How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (32 page)

To which Eric replied:

‘Alright, I’m having a class time, like.  Honestly, you should see the beach.  It wops off any beach on Earth, like.  And the clubs are pretty good as well.  Wasn’t too sure about the music at first but it’s starting to grow on uz now.

Entered a Beach Soccer Tournament the other day and went out in the quarter-finals cos we had a dodgy ref (so as you can see, it’s canny similar to football on Earth).

Haven’t snogged any lasses yet, though.  I reckon I’m probably not going to either cos I’m a total bottler without alcohol.  So if you’ve got any savings in the bank it’s probably best to get them spent over the next year or so, cos I reckon everyone on Earth’s gonna die, like.

Anyway, I’m off down the beach to catch some rays so speak to you later.

Eric.’

The message from Garth was pretty similar, as was Eric’s reply.  The message from Jixyl read:

‘How’s it going on Fem?  Have you snogged any lasses yet?’

To which Eric replied:

‘Haven’t managed to snog any lasses yet.  I’m just sort of settling in at the moment and sussing things out before I start putting my strategies into practise.’

In reality Eric had lost all confidence and pretty much given up on the mission but he figured it would be inconsiderate to tell Jixyl this, after all the trouble he and Azleev had gone to, so that was why he decided to give his reply to Jixyl a more optimistic tone than the messages he sent to Monty and Garth.  Besides, if Jixyl thought that Eric had given up on the mission then he and Azleev might decide to stop putting funds into his credit account.

The final message, from
Azleev, read:

‘You need to keep us updated more regularly.  It’s been over a week now.  What’s going on?  How are things going with the mission?  Are you making any progress?’

To which Eric replied:

‘Soz, there was a big problem with the G.I.N. access here for a few days while they were updating their network.  It seems to be working okay today though, so hopefully it’ll be okay from now on and I’ll be able to keep you updated more regularly.’

This was of course a blatant lie.  The G.I.N. access had been fine and it was just a simple case of Eric being too busy enjoying himself to worry about trivial little things like keeping up-to-date with his A.T.S. messages.

Eric continued:

‘Anyway, I haven’t snogged any Femling lasses yet.  Just been getting a feel for the place.  I feel pretty vibed in now though, so I’m gonna be putting my moves to good use over the next few days.’

As previously mentioned, this wasn’t strictly true either.  Eric had pretty much given up on the goal of scoring.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to.  Some of the lasses in Ko Pagna, particularly the Sveltish
[49]
ones, were extremely fit and would be any red-blooded male’s dream.  It was just that he couldn’t see it happening and had therefore lost interest and decided instead to just focus on having a good time.

Basical
ly, it seemed to Eric that the universe had a conspiracy against him at the moment.  Not in respect of general life – his general life was totally class – but in respect of scoring.  It was a similar story back on Earth.  It seemed to Eric that he didn’t seem to have much say in when he scored.  There were times when he would put in loads of effort and blatantly be on the pull, but not get so much as a sniff.  Then there were other times when he wouldn’t put in any effort at all and yet all the pieces would just seem to fall into place and before he knew it he just seemed to have scored out of nowhere.  Sadly, back on Earth the ‘sniffless’ times seemed to be far more common than the ‘everything falls into place’ times and it looked like it was going to be a similar story here on Fem.

Right now he seemed to be right in the middle of a ‘not so much as a sniff’ sort of a time, which is why he had all but given up on the mission.  ‘You can’t beat the will of the universe,’ he told himself.

But when he received another A.T.S. message from Garth his attitude couldn’t help but change ever so slightly in the favour of optimism.

Garth’s message read:

‘I know what you mean about not having the bottle without alcohol, mate, but keep the faith.  Sometimes the universe has a funny way of helping you out when you need it and all the pieces just seem to fall into place.

Garth.’

A smile appeared on Eric’s face as he read Garth’s message.  Not a cheek-pain inducing smile like the one he experienced on the shuttle.  This was more of a wise, reflective, ponderous smile.

‘It’s funny how I was just thinking stuff about how sometimes the universe seems to decide stuff for you, and then Garth goes and says the exact same thing,’ he thought to himself.  ‘Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.’

And so as Eric logged out of his A.T.S. account, there was a noticeably greater spring of optimism in his step.  A spring of optimism which reflected Eric’s newly rediscovered confidence and positive outlook.

‘If the universe is trying to tell me something, then I’m certainly going to listen,’ he told himself.  ‘Especially if it’s trying to tell uz some tips on how to increase my chances of scoring.’

And so later that evening when Eric headed down to The Hang Out Club to meet his new beach soccer mates, he did so with his ears and eyes wide open, fully prepared to listen out for the advice of the universe.

Since meeting his new beach soccer mates, Eric had wasted no time at all in introducing them to the game of ‘Would You Rather?’  And happily for Eric they seemed to share his appreciation of the game, so that night when they met up at The Hang Out Club he quickly initiated another scenario.

“Right, I’ve got one for you,” he remarked to Kesta, one of his new Femling mates.  “Would you rather have a night of fun and frolics with a nine out of ten
[50]
, or have a threesome with two seven out of tens?”

“You’ve got to go for the threesome,” Kesta
answered, his tone of voice suggesting it was a stupid question.

“Aye, I would as well,” Eric agreed.

Eric and Kesta’s heads turned to Hex, another of Eric’s team-mates from the Beach Soccer Tournament.  “I think I’d probably go for the nine out of ten,” Hex remarked.

“Eh?  You’re the first person I’ve ever heard that’s gone for the nine out of ten, like,” Eric revealed.

“Yeah, how often do you get the chance of a threesome?” Kesta asked, rhetorically.

“Never ... alas,” Eric
reflected, with a sigh.

“You see, I’ve had a threesome, though,” Hex bragged, although to be fair he wasn’t bragging.  He was merely stating a fact that was relevant to the discussion.  Although admittedly, it was a fact he thoroughly enjoyed revealing whenever the opportunity presented itself.  “And it was good and all that, but it had it’s drawbacks as well.”

“Like what?” Eric quizzed.

“Well for starters, it wasn’t with two sevens.  Two sevens would have been excellent but it was an eight and a six.  And that made it really awkward.

Cos it’s sort of like if you have two cats and you stroke one cat the other cat gets jealous.  So then you stroke the other cat and then the first cat gives you a hacky look as if to say, ‘You like her more than me, don’t you?  She got a longer stroke than me,’ so you stroke the first cat again.  And then the second cat gives you a look as if to say, ‘How come she got two strokes and I only got one stroke?’  So you end up totally stressing about giving them equal attention.”

“I didn’t realise you were Dr Doolittle, like, Hex,” Kesta joked.

“You see that wouldn’t be a problem for me,” Eric interjected, “cos whenever I score I’m just in it for myself.  I wouldn’t care if they were getting equal attention or not.  You’re just not selfish enough, Hex.  That’s your problem.”

“My selfless attitude has been earning uz a lot of success over the last few days, though,” Hex pointed out.  Once again Hex may have sounded as if he was bragging.  But once again he was merely making a valid point that was relevant to the discussion.  Albeit a point that he took a great deal of pleasure in highlighting.

“Aye, hopefully some of that success will spread to me tonight,” Eric replied, optimistically.  He still had the spring in his step from earlier that evening.  In fact he had more than a spring in his step.  He had more or less convinced himself that the universe was going to sort things out for him tonight and that, just like Garth had suggested, all the pieces would just fall into place and he would score without even trying.  Basically, Eric was convinced that tonight was the night when his mission to save the Earth would finally roll into action.

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 re
vealed.  “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.