KATACLYSM: A Space-Time Comedy (2 page)

“But Mr. Alden, sir.  I don’t think that you understand…your heart stopped…you were dead.”

“You see!  Now you’re blaming this whole thing on me.  This is exactly the kind of psychological abuse I’m talking about.  If I were you, I’d be ashamed of myself treating an old man that way.  You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.  Good day, sir.”  And with that, the man turned and walked down the corridor, slowly disappearing the way he came.  Eric looked on in utter shock and incomprehension, his mouth agape.  He remained this way for a full two minutes whilst the alien looked on.  Then, he slowly began to slink down the hall in a way that would have made Sisyphus cry.

For lack of a better idea, Paroophoron followed Eric deeper into the hospital.  After passing through a number of wards, they came to a room with several chairs and couches.  It was unoccupied but a television had been left on in the corner nearest him.  It was replaying the late night news.  Eric slumped into one of the chairs and stared at the ceiling.

The TV blared.  “…the Dalai Lama was courtside this evening but even he couldn’t help stop the Celtics five-game skid.  They drop to seven and nineteen at home and twenty-one and thirty-two overall.  Now we’re going to go over to Flip Kipland in the weather centre to get the latest on tomorrow’s forecast.  How’s it looking out there Flip?”

Paroophoron momentarily glanced up at the TV screen.  Flip Kipland was a greasy looking thirty-something who stood in front of a map of New England clothed in the standard neon orange suit that only weathermen and porn stars dared to wear in public.

“Well Ken, I just have two words for you.  Brrrr and more brrrr.  It’s so cold I found a polar bear going through my trash this evening and it doesn’t look like this front is going away any time soon.  We’re looking at temperatures that are well below seasonal until Friday at the earliest…”

Paroophoron did his best to tune out this inane chatter.  Like all aliens, there was almost nothing he hated more than watching the news on Earth.  Having a person yammer at you for several minutes about the temperature is frowned upon in most advanced societies throughout the universe.  In fact, doing away with weathermen is actually listed by the high council of Framacon VIII as one of the forty-six prerequisites that a civilization must meet before it is granted permission to engage in intergalactic travel.

As Paroophoron’s eyes drifted away from the television set, they came to gaze upon another large, metallic object sitting in the far corner of the room.  From his point of view, it was an improvement upon the TV for two important reasons.  First, it depicted no weathermen whatsoever.  In fact, Paroophoron had the distinct impression that, had he asked it, the machine wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what a weatherman was.  The second and perhaps more relevant point was elegantly conveyed by the friendly letters adorning the top of the large silver box: ATM.

Paroophoron glanced over at Eric to make sure that he had not been seen.  Although presumably alive, Eric showed no overt signs of this fact, much like Al Gore.  Paroophoron crept towards the bank machine, ducking behind a row of chairs while he fished for his credit card in one of the voluminous pockets of his trench coat.  When he arrived at the ATM console, he carefully slipped the card into the open slot.  The machine thought for a moment and then beeped. Paroophoron’s eyes scanned the room ensuring that the noise had not drawn unwanted attention.  Satisfied that Eric was still wholly incapacitated, he turned back to the ATM and waited for the money to come out….Nothing.

He waited again.

Not a single bill emerged.  Abandoning caution, he gave the ATM a slightly impatient kick.  No money was forthcoming.  He was about to kick it a bit harder when he saw the message displayed on a screen that he hadn’t noticed before.

Please enter your 4 digit personal identification number

Paroophoron’s eyes narrowed.  In all of his 100 million years, he had never even heard the term ‘personal identification number’.  His wife took care of the banking.  He thought for a moment.

“What number could she have picked?  It could be anything…absolutely anything.”  Despair began to set in.  After wracking his brain for several minutes without coming up with anything, Paroophoron just decided to take a shot.  Scanning the keypad, he decided on the first number: 1. Then, he chose a second: 1. Feeling that he was on a roll, he selected a third number: 1. And finally, without thinking twice: 1.  He stared at the screen.

****

Press OK to continue

Having made peace with his guess, Paroophoron pushed “OK”.  The ATM again thought for a moment and then beeped.

Thank you EPOOPHORON please select a transaction

Finally, one piece of luck in this night from hell, Paroophoron thought smiling to himself.  Still, just how the little alien had been able to guess Epoophoron's ridiculous password was somewhat of a mystery to him.  He had done nothing more than select the numbers that he would have chosen for himself and he had been remarkably lucky.  Or so it would seem.  In reality, it is a cosmic oddity that all non-Earth dwellers, no matter where they are from, always choose the numbers 1111 as their bank codes.  They all feel a bit silly about it at the time but they rationalize their decision with the thought that no one with any sense would ever guess such a stupid password.  And as it turns out, they're absolutely right because, as a group, aliens tend to assume that everyone else is far more bold and creative than they are.  They imagine that all of their friends have come up with witty bank codes, sentimental bank codes or bank codes that really make you think.  In fact, it's 1111 for the lot.  Of course, the various galactic banks, all of whom are well aware of this fact, go to great lengths to hide it from the masses.  They frequently advertise non-existent workshops on how to come up with the cleverest bank codes just as a way of reinforcing the public's belief that people are putting a lot of thought into the activity.  When it came down to it though, the banks were simply happy that everything seemed to work out in the end, a feeling that Paroophoron could truly relate to as he pulled one hundred dollars out of the ATM.

Turning to leave, the alien noticed that Eric was no longer sprawled in a chair.  Indeed, he seemed to have disappeared altogether.  Suddenly fear gripped Paroophoron.  Had he been seen?  One of the doors along the side of the lounge was open and Paroophoron could hear a clanging noise coming from within.  He ambled over to the door and peaked in.  Eric had fallen asleep with his head resting on the side of his locker.  Paroophoron felt a momentary pang of guilt.  Dr. Silver had not been as fortunate as he.  Pity prompted the little alien to remain there for a few moments longer.  Then, as discreetly as he had come, he left.

Warm soup in hand, Paroophoron climbed through the hatch into the recently defurbished spaceship that he had conveniently parked on the balcony above Wu’s restaurant.  He would have no more of this mucking about.  From now on, he resolved only to get takeout from places that delivered.  He glanced around him and was surprised at how much he truly missed the leather interior.  It had been a miserable trip to be sure and he was glad to be on his way.  But before he took off, Paroophoron’s thoughts drifted back to poor Dr. Silver.  He loathed seeing the man suffer, especially on such a bitter night without so much as a nice warm drink.  Ah well, thought Paroophoron.  There wasn’t much to be done, but at least I managed to leave Dr. Silver a little something that should cheer him up.  And so the good-natured little green alien revved up his spacecraft.  He would have to hurry if he was going to be on time for his dinner party.  But as he soared over the rooftops of sleeping Cambridge, he hadn’t the slightest inkling of the havoc that his little gift was about to cause.

At 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, Jude Conlan awoke to a changed world.  At first appearance, it seemed to be just like any other Sunday.  As usual, Jude had been brought out of his slumber by the bizarre legislative shrieks of his parrot Raymond.

“…As my distinguished counterpart from the state of Illinois is well aware, school vouchers do nothing to address the fundamental problems facing our public school system,” Raymond squawked.  “Instead they represent a kind of defeatism that has no place in this fine country.  They’re counterproductive and they’re un-American…”

Raymond’s previous owner had obviously gotten a kick out of turning the television to C-SPAN and then leaving for the day.  As a result, the multicolored bird endlessly exercised its unique ability to recite thousands of hours of political nonsense.  Occasionally, of course, he would quote racier material that had the unmistakable quality of low-budget adult film dialogue.  One way or another, the stream of sleazy chatter never seemed to end in Jude’s tiny Boston apartment.

“…frankly, it is irresponsible to engage in partisan politics given the looming fiscal crisis…”

“Shut up Ray.”  Jude got out of bed.  He waded through the jumble of dirty laundry strewn about as he made his way to the bathroom.  Turning on the shower, eyes still closed, Jude whistled Rondo alla Turca as the hot water hit him.  He was a slim, non-descript thirty year old man with short black hair and ears that stuck out a bit too much.  Women found him good looking but not that good looking.  The few of them who took the time to talk to Jude found that he was actually one of the smartest and most unusual Bostonians, but his most conspicuous character trait was an almost awe-inspiring talent for laziness.  It was the only thing he ever really worked hard at.  Generally, Sunday was the one day of the week on which Jude could manage to accomplish anything.  Monday was a write off.  It was nearly impossible to concentrate knowing that there were a full five workdays ahead.  To distance himself from this kind of negativity, he tended not to work on Mondays at all.  Nonetheless, Monday always seemed to cast a lingering shadow on the rest of the week from which Jude found it nearly impossible to recover.  He would sometimes start to feel better about life on Thursday afternoons at 3 o’clock but by then it was hard to achieve any kind of real momentum for the week.

Jude emerged from the bathroom and promptly knocked over a pot of marigolds he had been given as a gift.  He ignored the mess.  Jude had never been particularly good at taking care of plants.  The few he ever bought usually died within a couple of days.  Recently he had started buying fake plants, but even these were beginning to look wilted.  Weeding through the clothes on the floor, Jude found a stained undershirt.  He threw it on.  Next he selected five T-shirts smelling each of them in succession.  They all smelled the same.  The one he settled on was a hideous teal and adorned with the words “Wilt Chamberlain is my dad and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”.  Then, in his routine and extensive attempt to thwart the cold weather outside, he put on thermal underwear, a pair of pants, a long shirt, a vest, a sweater, a bright yellow scarf, a huge fake fur coat, earmuffs, a hat and gloves.  On his feet he wore a double layer of socks and giant boots.  Covering his eyes with a visor, he looked more like a massive otherworldly fur ball than a man.  But Jude didn’t care what other people thought of his eccentricities.  He simply refused to let Mother Nature get the better of him.  Taking slow, wobbly steps, he carefully descended the narrow wooden staircase that led downstairs from his apartment.  As he reached the bottom of the steps, he took a moment to mentally prepare himself for the snow and the bitter wind, then he stepped out of the door.

“What the…?”  Jude was bewildered by what he saw on this mid-winter’s morning.  Over the many travails of his lifetime, he had become accustomed to looking ridiculous and getting stares, but on this day the people who passed by were actually pointing and snickering.  He could hardly blame them.  They were all wearing short-sleeves and jeans.  There wasn’t a drop of snow on the ground and the temperature was more befitting of a day in late spring than early February.  Jude shook his head.

“Lousy weathermen.”

Ten minutes later, Jude reemerged outside his building having shed most of his apparel.  He decided to celebrate the unseasonably good weather by wearing a clean polo shirt he found buried under a mound of socks next to his bed.  Jude began to walk in no particular direction.  Although he now recalled that the weather had been warm all week, he had the unsettling feeling that it should really have been freezing cold outside. It was just a sense he had.  He wasn’t sure why.  Certainly, something had changed.  But as he wandered down the sidewalk, Jude had no inkling of how profound the change was. He just felt uneasy.  Best not to worry about it, he thought.

Had Jude been paying any attention at all, by the time he was about a block away from his apartment, he would have noticed a few interesting things.  A morbidly obese Harvard math professor with enormous sweat stains under his arms had run past him with a terrified look on his face as though he had just seen an alien or something.  Across the street, there was an exasperated looking first year medical resident who was muttering to no one in particular in a loud and confused voice as he headed home.  Then there was the leader of a bizarre messianic cult who was distributing information pamphlets at the last intersection, vigorously warning passersby that a day of reckoning was nearing.  Jude’s future was about to be intimately tied to the futures of each of these individuals and he might have done well to stop and take notice of them.  Instead, however, he chose to size up the earth-shatteringly sexy blond walking ahead of him on the other side of the road.  Although his brain had in some way registered the presence of all of the people acting strangely behind him, he had subconsciously decided that he far preferred an escapade with a beautiful woman to an encounter with a bunch of dodgy maniacs.  On this day, however, he would have to settle for both.

Moments later Jude was darting between cars desperately trying to reach the woman who had caught his eye.  Despite wearing tall, high-heeled shoes, she was walking at a brisk pace and he had to run to catch up to her.  Jude hadn’t as yet considered what he was going to do when he got to her or even quite why he was chasing this woman in the first place.  You see, Jude suffered from an unusual kind of romantic disease.  He was too spontaneous.  All women will tell you that they like spontaneous men, but this is absolutely preposterous.  In truth, what they’re really looking for is a kind of carefully planned spontaneity, the sort of meticulously rehearsed and orchestrated spontaneity that requires thirty-seven takes on the film set of your average romantic comedy.  Indeed, all men will tell you that they live in constant fear that one day they might slip up and actually do the first thing that comes to mind.  This is never advisable.  The consequences are almost universally disastrous and the unfortunate fellow is usually doomed to spend hours watching stunningly average, woefully written romantic comedies with his sweetheart to rectify matters.  It’s really best to put in the time in advance.

For a man who was stupid enough to be truly spontaneous around the women he lusted after, Jude actually managed surprisingly well.  It seemed that there was something boyishly attractive about a man who was impetuous enough to flout the most basic of social conventions.  Perhaps it was this quality that led the woman to stop and size Jude up for a moment when she heard him calling.

“Miss!  Miss!”  Jude cried as he neared.  The woman turned, her baby blue eyes staring at him serenely.  Jude was panting and, as he took a moment to catch his breath, he happily noted that she was not wearing a wedding band.  It wasn’t that he objected to dating married women, but Jude was always happier on meeting a woman to know that, should this new-found relationship survive, he would not be required to make hasty exits through fifth floor windows and the like.  At this point, Jude had been standing there for ten seconds and he was keenly aware that the woman would probably expect an explanation for why he had stopped her.  Her expression said as much, although her mesmerizing eyes were entirely devoid of disapproval.  Jude was momentarily lost in them.  Then it happened.  He went blank.  It was as though all words had up and fled his mind.  Jude smiled at her but had absolutely no idea what to say.  He wasn’t sure what to do.  The blond woman’s eyes left his and Jude had the distinct impression that she was about to turn to leave.  In fine form, he did the first thing he could think of.  He reached into his pocket.

“You dropped this,” Jude said helpfully as he pulled out the first object he got his hands on.  She looked at him and then at the object and then at him once more as she decided whether it would be impolite to refuse the item which she was one hundred percent certain did not belong to her.  In the end, she smiled at him and took it.

“Thanks,” she said in a placid and refined British accent.  He continued to stare at her, unable to think of what to say next.

“Well…bye then.” And with that she was off again, quickly disappearing into a crowd of pedestrians leaving Jude to wonder why he had given her the only set of keys to his apartment.

The morning had gotten off to an inauspicious start.  Jude wandered the streets for half an hour, frustrated with himself for freezing at the worst possible time.  It wasn’t like him, but something just didn’t feel right this morning.  He came to the public gardens and found a gaggle of young people enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.  He passed a pair of teenagers standing under George Washington on his horse.  They had left their empty Slurpee cups at the base of the statue and were making out furiously.  As he left the south end of the park, stepping onto Boylston Street, Jude decided to open his appointment book to see what was in store for him for the rest of the day.  Just as he arrived at the entry for February 10th, he felt a sharp jab on his left side causing the book to fly out of his hands.  A heavyset construction worker had plowed into him while struggling to carry a large jackhammer.  To Jude’s dismay, no apology was forthcoming.  As he glanced around to locate his appointment book, Jude was again saddened to note that it had most likely fallen into an open manhole a few feet to his right.  Frustration mounting, he immediately marched towards the towering, muscle laden construction worker and tapped him roughly on the back.

“Excuse me.”

The man turned around as slowly as humanly possible with the obvious intention of conveying the full magnitude of his annoyance at being accosted thus.  Jude figured that the man must have had at least seven different eyebrows all jumbled up in a mess on his forehead.  Presently, they all converged into one large furrowed mass that pointed squarely at Jude.  He didn’t like being pointed at, especially when the hair that was doing the pointing was attached to a large, incompetent oaf who had demonstrated a blatant disregard for the welfare of his daytime planner.

“Excuse me,” he repeated arrogantly.  “You may not be aware of this, but you knocked into me while you were clumsily transporting your equipment.”  He vaguely waved in the direction of the jackhammer.  The man took a step closer and peered down at Jude.  He got so close that Jude could smell the distinct odor of tuna salad on his breath.

“So?” growled the construction worker.  “What’s your point?”

“Well since you ask, my point is that when you nearly bowled me over you managed to knock my agenda book into that manhole that you or one of your friends had already kindly opened for…”

“It’s not a manhole,” the man said shortly, straightening up.  Jude had difficulty believing it, but the big lout almost looked offended.  Jude couldn’t imagine why.

“Yes, the manhole.  Over there.”  Jude pointed impatiently in its direction and then drew a circle in the air, hoping that perhaps if English was not this man’s specialty then hand signals might do the trick.  Just then another voice from the construction site chimed in.

“Hey Pete!  Is it OK if I start to pull up the pavement?”  The man turned away from Jude for a moment.

“Just a second Ernie, I’m in the middle of somethin’.”  Turning back to Jude, “It’s not a manhole,” he reiterated in a soft but firm voice.

“What?”

“I said it’s not a manhole!” he bellowed.

Jude was startled.

“I don’t think you understand.  It fell in there.  In that manhole.  You know, the thing – the hole if you will – that men like you usually climb in and out of.”  Jude walked over and pointed straight at it.  He was not an unreasonable man and he enjoyed a good metaphysical argument about what does and doesn’t constitute a manhole as much as the next guy.  But he was slowly getting impatient with Pete the construction worker.

“That,” Pete pointed in the same direction, “is not a manhole.”  He was beginning to sound like a broken record.  Jude decided to try another approach.

“You see my book fell…”

“It’s people like you who make me sorry to be a man.  You strut around on your high horse calling things manholes left and right.”

“Well what would you have me call it then?” said Jude, annoyance boiling over.

“A personhole,” said Pete simply.  Jude was startled again.

“A what?”

“A personhole,” repeated Pete.  “You see by calling it a manhol
e
just a minute Erni
e
by calling it a manhole you’re perpetuating an outmoded misogynist paradigm that has no place in the 21st century lexicon.  You make me sick.”