CHAPTER 23: Why They’re in Space

To recap:  Groink was about to reveal why Mr. Sploosh was after Steve, and Ronald was about to reveal why they were in space, and Amber was about to reveal how Wally could prove his love, and Splatch was about to reveal that he liked to reproduce asexually while watching midgets ride overgrown frogs, and Steve was approximately sixty seconds away from revealing just what gasses an empty drunkard’s stomach could produce.

The resulting cacophony, odds defyingly, sounded very much like a semi-distorted “begin one minute count down self destruct sequence, authorization Brap, code 4-12-16-9, Alpha Omega Supra Giraffe” in Fart, Brap’s native tongue.  Thankfully, that wasn’t even close to the code Brap had put on his ship’s self destruct sequence.  (but wouldn’t it have been weird if it had?)

“WAIT WAIT WAIT!”  Amber, who had plenty of experience in interpreting and mediating a swarm of people talking all at once, due to her waitressing experience, blurted (coming close to blurfing).  “Ok, ok…  ONE at A TIME… ok!?  Ok.  Groink, you first.” She pointed, reigning in some order.

“Thank you.”  Groink said, visibly relaxing his forehead.  The previous little while had been very taxing on his brain.

“Your friend here,” He began, wiggling his hips and nodding towards Steve, “is wearing a dead female Rubbersole, who very likely, is in some way important to, I suspect, Mr. Sploosh, of the same species, who fits your description of an unerringly cheap crime lord.”

As Steve’s current clothing consisted of broken glass, a semi-stolen pair of Wal-Mart pants and a moldy sneaker, the process of elimination of what, exactly, a Rubbersole was, was fairly quick.

“Oh.” Steve said.

“Shit.” Ronald said.

“Yeah.” Steve answered.

“Shit.” Ronald said again.

“Yyeah…?” Steve answered, wondering if he should.

“That’s bad.”  Ronald informed him.

“…Y…eah.” Steve answered, hating to sound so repetitive.

Ideally, I’d end the chapter here, y’know, to build suspense.  But everyone really needs to talk for quite some time.  But now would still be a good time to go to the bathroom, or grab some crackers before continuing.

All settled in then?  Great.

“You’re walking around…” Ronald began, “with a murdered, one can only assume anyway, woman, ON YOUR FOOT, who, granted, looks a lot like a shoe, but if we get pulled over…” 

“WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE PUT IN SOME HORRID CELL WITH AN ALIEN WHO’S GOT ENOUGH DICKS TO MAKE US ALL HIS BITCHES AT ONCE!” Wally finished the thought, as succinctly as was possible for him.  Wally’s DNA heard the weird request to start building female reproductive organs in place of the waste disposal unit, but (thankfully) disregarded it.

“Ahem.  Well, yes.” Ronald pipped.

Wally half squealed, half whined, all yelled, “WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO!?  WHAT ARE WE GONNA…”

“HOLD IT!”  Amber snapped.  “Ok Ronald, your turn.”

“Sorry?”


“I’m mediating, remember?”

“Ah.  Yes.  Why are we in space, correct?”


”That’s it, yeah.”

“OH SHIT OH SHIT!” Wally screeched, before getting slapped in the face by Amber.

“I said shush!” She said, shaking her hand in annoyance.  “Sorry Ronald, please continue.”  (Wally whimpered a little, but remained silent otherwise)

“Well Wally, it seemed like the best way to get away from an alien.  Steal his ship and leave him stranded on a planet unable to fabricate any means of pursuit.  I figured we’d fly to some nearby space port, and sort the whole thing out over a nice plate of un-blown-up” He shot Fred a dirty glance “pancakes.”

“…and maybe a strawberry smoothie?” Wally whined, weakly, wincing from a second blow that never came.

“Or some reasonable facsimile, sure.” Ronald patronized, knowing full well that strawberries were the last thing one found in most space ports (though pancakes were pretty much universal).  “And” Ronald continued after enough of a pause to ensure that it was still his turn, “As for how we found, hijacked and knew how to operate the vehicle, to summarize as quickly as possible, because I’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“All good and well?” Amber checked, waited for Wally’s nod, then pointed to herself.  “Right, I’m next.  Wally, you can prove your love for me by proving that you are somehow different from every other dweeb who falls in love with me on any other given day.”

Wally blinked.

“HOLY SHIT!” Steve and Amber screamed together in nearly the exact (and somewhat embarrassing) tone.

“What?” Wally answered, blinking.

“HOLY SHIT!” Steve and Amber screamed again, this time in their own respective tones, and with a lot of pointing towards Wally’s forehead.

“You seem to have grown a third eye there, Wally.” Ronald remarked.

Wally hopefully looked towards Amber, “…does that count?” he semi-pleaded.

“…uh… uhmmm…”

There’s really no good time to let out a fart as horrible as was about to follow.  But Amber would still be partially relieved when it did (at least, at first).

Steve let out his sixty-second-repressed, but long-fermented, small, yet oh-so-pungent, puff of gas, which, as luck would later have it, loosely translated to “thinking machine?” (It should be noted now, that Fart is a fairly simple language, similar to Hawaiian mixed with Chinese, having lots of vowels and inflections of tone that can mean totally different things with a simple adjustment of one’s speaking… apparatus.  Lots of vowels and all that.  So, although it IS a pretty large coincidence, it isn’t enormously so, when one considers the considerable lack of variables in such a language.)

The ship’s computer, taking the initiative, let out a tentative toot of its own, in reply, of which, was nearly lost in the outbreak of cursing from everyone who wasn’t Steve, or Splatch, as he didn’t seem to have a nose.

“DID MY FART JUST ECHO!?” Steve yelled over the din, embarrassed just slightly less than he was curious.

“I LIKE MIDGET-ON-FROG PORN!” Splatch hollered in reply, having completely misunderstood the intent behind Steve’s sudden yell.