How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (36 page)

However, within a song or two a lass had followed him up onto the podium who seemed keen to prove his theory wrong, just to spite him.

One of the other dudes on the podium danced up behind her in that ‘pretending to be friendly, but really he’s blatantly on the pull’ type of a way, and she quickly pulled a face and shuffled away from him.  Another of the dudes then tried the same thing, with a similar result.

‘I suppose there’s always the exception to the
rule,’ Eric thought to himself, as the lass shuffled to the other side of Eric, using him as a barrier between herself and the two dudes which she apparently found unattractive.

‘That just sums up my usele
ss body language,’ Eric thought.  ‘I fancy her just as much as the other dudes and yet she feels comfortable next to me.’  The lass smiled at Eric and he smiled back.  ‘It’s typical,’ he thought.  ‘She pulls a face at the other dudes that are on the pull, and yet she doesn’t even realise that I’m on the pull so I get a smile.  That’s how feeble my attempt at having ‘on the pull’ body language is.’

And then, as if to rub salt into the wound, the lass turned to face Eric and started dancing in front of him.  She still wasn’t satisfied though, because as if to further highlight just how useless Eric’s ‘on the pull’ body language was, she then danced gradually closer and closer to Eric until before long their bodies were grinding up against each other.

And that was the point when Eric suddenly made an abrupt realisation.  ‘Flip!’ he thought to himself.  ‘I think she likes uz!  I think she wants to get it on!’  She was certainly smiling at him in a way which suggested she wanted to get it on.  ’Flip!  I think this might be it!  I think this might be where I finally get to start saving the Earth!’

The next few seconds eliminated any last trace of doubt from Eric’s mind.  As they were dancing, the lass raised her left leg and wrapped it around Eric’s waist.  In Eric’s experience whenever a lass wrapped her leg around you
while you were dancing it generally meant that she was after a snog.  In fact, she was generally after quite a bit more than that if Eric was being honest, but for now he was just thinking in terms of his mission.

‘Flip!’ he thought to himself, as he grabbed the lass’s leg to support it.  Purely because of the ergonomics of the situation it meant that his right hand was now up her dress and holding the very top of her leg.  Then the lass danced and grinded even closer and his hand slid up onto her bum cheek.

‘Flip!’ he repeated to himself, as the hormones surged through his body.  He was aware that they were dancing on a podium in view of hundreds of people and that, given that they were in such a public location, maybe it was impolite to have his hand on her bum cheek.

But on the other hand, he had no choice.  If a lass wraps her leg around you, you have to hold it.  You can’t just leave her hanging.  That would be even more impolite than feeling her bum cheek.  So Eric decided to continue holding her bum cheek, purely out of politeness.

Then as they kept on grinding against each other the lass smiled a particularly pervy smile at Eric.  The sort of smile where the perviness spreads to the eyes.  ‘Flip!’ he thought yet again, as he smiled back.  He tried to make it an equally pervy smile but in actual fact it probably looked more nervous than pervy.  And whereas usually Eric’s nervousness would be hormonally motivated nervousness, on this occasion the nervousness was motivated by an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the survival of the Earth.

Now if most dudes found themselves in Eric’s position, namely dancing on a podium with a fit lass, grinding up against each other with your hand up her dress feeling her bum cheek, then I suppose the usual thought going through their heads would go something along the lines of
, ‘Get in!  I’m totally in here!’

The thought that entered Eric’s head, however, as they looked into each other’s eyes, was slightly different.  The thought that entered Eric’s head was, ‘Hey, I wouldn’t have fancied being the pilot that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, like.’  Not the most typical of thoughts, admittedly, but in Eric’s defence it wasn’t the most typical of situations.  Yes, his hormones were surging through his body telling him to hoy the lips on her, but at the same time he couldn’t get away from the fact that doing so would unleash world-shattering consequences upon the population of Fem.  That was why he felt so much empathy for the A-bomb pilot.

Like, on the one hand nobody wants to drop a bomb which is going to kill a quarter of a million people.

But on the other hand the Japanese were killing and torturing and committing unspeakable evils against millions of innocent people throughout Asia, as well as against thousands of allied forces.  And all because they wanted to rule Asia and tough crap on anyone who disagreed with this philosophy.  And the pilot knew that if he didn’t push his button then the Japanese would carry on killing and torturing, but if he did push his button then the likelihood was that they’d be shocked or frightened into surrendering and the killing and torturing would end.  Admittedly, at the cost of a quarter of a million lives, but the alternative was a death figure a lot higher than that.  Not to mention the fact that the A-bomb victims would in the majority of cases be gutless cowards that knew that the Japanese master plan was totally evil, but they were too gutless and cowardly to do anything about it.  So the pilot knew what he had to do.

But it still couldn’t have been an easy thing to do, though.  Analysing the maths couldn’t have made pushing that button any easier.  And Eric was likewise finding it hard to take the final step and hoy the lips on the lass he was dancing with.  He knew the Femlings had to die in order to save the Earth, but he wasn’t sure if he could personally cope with the enormity of the responsibility.

Sorry to get all heavy and all that, but that’s just what went through Eric’s head so I’m just telling you what happened.  So don’t blame me if you’re thinking, ‘Howay, man!  Chill out a bit!  I wasn’t expecting all this heavy stuff!’

But anyway, you’ll be pleased to hear that the thought that went through Eric’s head a couple of seconds later wasn’t quite so heavy.  The thought that went through Eric’s head a couple of seconds later was, ‘Hey, bums are lush, like!’

If a perfectly toned Olympic athlete’s bum was a ‘ten’ on the ‘bum firmness’ scale, and a saggy vegetarian’s protein-deficient bum
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was a ‘one,’ then Eric’s ideal bum would be an eight.  This lass’s bum, however, was around about a ‘six,’ and yet it still felt totally lush.

‘Hey, it just shows you how lush bums are,’ Eric thought to himself.  ‘Two points away from being a perfect bum and yet it’s still totally lush.  It just shows you the wide range of lushness that bums have.’

The ‘bum firmness’ scale’s wide range of lushness and the Hiroshima pilot’s enormous responsibility battled for thought time in Eric’s brain, with neither really emerging victorious.

‘Flip!’
Eric thought once again.  ‘You’re gonna have to do it soon, otherwise she’s gonna lose interest.’  And then he detected that she was about to make a move herself so Eric moved his head forward.

But not to kiss her.

He moved his head to the side of her head, so that his right cheek was now against her right cheek.  ‘This will buy me a few more seconds to contemplate the moral dilemma,’ he thought to himself.  And as he imagined all the Femlings dead – all eight billion of them – he decided, ‘I can’t do it.  I’m a cowardly bottler as well.  Just like most of the Japanese at Hiroshima,’ and he was just about to let go of the fit lass’s leg and step away from her and jump off the podium.

But then, at the last moment, another thought entered Eric’s h
ead, ‘Here’s an idea… How about you forget about the moral aspect of things for a minute and just snog her because she’s totally fit?’  It was an idea that held a great deal of appeal to Eric.  ‘Hmm…  I like it.  Don’t worry about all the moral rights and wrongs of the situation, and just enjoy the physical lushness of getting your perv on with a horny fit lass.  Aye, that’s a very appealing concept,’ Eric thought to himself.

Unfortunately for Eric though, the fit lass had lost patience with his procrastinating and at that moment removed her arms and leg from around his body, then jumped off the podium down onto the beach.

‘Ar, fuck!’ Eric thought to himself.  ‘Why didn’t I look at things from a purely hormonal point of view earlier?  Why did I have to worry about all that moral crap?  Ar, fuck!  What a gutter!’

It has to be said though, that Eric’s disappointment wasn’t just because he had missed out on the chance to score with a fit lass.  It was also because he had finally contemplated the enormity of the situation he found himself in.  Up until then he had sort of seen it all as a bit of a game.  Sort of a nice holiday in the sun for a few weeks with a few minor tasks thrown into the mix.  Only when he was seconds away from the moment of truth did he finally admit to himself exactly how big this was.  So that was probably the main reason why he was gutted.  Not just because he had failed to score.  Also because he didn’t particularly enjoy responsibility.

But responsibility was what he now possessed.  In an ideal galaxy the story would end with everyone on Earth living happily ever after in a world of flowers and fluffy kittens and lots of other nice pleasant stuff.  And likewise, the people of Fem would also live happily ever after in an equally pleasant world of sunny days at the park and picnics and generally happy smiles all round.

But in reality that wasn’t an option.  In reality, it was either Earth or Fem.  Fem or Earth.  One or the other.  And the decision rested with Eric.

And for all the Femlings were evil planetocidal maniacs, they were otherwise generally sound people, which only made things so much harder for Eric.  It was a bit like in the olden days when there were people who were generally nice people, but they were somehow racist.  Not to the point of being violent or anything like that, but still racist nevertheless.  It was as if they didn’t seem to realise that if you’re gonna be a nice person then you can’t be racist.  Nowadays it’s much simpler because nice people aren’t racist and racist people are generally totally rubbish in other ways as well.  Things are a lot more consistent nowadays.  But in the olden days it seemed to slip some people’s notice that racism is totally rubbish so if you’re gonna be a nice person then you can’t be a racist as well.  It’s either one or the other.

And it was a similar story with the Femlings.  They were generally totally sound, notwithstanding the fact that they were evil planetocidal maniacs.  It was as if they didn’t seem to realise that killing every living species on a planet, just because you deemed their standard of living to be inferior to your own, was a totally snidey thing to do and one which precluded you from being a nice person.

But either way, if the Earth was to be saved then the Femlings had to die.  And Eric was the one that held that responsibility.  And as he jumped off the podium and headed along to The Desert he realised it was a responsibility he was finding it very hard to cope with.

In fact if he was totally honest with himself, he was seriously beginning to doubt whether he could actually go through with his mission at all.

The following morning Eric logged into his A.T.S. account and sent Monty and Garth the following message:

‘I don’t know if I can do it.

I had the chance to score last night (like, as in a
blatant chance, rather than just a half-chance) but I bottled it.

And I didn’t ‘hormonally’ bottle it like I normally do.  This time it was the responsibility that I bottled.  Like, I suddenly realised that it was me personally that could potentially be responsible for the deaths of eight billion Femlings.  And that seemed like such a high number.  Like, I worked it out and it’s, like, a hundred and
fifty thousand St James’ Parks.  Like … flip!  That’s purely millions!  Actually, it’s billions, not millions.  Hence the expression … eight billion.

Anyway, I don’t know if I can cope with such a high number.

I don’t think I can do it.’

Garth sent the following reply back:

‘Ar, no worries.  Don’t worry about your mates on Earth.  We’ll just die so that the evil Femlings can live and you don’t have to deal with the responsibility.

You just be an ostrich.  Stick your head in the ground and pretend everything’s okay.  No worries.  Don’t stress about it.’

Monty’s reply was as follows:

‘Look
Eric, I see what you’re saying but you’ve just got to dig deep and find the courage.

Fair enough, you don’t want the responsibility of killing eight billion Femlings, but would you rather have the responsibility of letting s
even billion people on Earth die?  And the Femlings are evil mentalists whereas the people on Earth that you’d be letting die are all sound innocent people.

Well … mebbees not
all innocent.  Admittedly there’s some crap people on Earth who it’d be no great loss to see the back of, but the majority – say about ninety percent – of people on Earth are totally sound.  Not to mention the deaths of all the other species on Earth.

Ask yourself which responsibility would be the hardest to live with?  The responsibility for eight billion ‘evil mentalist’ deat
hs or the responsibility for 6.3 billion ‘totally sound’ deaths plus 0.7 billion ‘no great loss’ deaths?