“What the hell are you doing?”
“Practicing my Photoshop skills. Why do you ask?”
“Where did you find that?”
“In the laptop. You know that file entitled ‘Secret Scans’ way
down ten layers or so?”
“And what do you call yourself doing?”
“Practicing. Sexy, isn’t she?”
“You’re going to think ‘sexy’ if my wife catches you.”
“Oh,” he said. “She did. She claimed to be flattered, then asked
where I had put her baseball bat.”
C.W. was in one of his most troublesome shapes: Timmie Joe
the 14-year old nerd. I felt weak and sat in a chair near the table where he
was working.
“That was scanned from a negative I took many years ago.”
“In a galaxy far away?” He giggled.
“In a state of youthful gadabouting far away. She didn’t
know I still had it.”
“She’s a ‘Ten,’ ain’t she?” He looked admiringly at the
computer screen.
This distracted me for a second. He was right, of course. For
that second, I was a young man again, in love for the very first time. Then I snapped
into reality.
“What in the world possessed you to dig that photo up?”
“I’m bored,” he said. “I have nothing else to do.”
“Bored?”
“Yes bored. Haven’t you heard that they shut down the government?”
“Yes, but how does that affect you?”
“Weekly reports.”
“Weekly reports?”
“Weekly reports,” he said, “as in: I can’t send any right now.”
“How does a government shutdown prevent you from sending your
reports? Doesn’t your Astral Synchronization System bypass our what you call ‘embryonic
communication system,’ and bounce directly off some star or another?”
“Oh,” he said, “my system is working fine. I could blow them
out my, well, you know what, if only the Elders would accept them.”
“And why won’t they accept them?”
“Dunjabeahphknwiphus.”
“What in the world is that?”
“A Falloonian term.”
I sighed. “I assumed that. What does it mean?”
He thought. “It roughly translates into an accusation of
what you Earthlings refer to as ‘fake news’ and won’t be accepted.”
“You mean news of the shutdown?”
“Yep.” He looked back at the photo. “She’s hot, man,”
“But that’s not fake news.”
“No,” he said, still staring. “She really is hot. May I keep
a copy?”
“I mean the news about the government shutdown. That’s not
fake news.”
“Try convincing the Elders of that. They claim no civilized
species in the history of the galaxy has ever done, or would ever do, such thing,
and they’ve warned me not to mention it again.”
“But it’s happened here before.”
“I know,” he said. “They didn’t believe it those times
either.” He looked and sighed again. “You were one lucky dude,” he said. Then,
almost as if he were talking to himself, he said, “But they did tell me to report
that they regret dropping that sperm deposit off on your planet. Falloonia has had
mixed results with panspermination. Remember Jerry Falwell?”
“What sperm deposit?”
He looked at me as if I had asked what gas we were breathing.
“The one they call ‘The Mouth Energizing Replica Device Experiment,’ Who else?”
I sort of understood. “But why?”
“You’re not going to believe this.” He erased a slight
blemish from the jpeg image. “There is actually a group of Falloonian Elders—a
small but fanatical group—that delights in watching your professional wrestling
shows. My ASS keeps them well supplied.”
“And?”
“They thought MERDE-Man might add even more fun to them.”
“And?”
“They never imagined. As I say, they apologized.”
He turned away. His conversation with me was over. He stared
at the jpeg again, made a minor adjustment, then spoke directly to it.
 |
| Case Closed. - C.W. |
See also:
Delta Dreaming
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