How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (13 page)

Eric was pleased with his use of a full stop, but he was still feeling depressed.  “Ar, it’s a total gutter, this, like,” he shrugged.

“I know,” Monty nodded.  “There’s a leaving do at work next Friday as well and I was gonna have a crack at this new lass.  I’ve been doing a load of spadework on her as well but now it’s probably all gonna go to waste.”

“Well they might not kill you,” Eric suggested, trying to be optimistic.

“Even if they don’t.  I’m still gonna die at some point,” Monty pointed out.  “They’re gonna kill everyone eventually … according to that dude off Jerry Springer.”

“Well you might last long enough to score with that new lass from work, though,” Eric
proposed, trying to be optimistic.

“Actually now that I consider things … that’s not really that big a deal anymore,” Monty shrugged.  “I think staying alive would be my first choice.”

“I tell you the weird thing for me,” Eric remarked. “You’d think I’d be totally gutted that I was going to die.  But the main emotion I’m feeling at the moment is that I’m totally angry at being fooled.  I cannit believe I fell for their patter, like.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Garth consoled.  “They probably used some special mind device on you to make you susceptible to suggestion.”

“No, I think I was just a chump,” Eric begged to differ, with refreshing honesty.

At this point Monty noticed a
glint of light reflecting off something attached to Eric’s back and thus motioned for him to turn around.  Closer inspection revealed a tiny metal device attached to Eric’s fleece hoody.

“The fucking little gits!” Eric exclaimed, as Monty showed him the device.  “That’s three times now that they’ve made a chump of uz.  Ar, I’m sending them another text.”

So he typed out the following message:

‘I’ve just found the bug on my back, you fucking snidey little gits!’

He paused before going any further.  “Actually, if I kick off with them they might make my death totally painful … just out of spite.  So maybe I should send them a more friendly message.”

So Eric then typed out the following toned down message:

‘I’ve just found the bug on my back.  If I promise not to destroy it will you promise to make my death as painless as possible?’

…before once again fe
eling uneasy about the use of a question mark, so in the end…

‘I’ve just found the bug on my back.  If I promise not to destroy it will you promise to make my death as painless as possible.’

…was the message that he finally sent.  A few seconds later the following message appeared on his mobile:

‘I shagged a black guy at the weekend.’

“Eh?  That’s a bit weird,” Eric remarked, looking somewhat bemused by the message.

“What’s it say, like?” Monty inquired.

“He’s saying he shagged a black dude at the weekend,” Eric revealed.  “You see!  I knew they were into anal probes!”  Peculiarly, he felt quite smug that one of his initial suspicions would now seem to have been confirmed.

“He shagged a black dude?” Garth repeated, now looking as bemused as Eric.  “Are the aliens gay, like?”

“They didn’t seem it, like,” Eric pondered.  “In fact Jixyl was going on about spanking lasses being normal on their planet.”

“Well if he shagged a dude then I suspect he’s probably gay, like,” Monty deduced.  “It’s just a wild stab in the dark…”

“Why’s he telling you that, though?” Garth asked, trying to analyse the logic, or lack thereof, of Jixyl’s latest text.

“I dunno,” Eric shrugged.  “Mebbees they’re trying to confuse uz to distract uz from my impending death.”  But then Eric noticed the name tag attached to the message.  “Ar, hang on a sec.  It’s not from Jixyl.  It’s from someone called Jeemia.”  Slowly, a more plausible explanation for the last text began to formulate in Eric’s mind.  “Ar, I bet you that’s probably his girlfriend.  He mustn’t have told her about him giving me his phone.”  The message was finally starting to make sense to Eric.  “Ar…”

“His lass is shagging a black dude?” Garth remarked.  “What a bitch!”

“Yeah, it’s a gutter for him, that, like,” Eric agreed.  “Although I have to say that I don’t feel
too
much sympathy for him … given that he’s possibly planning on exterminating mankind.”

“Yeah, all things considered he probably deserves it,” Monty
declared.

“It’s still a bit of a snidey thing for her to do, though,” Garth reasoned.

“Ar, yeah.  She’s definitely a snidey bitch, like,” Eric agreed.  “I’m not denying her snidiness.  In fact I might send her a text back pretending to be Jixyl saying he was cheating on her anyway … just to piss her off.”

“You might get Jixyl into trouble, though,” Garth pointed out.

“Ar, nar!  I wouldn’t want to get him into trouble, like,” Eric remarked, sarcastically.  “It might get in the way of his plans to destroy the Earth.  That would be a gutter, like, wouldn’t it?”

“But what if he’s telling the truth and he’s on his way back now to try and help us?” Garth hypothesised.  “Then you’ll have gotten him into trouble for nothing.”

“Well either way his lass has cheated on him, so he’s probably gonna split up with her anyway,” Eric reasoned.  “And even if he forgives her she can hardly complain, can she?  Considering she’s done the same thing.”

“True,” Monty nodded
.

So Eric typed out the following message:

‘I shagged a fit Swedish lass the other day so that makes us even.’

Just as he was about to send it though, he had the following realisation, “Ar, hang on a sec, though.  They probably won’t have Swedish lasses on their planet.”

“I’d say that’s a reasonable assumption,” Monty agreed, “based on the fact that Sweden is a country based on Earth and they come from a planet at the other side of the galaxy.  And also seeing as how they haven’t yet discovered the secret of intergalactic planetary travel yet in Sweden.”

“I’ll change it to ‘a fit blonde lass’ instead,” Eric remarked.

So he eventually sent the following message:

‘I shagged a fit blonde lass the other day so that makes us even.’

A minute or so later he got the following reply:

‘You two-timing bastard.  All men are skanky dogs.’

Eric read the message to his mates.  “Eh!  What a hypocrite!” he observed.  “It’s alright for her to shag a black dude but when Jixyl shags a fit blonde lass she takes a total strop.”

“That’s total double standards, that, like,” Garth agreed.

“Maybe they have different standards in their society,” Monty suggested.  “Maybe it’s acceptable for women to cheat but men are expected to be loyal.”

“Well that’s a bit stupid, like,” Garth remarked.

“It’s
totally
stupid,” Eric emphasised.  “Loyalty should go both ways, like.”

At this moment another text came through:

‘Look, you have to trust us.  We don’t want to kill you.  That bug on your back was just another prank.  We’ll be able to prove our peaceful intentions once we get back to Earth.  We’re going to try to save your lives … but we’ll need your help.  Don’t send any more messages in case they’re being monitored.’

Eric read the message to his friends.  “That one’s off Jixyl,” he pointed out, although his friends had probably already ascertained that from the subject matter.  “What do
you reckon it means?”

“It sounds to me that they’re
possibly sort of admitting that their species is going to kill us but they’re personally against it and they want to help us,” Monty deduced.  “Or at least, that’s what they want us to believe.”

“Mebbees,” Eric considered.

“Realistically, if they want to kill you, or us, or everyone, then they probably can so there’s no point doing a runner,” Garth interjected, “whereas if they’re going to help us then there’s obviously definitely no point doing a runner either.  So either way I reckon you should stay put.”

“You’ve sharp changed your tune, like,” Eric remarked.  “When we first saw the spaceship you were away like a shot.”

“That was a reflex reaction,” Garth explained.  “My considered opinion now though is that we stay put and wait for them to arrive.”

“Yeah, we might as well see what they have to say,” Monty agreed.

“Aye, I suppose,” Eric shrugged.

So that was what they did.  They stayed put and waited for Jixyl and Azleev to return.

An air of nervousness had hung over Eric, Monty and Garth while they waited for Jixyl and Azleev’s return, and so Eric decided to relieve the tension by bringing a positive comment to the situation.

“I tell you what would be good,” he remarked.

“What?” Monty inquired.

“If the whole planet knew what we knew about the aliens’ plan to kill everyone…”

“Aye, cos at least then the governments and armies and all that,” Garth interrupted, “could co-ordinate their defence plans and…”

“Hang on, I hadn’t finished,” Eric re-inter
rupted.  “I was gonna say it’d be good if everyone knew that we were all gonna die … cos then it’d be much easier to score.  Lasses wouldn’t be thinking about the long term and getting married and having babies and all that.  They’d just be thinking, ‘Oh no!  I’ve only got a few weeks to live!’ so they’d be more concerned about short-term fun.”

“Aye, imagine … they’d be just like blokes,” Monty mused.  “And imagine how easy it would be to score if all lasses were as slaggy as blokes.”

“Yeah, every cloud has a silver lining,” Garth laughed.

“But, like, that’s a strange thing to think about,” Monty remarked.  “The world’s gonna end and all you can think about is, ‘Ar, well at least it’s gonna be easier to score.’”

“Well you were just as bad earlier on,” Eric accused, “when you were going on about that new lass at work.”

“Yeah, in my defence, though…” Monty declared, “she’s really fit.”

“Aye well so were the lasses I was thinking of scoring with in my hypothetical example,” Eric countered.

“I think it’s safe to say that you’re both perverts,” Garth remarked.

“Eh!  ‘Pot’ and ‘kettle,’ like!” Eric spat back.  “You’re the one that went down to odds of two to one for the ‘blowjob’ versus ‘risk of getting your knob bitten off’ scenario.”

“Yeah, fair comment,” Garth acknowledged.  “But anyway, when I called you perverts I obviously meant it as a compliment in any case.”

Eric and Monty chuckled at Garth’s alleged compliment.  “Aye, we’re all perverts,” Monty agreed.

“I wonder if alien lasses are fit,” Eric then mused.

“…but I think it’s safe to say that of the three of uz, Eric’s by far the biggest pervert,” Monty continued.

“I was just making a comment,” Eric replied, defensively.  “It’s a fair question.”

“What were the alien blokes like?” Garth asked.

“Canny average, I would say,” Eric
remarked, shaking his flattened outstretched hand in the universal sign language for ‘average.’

“The lasses are probably average as well, then,” Garth surmised.

“Not necessarily,” Eric disagreed.  “Swedish lasses are, like, totally lush, but Swedish dudes are … well, actually they’re sort of good looking as well, I suppose, but I’d still say they’re not quite in the same league as Swedish lasses.”

“Aye, and all lasses fancy Italian men, but
when I went to Italy the women there weren’t that great looking,” Garth opined.
[22]

“Aye but the only lasses that fancy Italian men are lasses that’ve never actually met any Italian men,” Eric claimed.  “When I was in Haad Rin, Italian men definitely ranked well below English dudes, like.  Just cos Italian men don’t seem to understand the concept of treating lasses with respect.  Whereas in England we all realise that if you’re gonna have any chance with a lass then you have to pretend you respect her.”  Eric was just joking about pretending to respect lasses, cos he did in reality respect lasses.  Well, obviously not
all
lasses.  Some lasses were obviously a bit rubbish.  But he respected most of them, at least.  And in fact when he visited Morocco he had a lot more respect for Moroccan women than he did for Moroccan men.  Although that’s not to say that all the Moroccan dudes he met were rubbish.  Some of them were canny sound as well.  Anyway, crass generalisations just get you into trouble, so suffice it to say that Eric respected just as many women as he did men, and vice versa.

“I’m sure there must be some Italian men that respect women, though,” Monty suggested.  “So by the same logic even if the alien
dudes were canny average there must still be some fit alien lasses.  You can’t judge an entire nation or species just on the behaviour or looks of a few individuals.”