Spaced Out

Stardate 42009.7.

I was forewarned but not so much forearmed. BigGeek informed me that his important design work on a new machine for peace with the Soxulans would take priority over domestic issues. For seven whole stardays. And as Murphy’s law goes, my own important work with life-matter, was and will continue to be until the next solar equinox on Earth, in an uber-crunch mode. I am battling secret, alien bugs. Exhausting, yes.

So, on this evening, as the thermometer continued its upward rise – well it really had no choice, it’s hard to do a downward rise- Chip and I decided to go to the Final Frontier of the known world. To explore strange stores, seek out new deals and new discounts and to boldly go where no man really wants to go. The engines of our middle-class starship were fired, warp drives engaged and the two crew-members put on their space suits, slathered ultraviolet protection (For Type A and B solar UV rays) and headed to the city on the edge forever. We pulled our starship in to the docking bay, aside a bigger, fancier, more expensive starship, climbed down and walked a few feet in the intense, exhausting heat into the glass enclosed nerve-center.

We did not know it then, but we had now entered a fragment of the space-time fabric where space and time and sensibilities warped. And its effects were instantly perceptible. A few minutes inside the city and Chip’s personality underwent a drastic transformation. This child, who sat quietly in his seat watching other spaceships and spacetrucks whiz by, had a sudden, inexplicable adrenalin rush. He twisted his body and shouted and ran. I ran behind him, for mighty dangers in the form of the ColorfulJellyBeans lurked ahead. They beckoned him as the sirens do to lost soldiers at the sea. But Chip, this time turned out to be stronger. My intense mind-lock sessions seemed to be helping him control his crystalline disaccharide urges. He seemed to gravitate towards them, the pink ones in particular, but withdrew himself suddenly, as if a switch in his brain had flipped and released a flood of “artificial-colors-and-preservatives” mumbo-jumbo down his hypothalamus.

He ran again, but stopped in a few feet, mesmerized by a little red contraption. It was a small car; you know the kind popular in 21st century America. This one wasn’t a real car of course, but a replica. Chip immediately wanted to take it for a test drive but wasn’t self-propelled. They were primitive little machines; they had to be propelled by an organism at least 5 feet tall. Since I fit the bill, in not just one, but three dimensions, I seemed like a perfect candidate. Not that there were any other to speak of. Chip, the dare-devil he is, jumped right in that car and sat. I looked for the propeller bars, found them and for a lack of better word, pushed the replica around.

The city was strangely quiet. No buzz, no crowds. Also, no deals, no discounts. I liked a garment fit for an Empress of the Tribbles that cost an arm and a leg. I almost cut off a limb, blame it on the triple warp of space-time-sensibility, but the rabid fear of the billattheendofthemonth jolted me back to my senses. Chip, in the meanwhile was showing an interest in a mannequin displaying garments. In a microsecond that I looked away, he stood up in his replica and peeked inside the plunging neckline. Of the mannequin. Thank Mouse^*. I caught him in the act and he flatly refused he was peeking at the anatomical-parts-that-shall-remain-unnamed, pointing to her collarbone instead. I blamed it on his y-chromosome and we continued to explore and soon found over selves on the upper level.

A gay music was heard. We followed its direction and were rewarded. A giant rotating platform with replicas of medieval chariots and horses. Chip looked at it wide eyed. He had many starweeks ago, been rewarded with a ride in this carousel. He begged for one. I feigned to look for an appropriate currency. Chip looked on expectantly. I shook my head. Chip then asked me if we were impoverished. I nodded my head. But he looked so forlorn, that I decided to look, really look. I found some acceptable monetary token and Chip bought himself a ticket and enjoyed the ride.

Ride having finished and attempts at more thwarted by me, Chip sought nutrition, in what has got to be the most nutritious food in Chip’s mind. Dough slathered with crushed tomatoes and soured milk. He had a slice of that, while I nibbled at leaves that looked like lettuce. Thus our adventure came to an end. It didn’t really, but I am getting tired of writing this now.

*mouse: It was proved beyond reasonable doubt in the late twentieth century by Douglas Adams that a common mouse was really god.