Who cares what I said?” Ian shouted, frantic as the planet rapidly filled the window. “We’re going to die!” The Twiller let out a low, plaintive trill.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Cheez responded. “We’ll be fine.”

  With that, the ship was buffeted mercilessly by the planet’s atmosphere, and it bucked mightily as it went down. The fast-approaching ground loomed in the manner that only a fast-approaching ground can manage. Ian covered his eyes and prepared for the end.

  And then, all of a sudden, everything stopped: the ship, the noise, the buffeting, Ian’s heart—everything. Ian peeked through his fingers to see the ground only a few inches from the front of the ship, which was hovering, nose-down, for no immediately apparent reason.

  “What happened?” asked Ian. “Did you get the engine back on?”

  “No,” said Cheez, opening the door and preparing to drop to the ground. “But I have great collision insurance coverage.”

  “What? What does insurance have to do with anything? How did that stop us from splattering all over this planet?”

  Cheez looked at Ian with a confused expression. “Don’t you have insurance companies on your planet?”

  “Well, of course,” Ian replied indignantly. “But they don’t prevent crashes, they just pay you money when you do crash.”

  “Ah,” Cheez said, understanding. “That’s how it used to be many millennia ago. But then the companies realized how inefficient it was to pay people when they got in accidents.” Cheez shook his head. “Plus, people realized that they just ended up paying all the accident costs anyway through increased premiums, plus whatever the insurance companies took for costs and profit. A ridiculous system,” Cheez snorted.

  “So, how does your insurance work?”

  “Well, the insurance companies realized that their largest cost was paying out all these claims for idiots who crashed into stuff. So, they simply decided they could reduce premiums and still make gobs more money if they cut down on the number of accidents. Of course, then they realized it would be even better if they just stopped all the accidents in the first place. And it’s way cheaper to install fail-safe systems in spaceships and use time machines to retroactively prevent accidents than pay out all those claims and lawsuits.”

  “Wow,” said Ian, amazed. “That does make a lot more sense.”

  Cheez flashed him a sparkling smile. “I told you not to worry about it.”

  Ian looked to the ground, still uneasy and not fully trusting of whatever strange force seemed to be holding the spaceship a few inches above the ground. He opened the door and flung himself from the ship and its madman pilot, glad to be on solid ground again. Of course, he misjudged the distance and went down painfully on his head.

  “Ouch,” Cheez said. “I see you haven’t paid your premiums this month.”

  . . . . .

  Dusting himself off, Ian saw his bizarre traveling companion strolling leisurely through the forest they had not crashed in. Ian looked to the Twiller, who shrugged uselessly. Unsure of what else to do, Ian followed Cheez through the foliage. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  Cheez ignored the question. “You know, I think I’ve been here before.”

  Ian sighed. “Where, exactly, is ‘here’?”

  The alien continued walking. “It’s right through here somewhere.” Just then, the two travelers emerged from the forest, stepping from the ground onto a slab of concrete.

  What stretched before Ian boggled his feeble mind. Towering buildings rose before him as far as the eye could see, their tops disappearing into a gray, smoggy haze. Thousands of alien beings milled about the sidewalks, and aircars were jammed bumper-to-bumper, taking up every cubic inch of free space from ground level until they disappeared up into the smog banks. None of them appeared to be moving, although every few seconds the shriek of a horn assailed Ian’s ears. Over the din, Ian thought he heard the Twiller cough.

  Before him was a large sign, which read:

  WELCOME TO EL LEIGH

  The Biggest Damn City in the Galaxy

  For an uncertain moment, Ian wondered why the sign would possibly be in English, or in fact why he had been able to understand the myriad aliens he had met on his travels. He quickly resolved not to think about the matter again, and you really should do the same.

  Cheez continued into the morass of milling aliens, walking aimlessly as he stared at his surroundings. Ian struggled to keep up, a high-pitched voice in the back of his head urging him not to lose his alien guide, who was—just barely—better than nothing. Ian knew he did not want to be lost, alone, in a city like El Leigh.

  Within only a few moments, however, lost was precisely what he was. There was no sign of Cheez, no sign, in fact, of the forest he had emerged from minutes earlier. There wasn’t even any sign of the “Welcome To El Leigh” sign itself. His visibility was reduced to a few feet by a mass of people and the omnipresent haze, which he could feel settling thickly in his lungs. He let himself be carried away by the moving mass of aliens, and gave up looking for Cheez after a few minutes. Ian could not help but think that it was a rather crappy and ignominious way to get written out of a story.

  Ian struggled out of the flow of people and into the street, where things were moving much more slowly, if at all. Rows of aircars were stacked from the paved ground up into the gloom. The aircars, all of which were running, were only inches from each other. In some cases, they actua
lly touched the cars ahead of or behind them. Ian ambled over to a driver whose window was down.

  “Hello,” Ian began. He was rewarded by a long blast of the vehicle’s horn.

  “Let’s move it, here!” the alien inside shouted. “I don’t have all year.”

  Ian tried again. “Excuse me, sir. How long have you been stuck in this traffic jam?”

  The alien swiveled one of its heads to face Ian, while the other continued shouting obscenities at other drivers. “Oh, about a year and a half.” Ian’s mouth dropped open. “Well,” the driver explained, “I haven’t exactly been stuck in this exact spot that long.”

  Ian was relieved. “About six months ago,” the driver continued, “the car in front of me inched up and hit the guy in front of him. So I was able to move two, maybe three inches.” Both heads swiveled to look at the car in front of him. “Those guys have been going at it since then.”

  Sure enough, the drivers of the two cars in front of the alien were vociferously exchanging unpleasantries with each other.

  “But,” Ian stammered, “how could you be stuck here for over a year?”

  The alien shrugged all four of its shoulders. “Well, the traffic was always pretty bad, and then I guess one day there was just one car too many on the road.” He sighed. “That’s what they say on the radio, anyway. That last car was like the last jigsaw puzzle piece, or like filling in the empty square on one of those games where you rearrange the tiles.” The alien turned both heads to regard Ian. “Do you have those games on your planet?”

  “I … I think so,” Ian stammered, and ran, screaming, from the street as fast as he could.

  . . . . .

  It didn’t take long for Ian to tire of the “charms” of his first real alien planet. He couldn’t understand why anyone would possibly want to live in El Leigh, let alone why it was evidently the Biggest Damn City in the Galaxy.

  Ian shivered, noticing that the sun was unable to penetrate the gloom to provide warmth or light. The Twiller seemed to be shivering too. Ian was strangely reassured by his yellow friend’s familiar presence, especially after it had inexplicably saved him from the ravenous space dragon. He didn’t really know how it could help him in a metropolis like El Leigh, but he was reassured nonetheless.