by Alex Acks
~
Countup:
Because highly unlikely coincidences happen with distressing regularity in an infinite universe, the beginning of the world is shepherded into existence by the same punk band that witnessed its end.
0: Nothing happens. Bass player Darnel Matisse slaps the severed tentacle onto the pressure plate again. Drummer Lang Stephens screams into his hands. And lead guitarist Marcy Ramos sinks slowly down onto the steps and pulls a squashed cigarette box out of her pocket. A single joint rattles around in its otherwise empty confines.
1: The banging on the door to the throne stops. There’s a sound that can only be described later as FWOOM. Followed by FWOOM FWOOM FWOOM FWOOM FWOOM getting further and further away, and then a muffled pattering as one by one the aliens known to the Earthlings as “Jellyfuckers” explode. Unbeknownst to the surviving three-fourths of Devil Squid, the chain reaction continues far past their hearing range, rocketing around the globe at a speed only slightly slower than light.
2: Lang goes out into the bewildered camp to search out Frank MacKenna and his ham radio set and bring them back to the throne room. Marcy’s made it clear that she’s not moving. She and Darnel sit on the steps of Txiwal Crym Hyyul-et’s throne, not caring that his effluvia soaks into their ragged, dirt-stiff jeans, and lean against each other. Darnel cries quietly, and Marcy rubs his back in small circles.
3: Lang returns with Frank and armfuls of ham radio equipment in tow. Lang and Darnel take turns winding the crank as Frank makes call after call across the frequencies. It’s a hit-or-miss crapshoot of luck, who he finds out there on the airwaves. But every voice the band hears, thin and staticky with distance, is filled with wonder and a little fear, because the aliens have all exploded. What the hell is going on, over? Frank, bless him, can’t really give an answer because all Lang had yelled at him over and over as they raced toward the ship was, “Ding dong the Jellyfucker’s dead!”
4: Marcy, her back an endless spasm of agony that says she may never be able to stand again, lights that final filthy, ragged joint, the last weed that Cameron ever sold on this Earth, and lights it up. She inhales an Ave Maria and exhales a Padre Nuestro. And Darnel finally takes the microphone from Frank’s fumbling hands and says, “We killed the alien battle commander and used his ultimate weapon against his own people.” Great, the guy on the other end answers, who the fuck is we?
5: Darnel looks at Marcy and grins, like it’s old times, like he’s about to get her in a world of trouble. And he says: “Empress Marcy of the Anarcho-Socialist Republic of Earth. And she’s got a message for everyone, so listen up.”
Marcy exhales another long Gloria and grins like, you little fucker, I’ll get you for this. Because it’s a cosmic fucking joke, and there’s no one to stop her. The Jellyfuckers tore everything down, and now she—now the band tore them down in turn and the pieces are theirs to make of what they can. They’re the dogs who caught the car, but one thing she knows for sure—their teeth are made of sharpened steel guitar strings and starlight and iron will. So maybe she does have a message for any terrestrial assholes that remain, and any intergalactic ones that might be listening in as this signal starts its long march out into the void. Marcy takes the microphone and sings: “Nada cambia—hasta que lo hagamos cambiar.” She laughs, then relents and switches to something sort of equivalent in English—for Lang’s benefit, because Darnel’s eyes already shine like fire. “And the times, they are a-changing.”
___
Copyright 2019 Alex Acks
Alex Acks is a sharp-dressed geologist. They’ve written labor unions and space witches in Hunger Makes the Wolf (2017 Kitschies Golden Tentacle winner) and Blood Binds the Pack; and steampunk in Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures (2019 Colorado Book Award finalist) and Wireless and Other Steam-Powered Adventures.
Giganotosaurus is published monthly by Late Cretaceous and edited by LaShawn M. Wanak.
http://giganotosaurus.org