Wake
An Aesthetic sham
Book One
Melvin, Meet Universe
In the beginning, only the abyss existed. On the first day, He created the vastness of the universe and all the stars and galaxies that filled it. On the second, He created the laws to which all must abide. On the third, He created the seeds of life and on the fourth scattered them across the endless space of His creation. On the fifth, He bestowed all life with the capability for intelligence, emotion, and observation. On the sixth, He created all the mundane and extreme horrors to ensure wonderment would be met with or exceeded by joylessness. On the seventh, He fell into a deep sleep. For billions of years, his slumber went uninterrupted as His infinity unfurled and grew more complex without his interference.
Then, one afternoon He awoke from his hibernation on a completely insignificant yet conceitedly geocentric planet populated by strange ape creatures, a silly little planet called Earth. On the fated year of 1984, the Almighty adopted the name of Melvin.
The next 23 years were entirely uneventful. Unaware of his true nature, Melvin wound up exactly the same as everyone else. He worked nights in a pub somewhere in South Dakota. Most days he worked with a dry listlessness, pouring drinks unenthusiastically, conversing with half heartedness and counseling people on their boring problems with feigned sympathy, for a bartender is cheaper than a therapist. But, it payed well enough and didn’t require much effort, so as far as jobs go, Melvin quite liked his.
This evening, Melvin manned the counter alone. The bar, too, was almost completely empty with only a couple sad saps drowning their sorrows in drink as a light snow drifted onto the ground. He would’ve laughed at these blokes getting drunk alone in the AM hours of Christmas if he didn’t technically count as someone almost as pathetic himself. Always the optimist, Melvin considered his pitiable situation a boon. Taking the Christmas Eve shift gave him a pretty penny in overtime pay. He’d grown more or less estranged from his parents, felt a disinterest in finding a girlfriend, had no long-term friendships and rejected the idea of a God, therefore found no reason in acknowledging Christmas. All he’d celebrate tomorrow would be his day off in the company of his pet goldfish he affectionately named Quincey.
Melvin pondered these thoughts while polishing a pint glass and staring at the clock. The second it ticked past 3:00, he kicked the few people remaining out of his bar before quickly locking up shop.
He strode off into the wintery night, breath coming out in great puffs of smoke, and snowflakes falling gently on his shoulders. The cold pierced easily through his coat, one a bit too light for this weather. The brisk chill invigorated Melvin on his short walk to his car, but he ended that feeling promptly by turning on the heat as fast as possible. He drove home quickly and recklessly. With his shitty car, he drifted when he turned, kicking up the snow that began to stick to the ground. The late-night empty roads were his domain.
Upon arriving home and unlocking his door, Melvin was greeted with a draft of warm air and a sharp pain to the back of the head.
An indiscernible amount of time later, Melvin awoke, bound to one of his kitchen chairs. His head still pulsed with a dull pain from the impact. He could feel something warm trickle down his neck, likely his own blood. As the nature of his predicament sunk in, he began to freak out a little, struggling against the ropes that bound him, but making no progress. Poor Melvin had no chance against such immaculate knotwork as that which he faced. Upon finishing his panic session, he began to more logically assess the situation. He could see the outside was still dark, so he couldn’t have been out for all that long; the ropes that bound him were of his own possession. The intruders still made no sign of themselves. Melvin sighed. This whole breaking in and assault thing seemed to be shaping up into quite the hassle.
A strange noise emanated from deeper inside the house, some almost melodic, harmonic humming or buzzing sound. Melvin had never heard anything like it before in his life. The modulation and tone was unusual it sounded inhuman, like something outside of human invention. He couldn’t think of any instrument that could create such a noise. Perhaps something from a movie could come close. He strained his neck to see whatever was mucking about in his kitchen. However, in trying too hard to look, he shifted his weight sharply to one side, causing his chair to tip over with a loud clatter. The strange noises went silent. Melvin’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes, wide and fearful, were locked on the short hall. With a shuffling noise, whatever was squatting in his kitchen began to approach.
They appeared from behind the bend. Half a dozen of them emerged in a huddle, none much taller than three feet. They bore a pallad greenish-grey complexion and lacked mouth. A single dangly probiscular structure dangled from the center of each of the creatures faces with a mucousy hole at the end. Their skin hung off their bodies-- goblin-like in stature and proportion-- in loose wrinkles with a disgusting oily quality. Sparse hair covered their bodies irregularly. Their tiny, beady, greasy eyes were mostly black, rimmed with a thin band of jaundiced yellow. Melvin stared at the group in awe.
The squadron of strange beasts looked down at Melvin as he squirmed in discomfort and exchanged a glance. Their gelatinous noses raised and the singular hole dilated and constricted, creating the tittering hum heard before.
“Why are you in my home?!” Melvin asked in a panic, only realizing the matter of his break and entry was the least unusual of his current circumstances. The group of creatures buzzed to each other in a louder volume, gesticulating to each other intensely. Although Melvin couldn’t understand their speech, he could vaguely understand their intent from body language. It appeared to be some sort of mild discourse, an argument in some shape or form. They seemed to reach a consensus within a few minutes and return to their activities, milling about the house as if they owned the place. As they took command of his home, the panic Melvin felt subsided very slightly, somehow reassured by the presence of some form of power. He continued to thrash against the ropes, mostly out of obligation and with slightly less vigor than previously, stretching his neck to try and monitor the strange beasts in case of thievery or destruction of his property.
With a victorious toot of the snout, one of the creatures returned to the kitchen, brandishing a fishbowl, orbular in shape. Within, a large goldfish swam around in circles in a panic among his multicolored artificial rocks. The other beasts gathered, all trumpeting in union intensely. Melvin froze for a moment, halting his thrashing a moment to stare with an agape mouth.
“Q-Quincey?” Melvin whimpered at the sight of the fish. The disgusting creatures began moving around in some disgusting mockery of a dance, raising and lowering the fishbowl almost ritualistically. “That’s my fish!” He cried, “What are you doing with my fish!” They ignored his tearful outcry. One of them reached it’s nubby-fingered hairy mit into the fishbowl. “You- you filthy fuck! Don’t you fucking dare lay a fucking hand on my fucking fish!” Melvin began to thrash around more violently than ever, eyes blurring with the tears running down his cheeks. The creature picked up Quincey by the tail fin. The fish thrashed around as violently as his master. He looked at his one true friend and companion, tearful eyes sparkling as he felt himself sink into the depths of despair. “You motherfuckers-! Drop that goddamn fish right now!” He continued to flop around. The one holding the fish handed it over to another, a larger one, more burly and stocky with thicker, more disgusting-looking hair. It’s snout also seemed longer and to produce more mucus than the others. The alpha.
It tilted it's head up. The snout extended and the hole at the base dilated. It placed the fish in the slimy hole. It slid down, a wriggling lump, moving like a snake digesting a rat. In the most abject and profound horror he’s ever felt, Melvin stared.
He screamed. His cry, so loud and so filled with despair, reverberated throughout the many galaxies of the universe. The creatures recoiled as Melvin’s voice died in his throat. They ran and disappeared from sight as he whimpered disparagingly, bound to his kitchen chair, sobbing into his tiled floor as he murmured the name of his consumed fish. He tried to approach the fishbowl. The colorful bits of rock and broken glass laying amidst a puddle of water. The shattered tank.
His shattered heart.
For several minutes or hours, he mourned his dead fish, face full full of tears and snot, he trembled.
He heard another sound from the next room, some sort of clatter, just outside of his eyesight. He picked up his head to look in that direction, but quickly gave up and let his head drop to the ground with a groan.
“You fucks back for more!? You killed my fish, now you want to kill me?! Well, go a-fucking-head!” He shouted in rage.
“Wow, what a greeting. Nice to meet you too.” Spoke an unfamiliar voice. Melvin forced his head up to try and identify this new intruder. Certainly someone he’d never seen before. He was fairly attractive in an effeminate way with slim hips, long eyelashes and a head of shaggy blondish hair. He seemed to be dressed in something looking like a costume from an old sci-fi film, really tacky and mildly inconvenient.
“Who are you?” Melvin groaned, letting his head drop to the ground, “Why are you in my house?” The man shrugged.
“There’s some Earth phrase for it I’ve heard somewhere before... that’s for me to know and for you to discover.”
“That’s not quite it, but I get the picture anyway.” He sighed. The new arrival crouched down on the ground in front of him.
“Anyway, what are you doing?”
“Excuse me?” Melvin stared at the man, mouth agape. He returned the stare with a droll smile.
“Jeez, you’re ugly!” Melvin continued to stare at him in utter disbelief. “Oh, was that rude? Wait, there’s something... I know this one, give me a second...” The man hummed to himself, scratching his chin in an almost exaggerated gesture. “Oh! It’s crying, right? You were crying!”
“Yes...” Melvin said. The man chuckled to himself and clapped.
“Hah! I can’t believe I forgot about that one... Anyway, let’s get going.” He untied the ropes around Melvin’s wrists and yanked him up by the shoulder.
“What? I don’t want to.” He said as he was dragged off out of his house.
His eyesight was drowned in a blinding light for a moment. He flinched as a pain shot through his forehead. He covered his eyes from the harsh luminescence.
“Dude,” Melvin groaned, “A little warning next time? That fuckin’ kills, man.”
“It’ll do that. I forgot you people don’t use transmats.” He chuckled to himself, finding the concept something novel and amusing.
When his vision returned, Melvin glanced around his new environment. Everything was stark white with strange blocky furniture and odd modern looking sculptures made of white plasticy-looking material and chrome. It looked like something out of a B-list sci-fi film from the 70s.
“There’s a bathroom over in that direction.” The man pointed at a hallway sort of awkwardly protruding out of the room as he took a seat on one of the blocky white couches, “Make yourself look a little less hideous, alright? And put a lid on that sniffling--that’s the phrase, right? Anyway, it’s unattractive.”
“Insensitive...” He muttered halfheartedly, walking down the hallway, “Alright.” Melvin did as he was told anyway. When he returned the man grinned widely.
“Hey! You clean up well! You’re really not as ugly anymore!”
“Thanks for that.” Melvin said sarcastically and took a seat on a blocky chair, “Is this your house?”
“Yeah! This is my pad, you like? Radical, huh? I worked really hard on the decorations, looks good, right? Real earthy.” Melvin shook his head.
“No... not really” After a long, stagnant and awkward pause, he met the man’s eyes sternly, “Anyway can you tell me who you are now? Please? And what’s going on? Is this a kidnapping?”
“What a stupid question!” The man chuckled, “You’ve waived your rights as a member of an indigenous planet, so now you’re essentially my property!” Melvin blinked once, slowly.
“...What.”
“Well, less like property or more like... you’re my little brother or cousin or a pet dog or something, so I’m supposed to keep you alive. Isn’t that exciting? I’m excited!”
“Who are you to say that?” Melvin snapped in a wimpish half-assed way.
“You can call me Jamis, that’s what I call myself among my humie buddies, so you should be right at home with it.”
“Jamis isn’t a name...” Melvin muttered, running a hand through his hair with a deep, depressive sigh.
“Hey! Your hair looks good like that, let me just...” Jamis leaned over and began fiddling with his hair, prompting a sharp slap on the wrist from Melvin. He rubbed his wrist with a bit of a scowl, “Yeah, as if ‘Melvin’ is a name...”
“It is.”
“Well it sounds lame anyway. You should change to something cooler, something like... Klint.” Jamie shrugged
“Not a name either.” Melvin groaned, holding his head in his lap.
“Wow, you don’t have to be such a negative person.” Melvin groaned louder, “Jeez, case in point.”
“Well I’ve had kind of a rough evening, you know? I had to work late and it was cold and those things broke in and ate my fucking fish-” His voice caught in his throat, eyes watering at the memory, “And now I’m in this shitty rejected Ikea advertisement.” Jamis’ eyes widened in offence.
“Well now! First of all, my ship is top of the line modern Earth-human interior design. Second, get over it, it’s just a fish-”
“Just a fish!” Melvin yelled, “Just a fish?! That was my fish- that was Quincey! He was more than just a fish, he- he was my friend!” He said with a chokey voice, “And they ate him.” A sob escaped from his throat, “It was christmas too!” He vigorously wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry, you don’t have an attractive cry.” Jamis patted Melvin on the shoulder, “But hey, I didn’t know this was Christmas. You have no idea how much I’ve heard about it in shows and movies and stuff, I never thought I would encounter it in person.” He grinned, “We can celebrate! What do you usually do?!” Melvin shook his head.
“I don’t do anything.” He said, “Especially now that they killed my fish, I’ll never celebrate it again.” Melvin crossed his arms.
“You’re a bit of a loser, aren’t you?”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re too caught up on your fish, buddy. We gotta do something to get your mind off of it. How about we hit the clubs?”
“We don’t have any clubs in South Dakota... And the bar is closed.” Melvin said.
“Don’t worry about that, we’re in space.”
“Oh.”
“Shouldn’t you be more surprised by that?” Jamis asked, “Are you seriously that hung up on a goldfish?”
“Yeah a bit. Anyway, stop acting so friendly with me, I don’t even know you.” Melvin picked up his head to send a soft glare Jamis.
“Well, we’ll become friends over a night of drinking, eh? What do you say?” Melvin sighed.
“You know what, fuck it.” He sighed, “Where’s the liquor?”
“Good man!” Jamis laughed, “Let’s get going! There’s a really nice club that’s been in orbit around your little planet for a few years, it’s called The Satellite--it’s a clever name right?”
“Seems pretty literal.”
“Well it’s the human word for... You probably wouldn’t get it.”
“Guess not.” Melvin laid down on the white couch, “Doesn’t matter, let’s drink.” Jamis shrugged.
“You’ll like this club, it’s a hang-out for a lot of humies, really the only one we’ve got.”
“You said that before, what’s that supposed to mean? Humies, that is.”
“That’s what we call ourselves, the guys who really like humanity, y’know, the culture and movies and shows and things that you people make.”
“We have several cultures.” Melvin rolled over on the couch.
“Not really, no, it’s all the same when you get to it. At the end of the day, all of you are just silly little people with your arms and legs and your funny automobiles and quaint sexual reproduction.”
“Sexual reproduction...? Do you do it differently?”
“I reproduce by budding.” Jamis said, putting a hand to his chest with pride. Melvin let his head loll to the side, staring at his new friend for a moment with one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, ok... Does that feel good, then?”
“Uh, it’s pretty good...” Jamis scratched the back of his head, “Y’know, man, I'm a bit sober for this talk.”
“Yeah...” Melvin muttered to himself, “I mean you're the one who brought it up in the first place, but whatever...”
With that, conversation fizzled out, causing the last few moment of the ride to feel markedly longer. The ship landed in Satellite’s docking bay with a bit of a bump. After being dragged inside by Jamis, Melvin scanned the club and instantly a myriad of emotions washed over them, most of them boiling down to unimpressed. The decor was tacky as best, very kitsch and dated, real hard on the eyes. Along with a perpetual headache-inducing black light, multicolored neon lights perpetually flashed from all directions. A disco ball hung from the ceiling, causing abrasive reflections to dance around the room; paired with the constantly pounding bass of the music that lacked any cohesive melody or sensical instrumentation, they created an effective migraine. Otherwise, an elegant bar like something from a classy evening club sat rather inconveniently placed at the center of the dance floor. Statues of naked women in compromising but not particularly attractive poses made of chunky plastic in different garish colors dotted the room seemingly at random. Even Melvin, a man who’d lived nowhere but Bumfuck Nowhere all his life, could tell this was a particularly shitty approximation of a club.
Sighing, Melvin took a seat at the bar. He wasn’t there for the atmosphere anyway, he just needed some strong liquor to drink away his sorrows.
“Scotch on the rocks, leave the bottle.” The bartender made a grunting noise and wordlessly prepared the drink. In the periphery of his consciousness, Melvin was aware of Jamis seeming to attract a sizable crowd around him, but he couldn’t be bothered to properly acknowledge this. With the years of subliminal conditioning to accept strange conditions from years upon years of consuming media where such things commonly happened and with the death of his dear innocent Quincey, Melvin was in no mood to feel any whimsy or surprise. Indeed, he’d already become somewhat jaded to the idea of intergalactic adventures. It’d been a long night for him, he was due for a bit of a brood. When his whiskey arrived, Melvin held his glass to the light with a faint scowl. He actually hated the stuff, how it burned when it went down and tasted like ass. Despite being a bartender by trade, he found most alcohol disgusting. Beer tasted like pisswater, wine was for pretentious fops, cider was shitty apple juice, tequila was just awful. That’s not to say he didn’t sip the sauce now and then, of course he did. Anyone would if they had to stay up all night and deal with the type of people that drink in the middle of the night. Despite this, Melvin felt like a stiff drink this evening. He wanted to taste the repulsive swill and feel it sear his gullet. He wanted the pain. He wanted to feel how Quincey felt, even if just a little.
“This is for you, Quincey.” Melvin raised his glass to his deceased fish before downing his liquor in a gulp. He choked and coughed violently. Sure, he didn’t know sotch well, but he knew it well enough to know that whatever he just swallowed most certainly wasn’t scotch. It didn’t burn going down, but more crucially it tasted quite literally like how he imagined shitwater to taste.
“Jesus fuck, what is this?” Melvin slammed his glass onto the counter, “This is disgu-” He stopped short a his eyes met the bartender. Before him stood a creature with pale purplish skin with a thin sheen of slimy mucous. It’s head had some strange holes oozing fluid with flaps of flesh covering them. The flesh flaps lifted and shut, creating a strange moist warbling noise. Though, to it’s credit, the thing was dressed well, in a black vest, matching tie, white shirtsleeves and silken gloves as it polished glasses.
“Er... sorry...” Melvin mumbled, swiveling in his chair to face the opposite direction, only to face a massive arthropod, a beast with many legs and a shiny black body. It held a wine glass and wore a white collared shirt with a loosened tie. Each of the sleeves had several of its thin sticklike spindly arms sticking out. On its head, two stalks with bulbous eyes poked out. To complete the horrific ensamble, it had a sheet of a strange peachy colored membrane draped it’s figure, like the hide of a man. In a mixture of shock, repulsion, terror, and just a trace of morbid fascination, Melvin let out a short, high-pitched, slightly effeminate squeal.
“Hey, buddy!” Jamis said, slapping Melvin on the back, causing another squeal.
“Oh, it’s just you.” He sighed, “This bar is weird, man, the liquor tastes like shit.”
“We haven’t cracked that one quite yet. Anyway, you strike me as more of a martini man anyway,” he snapped at the purple barkeeper and made a quick hand gesture, “You’re kind of a pussy, so I imagine you’ll drink like one too.” The bartender placed an appletini on the counter in front of Melvin.
“I’m not a pussy...” Melvin mumbled like a pussy, “But yeah, I like these.” Jamis snickered. “Anyway these guys are weird, especially that one.” He glanced briefly at the strange insectoid wearing the flesh suit.
“Yeah, I guess.” Jamis shrugged, “These people are all massive losers. No one would hang out all the way out here in the boonies.”
“Exiles?”
“No, not exactly.” Jamis’ smile twitched slightly.
“So the pariah dogs of the galaxy gather around Earth for... drinks?” Melvin snickered to himself slightly sardonically as he sipped his drink.
“That’s not the only reason.”
“Oh, I forgot about your whole humies thing.” Melvin snickered harder, “So you’re not only pariahs but massive nerds.” He drank the rest of his cocktail, “Losers...”
“Are you drunk?” Jamis asked, his grin so false it appeared only marginally less terrifying than a snarl.
“Just honest.”
“Stop being such a downer.” Jamis ran a hand through his hair in mild frustration, “You’re just taking out your stupid ass fish grief on me. You know, this whole thing is really fucked up, right? You’re probably mentally unstable or some shit, it was just a goldfish, it’s the most boring fucking pet possible.”
“You can’t say shit!” Melvin snapped at Jamis, “You’re not even human, you don’t know a single fucking thing about Earth, and you didn’t even meet my fish, and he wasn’t an it, he was a he. And you don’t know me, you don’t know what kind of relationship I had with Quincey.”
“I don’t want to kno-” Melvin cut him off,
“He was my only friend! I miss him.” He cried. Jamis, although a little offended, patted him on the shoulder.
“I know plenty about Earth... Anyway, cheer up, we’re here to have fun, right?” Jamis slid another appletini down the counter in front of Melvin.
“I dunno why I’m here.” He groaned, “But sure.” He downed the fresh cocktail and stood up, “I’m drunk enough, introduce me to your freakish friends.”
“That’s the spirit! Good man!” Jamis stood and, dragging Melvin by the sleeve, led him to a little lounge that seemed to be annexed to the side of the room, probably causing an awkward protrusion elsewhere.
Melvin took a seat on one of the couches that lined the walls of the lounge, plush red velveteen things. Somehow, they reminded him of something from a burlesque house, not that he’d ever been to such a place. At each spot, a fresh flavor of freak sat, things that had too many arms or not enough, things that were difficult to figure out where they started and ended, one in particular constantly appeared to be in a state of melting. Adding to the surreality of the situation, each of them seemed to be dressed in some sort of earthly clothing, wearing bowler hats and suit vests. The melty creature seemed to have the tips of it's scraggly, wiry hair frosted. Each of them looked upon Melvin with the utmost awe and fascination with their weird watery alien eyes and vaguely phallic sensory organs. It made him uncomfortable.
“ After a long and palpable silence, Melvin spoke up.
“Good morning.” He greeted politely, if not stiffly.
“Good morning!” The lot of them replied in unison, some speaking with perfect clarity and others replying with a growling gargle only very vaguely resembling language in any form. Their enthusiasm reminded him of a class of very young children. The group fell into silence once more and the penile sensory organs extended towards him again. Melvin reached for the nearest drink. Jamis, picking up the slack in the conversation, put an arm around his buddy’s neck, rubbing his shoulder and leaving a hand lingering awkwardly. Melvin mumbled something or other about personal space and boundaries.
“What? You guys are always talking about how much you wanted to ask a human something, now you’ve got one.”
“Hey,” Melvin scowled, “I’m a person.” The alcohol from earlier had begun to kick in. He slouched down, the overstuffed couch absorbing his body. Sighing, he relaxed into his plush crater. “Whatever, do whatever you want.” He threw up his arms in a half-hearted melodramatic gesture, “Let me entertain you.”
The troupe of freaks stared at him in either awe or confusion for a moment. Jamis interpreted his speech to the others. One of them spoke up, a small thing with beady little eyes, circular ears and a little beaklike mouth. The thing chirruped in some language that Melvin couldn’t distinguish different noises in. Jamis, seeming to understand, chuckled slightly.
“Eh? What’s happening?”
“This guy,” replied Jamis, holding in a chuckle, “He asked... ‘Where is the dog involved in doggy style’” Melvin stared at him incredulously for a moment. From Jamis’ eyes, despite the fact he bit his lip to hold in his laughter, he could tell the question was in earnest.
“I-I don’t...” Melvin mumbled, putting an arm over his eyes and began to giggle. An old man made himself present amid the group, mostly bald with a scattering of white hair and bulging blueish eyes.
“I know this one.” He said, putting his head into the fray, “You need the dog at the start when you-”
“No, you don’t- you don’t need any dogs for it.” Melvin cut the man off, his speech broken by short intermittent fits of laughter, “What’s with this dude anyway?”
“Someone picked him up one day, like an abduction, y’know?” Jamis explained, “It’s sort of against intergalactic code, but I don’t think anyone would miss him.” The old man nodded.
“and they don’t.” The man leaned forward and extended a hand, “The name’s Hager.” When Melvin touched the man’s skin, it had the most unpleasant texture. Weird and bony and smooth and clammy to the point of seeming slimy. Although it disgusted him, Melvin laughed.
“Is this dude even a human?” He rolled over on the couch, laying a little on the alien next to him, something vaguely resembling a shrimp but with soft, moist skin, something he generally would find disgusting. The sticky shrimp man shrugged, adjusting it’s cravat with one of it's noodly arms.
“Yes, a creep.” The shrimp man replied. As his mandibles opened and closed, one could see some foamy bubbles within. He spoke with surprising clarity for such a thing with a watery accent and a clicking tone. Laughing, Melvin said:
“Yeah, he’s a fuckin’ weirdo.” He glanced at Jamis, “This dude is pretty cool.” Jamis nodded but pulled him away.
“He’s alright, though his sort preys on large mammals like you.”
“Don’t we all, man? Meat is good, dude.” Again, Jamis put an arm around his shoulders, but this time, Melvin didn’t even seem to notice.
“Yeah but-”
“You’re just being like... fuckin’ prejudiced, man.” Melvin said, speech peppered with a few laughs, “Just ‘cause some shrimp guys eat people doesn’t mean this guy will.” Shrugging, Jamis dragged him back onto the couch. “Dude, I’m feeling fucking good now.”
“Yeah I bet you do.” His voice was tinged with a vague annoyance, “Let’s go somewhere else, alright?”
“No, like, no man.” Melvin giggled, “I’m starting to have a good time- hey, someone should fucking turn this music up.” Jamis sighed, the garbled noise masquerading as contemporary house music irritated him as much as it would anyone else in their right mind.
“They’re closing up shop soon.” Lied Jamis, “It’s almost seven, you don’t think they’re gonna stay open past sunrise, right? Anyway, you’ve been up all night, haven’t you? You should be getting to sleep.” Naturally, a bar in orbit doesn’t confine to the silly rules of Central Time or Eastern Standard time or even Greenwich Mean Time. Coinciding with a nod, Melvin followed the man back into his ship, waving to the pack of creatures behind him.
“I’m glad I met you, no one else would’ve taken me out for drinks. You know, everyone always vents to the bartender, you don’t get trained for that, all you get trained for is making mojitos, not that shit. Who gets the bartender drunk? Who listens to his problems when he’s too poor to afford a therapist? It’s all bullshit, y’know? Fuck Earth!” He complained in a glum yet giggly voice.
“I know the feeling.” Muttered Jamis as they entered his ship again. Looking at the interior with fresh eyes, Melvin broke into the fit of laughter Jamis expected he would.
“I’m in fucking space!” He exclaimed in a not quite indoor voice as he was pushed onto one of the uncomfortable blocky couches, “You idiot aliens can’t make good couches!” He laughed, although he likely couldn’t build a couch either. Tuning his companion’s outburst, Jamis began to diddle with the ship’s controls. “The couch is like... the cradle of civilization when you think about it.”
“In around twenty-eight seconds we’re going to leave this solar system at nine light years per minute, so I hope you’re ok with that.”
“I have no idea what’s going on.” Said Melvin in the midst of a fit of giggles brought on by the contemplation of seating, “Dude, I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”
“You probably won’t be seeing Earth for a pretty long time.”
After a brief pause, Melvin replied.
“Fuck Earth.”
Melvin awoke on an unfamiliar bed with a powerful headache and a strange hollow feeling in his gut. Groaning, he rolled over, making contact with someone lying next to him. The combined feeling of his arm sinking into some gelatinous substance and realization that the someone he shared the bed with was a man. Thus, he shrieked softly.
“What’s your problem?” Jamis yawned, lifting his slender figure from the mattress, soft satin sheets slipping from his nude form.
“Jesus fuck! Why are you naked? And... squishy?” He recoiled.
“Why aren’t you?” He said, flopping back onto the bed.
“...That’s... not an answer.”
“I’m basically a colony of jellyfish-like organisms in a hivemind,” Jamis yawned, “Don’t let that turn you off, though, babe.”
“Yeah but... that’s not an excuse for being naked.” Melvin, too, laid back down on the ground, throwing an arm over his eyes with an exhausted sigh. “Why am I sleeping with you? ...I don’t remember half of last night...” He groaned.
“It’ll be like that.” Jamis rolled over to face Melvin, propping himself up by the elbow, “You started annoying me so I gave you alcohol until you fell asleep, didn’t take too long.”
“It’s a bit fucked,” Melvin’s pounding headache kept him from feeling the proper gravity of the situation. He ran a hand through his hair, piecing together the memories of the previous night. “I was acting weird last night... sorry...” He muttered, then after further recollections, “Wait, did you dose me with something?” Jamis nodded.
“Yeah.” He answered.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Melvin shot up angrily, “That’s fucked, dude, it’s fucked! Why’d you slip shit in my drink?”
“I dunno, you were just being a downer, I thought it would be easier to get along or something. Sorta worked.” Jamis shrugged, “Don’t be so grumpy about it, you’re just coming down, in a week you’ll be fine.” In utter shock, he stormed out of bedroom, back into the main chamber of the ship. After walking around through the ship for a moment, he peered through one of the windows. Staring out into the beautiful vastness of space, speckled with endless shimmering stars and clouds of multicolored gasses. With a glance he knew he was far from home.
In that moment he wanted to die. For real.
Shortly following him from the bedroom, seeming to have thrown on his usual kitschy sci-fi getup haphazardly, Jamis appeared.
“I know you’re all down about this, but they would’ve erased your existence from the universe if I didn’t, the space police would, that is.” He said in a defensive tone. Melvin said nothing. “...How about this, we have the entire universe and all the marvels of the cosmos. You can go anywhere, do anything. What do you want to do?”
His words hung in the heavy air for a long moment. Melvin turned his head to meet Jamis’ eye with a dark expression.
“I want revenge.”
Melvin, Meet Universe
In the beginning, only the abyss existed. On the first day, He created the vastness of the universe and all the stars and galaxies that filled it. On the second, He created the laws to which all must abide. On the third, He created the seeds of life and on the fourth scattered them across the endless space of His creation. On the fifth, He bestowed all life with the capability for intelligence, emotion, and observation. On the sixth, He created all the mundane and extreme horrors to ensure wonderment would be met with or exceeded by joylessness. On the seventh, He fell into a deep sleep. For billions of years, his slumber went uninterrupted as His infinity unfurled and grew more complex without his interference.
Then, one afternoon He awoke from his hibernation on a completely insignificant yet conceitedly geocentric planet populated by strange ape creatures, a silly little planet called Earth. On the fated year of 1984, the Almighty adopted the name of Melvin.
The next 23 years were entirely uneventful. Unaware of his true nature, Melvin wound up exactly the same as everyone else. He worked nights in a pub somewhere in South Dakota. Most days he worked with a dry listlessness, pouring drinks unenthusiastically, conversing with half heartedness and counseling people on their boring problems with feigned sympathy, for a bartender is cheaper than a therapist. But, it payed well enough and didn’t require much effort, so as far as jobs go, Melvin quite liked his.
This evening, Melvin manned the counter alone. The bar, too, was almost completely empty with only a couple sad saps drowning their sorrows in drink as a light snow drifted onto the ground. He would’ve laughed at these blokes getting drunk alone in the AM hours of Christmas if he didn’t technically count as someone almost as pathetic himself. Always the optimist, Melvin considered his pitiable situation a boon. Taking the Christmas Eve shift gave him a pretty penny in overtime pay. He’d grown more or less estranged from his parents, felt a disinterest in finding a girlfriend, had no long-term friendships and rejected the idea of a God, therefore found no reason in acknowledging Christmas. All he’d celebrate tomorrow would be his day off in the company of his pet goldfish he affectionately named Quincey.
Melvin pondered these thoughts while polishing a pint glass and staring at the clock. The second it ticked past 3:00, he kicked the few people remaining out of his bar before quickly locking up shop.
He strode off into the wintery night, breath coming out in great puffs of smoke, and snowflakes falling gently on his shoulders. The cold pierced easily through his coat, one a bit too light for this weather. The brisk chill invigorated Melvin on his short walk to his car, but he ended that feeling promptly by turning on the heat as fast as possible. He drove home quickly and recklessly. With his shitty car, he drifted when he turned, kicking up the snow that began to stick to the ground. The late-night empty roads were his domain.
Upon arriving home and unlocking his door, Melvin was greeted with a draft of warm air and a sharp pain to the back of the head.
An indiscernible amount of time later, Melvin awoke, bound to one of his kitchen chairs. His head still pulsed with a dull pain from the impact. He could feel something warm trickle down his neck, likely his own blood. As the nature of his predicament sunk in, he began to freak out a little, struggling against the ropes that bound him, but making no progress. Poor Melvin had no chance against such immaculate knotwork as that which he faced. Upon finishing his panic session, he began to more logically assess the situation. He could see the outside was still dark, so he couldn’t have been out for all that long; the ropes that bound him were of his own possession. The intruders still made no sign of themselves. Melvin sighed. This whole breaking in and assault thing seemed to be shaping up into quite the hassle.
A strange noise emanated from deeper inside the house, some almost melodic, harmonic humming or buzzing sound. Melvin had never heard anything like it before in his life. The modulation and tone was unusual it sounded inhuman, like something outside of human invention. He couldn’t think of any instrument that could create such a noise. Perhaps something from a movie could come close. He strained his neck to see whatever was mucking about in his kitchen. However, in trying too hard to look, he shifted his weight sharply to one side, causing his chair to tip over with a loud clatter. The strange noises went silent. Melvin’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes, wide and fearful, were locked on the short hall. With a shuffling noise, whatever was squatting in his kitchen began to approach.
They appeared from behind the bend. Half a dozen of them emerged in a huddle, none much taller than three feet. They bore a pallad greenish-grey complexion and lacked mouth. A single dangly probiscular structure dangled from the center of each of the creatures faces with a mucousy hole at the end. Their skin hung off their bodies-- goblin-like in stature and proportion-- in loose wrinkles with a disgusting oily quality. Sparse hair covered their bodies irregularly. Their tiny, beady, greasy eyes were mostly black, rimmed with a thin band of jaundiced yellow. Melvin stared at the group in awe.
The squadron of strange beasts looked down at Melvin as he squirmed in discomfort and exchanged a glance. Their gelatinous noses raised and the singular hole dilated and constricted, creating the tittering hum heard before.
“Why are you in my home?!” Melvin asked in a panic, only realizing the matter of his break and entry was the least unusual of his current circumstances. The group of creatures buzzed to each other in a louder volume, gesticulating to each other intensely. Although Melvin couldn’t understand their speech, he could vaguely understand their intent from body language. It appeared to be some sort of mild discourse, an argument in some shape or form. They seemed to reach a consensus within a few minutes and return to their activities, milling about the house as if they owned the place. As they took command of his home, the panic Melvin felt subsided very slightly, somehow reassured by the presence of some form of power. He continued to thrash against the ropes, mostly out of obligation and with slightly less vigor than previously, stretching his neck to try and monitor the strange beasts in case of thievery or destruction of his property.
With a victorious toot of the snout, one of the creatures returned to the kitchen, brandishing a fishbowl, orbular in shape. Within, a large goldfish swam around in circles in a panic among his multicolored artificial rocks. The other beasts gathered, all trumpeting in union intensely. Melvin froze for a moment, halting his thrashing a moment to stare with an agape mouth.
“Q-Quincey?” Melvin whimpered at the sight of the fish. The disgusting creatures began moving around in some disgusting mockery of a dance, raising and lowering the fishbowl almost ritualistically. “That’s my fish!” He cried, “What are you doing with my fish!” They ignored his tearful outcry. One of them reached it’s nubby-fingered hairy mit into the fishbowl. “You- you filthy fuck! Don’t you fucking dare lay a fucking hand on my fucking fish!” Melvin began to thrash around more violently than ever, eyes blurring with the tears running down his cheeks. The creature picked up Quincey by the tail fin. The fish thrashed around as violently as his master. He looked at his one true friend and companion, tearful eyes sparkling as he felt himself sink into the depths of despair. “You motherfuckers-! Drop that goddamn fish right now!” He continued to flop around. The one holding the fish handed it over to another, a larger one, more burly and stocky with thicker, more disgusting-looking hair. It’s snout also seemed longer and to produce more mucus than the others. The alpha.
It tilted it's head up. The snout extended and the hole at the base dilated. It placed the fish in the slimy hole. It slid down, a wriggling lump, moving like a snake digesting a rat. In the most abject and profound horror he’s ever felt, Melvin stared.
He screamed. His cry, so loud and so filled with despair, reverberated throughout the many galaxies of the universe. The creatures recoiled as Melvin’s voice died in his throat. They ran and disappeared from sight as he whimpered disparagingly, bound to his kitchen chair, sobbing into his tiled floor as he murmured the name of his consumed fish. He tried to approach the fishbowl. The colorful bits of rock and broken glass laying amidst a puddle of water. The shattered tank.
His shattered heart.
For several minutes or hours, he mourned his dead fish, face full full of tears and snot, he trembled.
He heard another sound from the next room, some sort of clatter, just outside of his eyesight. He picked up his head to look in that direction, but quickly gave up and let his head drop to the ground with a groan.
“You fucks back for more!? You killed my fish, now you want to kill me?! Well, go a-fucking-head!” He shouted in rage.
“Wow, what a greeting. Nice to meet you too.” Spoke an unfamiliar voice. Melvin forced his head up to try and identify this new intruder. Certainly someone he’d never seen before. He was fairly attractive in an effeminate way with slim hips, long eyelashes and a head of shaggy blondish hair. He seemed to be dressed in something looking like a costume from an old sci-fi film, really tacky and mildly inconvenient.
“Who are you?” Melvin groaned, letting his head drop to the ground, “Why are you in my house?” The man shrugged.
“There’s some Earth phrase for it I’ve heard somewhere before... that’s for me to know and for you to discover.”
“That’s not quite it, but I get the picture anyway.” He sighed. The new arrival crouched down on the ground in front of him.
“Anyway, what are you doing?”
“Excuse me?” Melvin stared at the man, mouth agape. He returned the stare with a droll smile.
“Jeez, you’re ugly!” Melvin continued to stare at him in utter disbelief. “Oh, was that rude? Wait, there’s something... I know this one, give me a second...” The man hummed to himself, scratching his chin in an almost exaggerated gesture. “Oh! It’s crying, right? You were crying!”
“Yes...” Melvin said. The man chuckled to himself and clapped.
“Hah! I can’t believe I forgot about that one... Anyway, let’s get going.” He untied the ropes around Melvin’s wrists and yanked him up by the shoulder.
“What? I don’t want to.” He said as he was dragged off out of his house.
His eyesight was drowned in a blinding light for a moment. He flinched as a pain shot through his forehead. He covered his eyes from the harsh luminescence.
“Dude,” Melvin groaned, “A little warning next time? That fuckin’ kills, man.”
“It’ll do that. I forgot you people don’t use transmats.” He chuckled to himself, finding the concept something novel and amusing.
When his vision returned, Melvin glanced around his new environment. Everything was stark white with strange blocky furniture and odd modern looking sculptures made of white plasticy-looking material and chrome. It looked like something out of a B-list sci-fi film from the 70s.
“There’s a bathroom over in that direction.” The man pointed at a hallway sort of awkwardly protruding out of the room as he took a seat on one of the blocky white couches, “Make yourself look a little less hideous, alright? And put a lid on that sniffling--that’s the phrase, right? Anyway, it’s unattractive.”
“Insensitive...” He muttered halfheartedly, walking down the hallway, “Alright.” Melvin did as he was told anyway. When he returned the man grinned widely.
“Hey! You clean up well! You’re really not as ugly anymore!”
“Thanks for that.” Melvin said sarcastically and took a seat on a blocky chair, “Is this your house?”
“Yeah! This is my pad, you like? Radical, huh? I worked really hard on the decorations, looks good, right? Real earthy.” Melvin shook his head.
“No... not really” After a long, stagnant and awkward pause, he met the man’s eyes sternly, “Anyway can you tell me who you are now? Please? And what’s going on? Is this a kidnapping?”
“What a stupid question!” The man chuckled, “You’ve waived your rights as a member of an indigenous planet, so now you’re essentially my property!” Melvin blinked once, slowly.
“...What.”
“Well, less like property or more like... you’re my little brother or cousin or a pet dog or something, so I’m supposed to keep you alive. Isn’t that exciting? I’m excited!”
“Who are you to say that?” Melvin snapped in a wimpish half-assed way.
“You can call me Jamis, that’s what I call myself among my humie buddies, so you should be right at home with it.”
“Jamis isn’t a name...” Melvin muttered, running a hand through his hair with a deep, depressive sigh.
“Hey! Your hair looks good like that, let me just...” Jamis leaned over and began fiddling with his hair, prompting a sharp slap on the wrist from Melvin. He rubbed his wrist with a bit of a scowl, “Yeah, as if ‘Melvin’ is a name...”
“It is.”
“Well it sounds lame anyway. You should change to something cooler, something like... Klint.” Jamie shrugged
“Not a name either.” Melvin groaned, holding his head in his lap.
“Wow, you don’t have to be such a negative person.” Melvin groaned louder, “Jeez, case in point.”
“Well I’ve had kind of a rough evening, you know? I had to work late and it was cold and those things broke in and ate my fucking fish-” His voice caught in his throat, eyes watering at the memory, “And now I’m in this shitty rejected Ikea advertisement.” Jamis’ eyes widened in offence.
“Well now! First of all, my ship is top of the line modern Earth-human interior design. Second, get over it, it’s just a fish-”
“Just a fish!” Melvin yelled, “Just a fish?! That was my fish- that was Quincey! He was more than just a fish, he- he was my friend!” He said with a chokey voice, “And they ate him.” A sob escaped from his throat, “It was christmas too!” He vigorously wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry, you don’t have an attractive cry.” Jamis patted Melvin on the shoulder, “But hey, I didn’t know this was Christmas. You have no idea how much I’ve heard about it in shows and movies and stuff, I never thought I would encounter it in person.” He grinned, “We can celebrate! What do you usually do?!” Melvin shook his head.
“I don’t do anything.” He said, “Especially now that they killed my fish, I’ll never celebrate it again.” Melvin crossed his arms.
“You’re a bit of a loser, aren’t you?”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re too caught up on your fish, buddy. We gotta do something to get your mind off of it. How about we hit the clubs?”
“We don’t have any clubs in South Dakota... And the bar is closed.” Melvin said.
“Don’t worry about that, we’re in space.”
“Oh.”
“Shouldn’t you be more surprised by that?” Jamis asked, “Are you seriously that hung up on a goldfish?”
“Yeah a bit. Anyway, stop acting so friendly with me, I don’t even know you.” Melvin picked up his head to send a soft glare Jamis.
“Well, we’ll become friends over a night of drinking, eh? What do you say?” Melvin sighed.
“You know what, fuck it.” He sighed, “Where’s the liquor?”
“Good man!” Jamis laughed, “Let’s get going! There’s a really nice club that’s been in orbit around your little planet for a few years, it’s called The Satellite--it’s a clever name right?”
“Seems pretty literal.”
“Well it’s the human word for... You probably wouldn’t get it.”
“Guess not.” Melvin laid down on the white couch, “Doesn’t matter, let’s drink.” Jamis shrugged.
“You’ll like this club, it’s a hang-out for a lot of humies, really the only one we’ve got.”
“You said that before, what’s that supposed to mean? Humies, that is.”
“That’s what we call ourselves, the guys who really like humanity, y’know, the culture and movies and shows and things that you people make.”
“We have several cultures.” Melvin rolled over on the couch.
“Not really, no, it’s all the same when you get to it. At the end of the day, all of you are just silly little people with your arms and legs and your funny automobiles and quaint sexual reproduction.”
“Sexual reproduction...? Do you do it differently?”
“I reproduce by budding.” Jamis said, putting a hand to his chest with pride. Melvin let his head loll to the side, staring at his new friend for a moment with one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, ok... Does that feel good, then?”
“Uh, it’s pretty good...” Jamis scratched the back of his head, “Y’know, man, I'm a bit sober for this talk.”
“Yeah...” Melvin muttered to himself, “I mean you're the one who brought it up in the first place, but whatever...”
With that, conversation fizzled out, causing the last few moment of the ride to feel markedly longer. The ship landed in Satellite’s docking bay with a bit of a bump. After being dragged inside by Jamis, Melvin scanned the club and instantly a myriad of emotions washed over them, most of them boiling down to unimpressed. The decor was tacky as best, very kitsch and dated, real hard on the eyes. Along with a perpetual headache-inducing black light, multicolored neon lights perpetually flashed from all directions. A disco ball hung from the ceiling, causing abrasive reflections to dance around the room; paired with the constantly pounding bass of the music that lacked any cohesive melody or sensical instrumentation, they created an effective migraine. Otherwise, an elegant bar like something from a classy evening club sat rather inconveniently placed at the center of the dance floor. Statues of naked women in compromising but not particularly attractive poses made of chunky plastic in different garish colors dotted the room seemingly at random. Even Melvin, a man who’d lived nowhere but Bumfuck Nowhere all his life, could tell this was a particularly shitty approximation of a club.
Sighing, Melvin took a seat at the bar. He wasn’t there for the atmosphere anyway, he just needed some strong liquor to drink away his sorrows.
“Scotch on the rocks, leave the bottle.” The bartender made a grunting noise and wordlessly prepared the drink. In the periphery of his consciousness, Melvin was aware of Jamis seeming to attract a sizable crowd around him, but he couldn’t be bothered to properly acknowledge this. With the years of subliminal conditioning to accept strange conditions from years upon years of consuming media where such things commonly happened and with the death of his dear innocent Quincey, Melvin was in no mood to feel any whimsy or surprise. Indeed, he’d already become somewhat jaded to the idea of intergalactic adventures. It’d been a long night for him, he was due for a bit of a brood. When his whiskey arrived, Melvin held his glass to the light with a faint scowl. He actually hated the stuff, how it burned when it went down and tasted like ass. Despite being a bartender by trade, he found most alcohol disgusting. Beer tasted like pisswater, wine was for pretentious fops, cider was shitty apple juice, tequila was just awful. That’s not to say he didn’t sip the sauce now and then, of course he did. Anyone would if they had to stay up all night and deal with the type of people that drink in the middle of the night. Despite this, Melvin felt like a stiff drink this evening. He wanted to taste the repulsive swill and feel it sear his gullet. He wanted the pain. He wanted to feel how Quincey felt, even if just a little.
“This is for you, Quincey.” Melvin raised his glass to his deceased fish before downing his liquor in a gulp. He choked and coughed violently. Sure, he didn’t know sotch well, but he knew it well enough to know that whatever he just swallowed most certainly wasn’t scotch. It didn’t burn going down, but more crucially it tasted quite literally like how he imagined shitwater to taste.
“Jesus fuck, what is this?” Melvin slammed his glass onto the counter, “This is disgu-” He stopped short a his eyes met the bartender. Before him stood a creature with pale purplish skin with a thin sheen of slimy mucous. It’s head had some strange holes oozing fluid with flaps of flesh covering them. The flesh flaps lifted and shut, creating a strange moist warbling noise. Though, to it’s credit, the thing was dressed well, in a black vest, matching tie, white shirtsleeves and silken gloves as it polished glasses.
“Er... sorry...” Melvin mumbled, swiveling in his chair to face the opposite direction, only to face a massive arthropod, a beast with many legs and a shiny black body. It held a wine glass and wore a white collared shirt with a loosened tie. Each of the sleeves had several of its thin sticklike spindly arms sticking out. On its head, two stalks with bulbous eyes poked out. To complete the horrific ensamble, it had a sheet of a strange peachy colored membrane draped it’s figure, like the hide of a man. In a mixture of shock, repulsion, terror, and just a trace of morbid fascination, Melvin let out a short, high-pitched, slightly effeminate squeal.
“Hey, buddy!” Jamis said, slapping Melvin on the back, causing another squeal.
“Oh, it’s just you.” He sighed, “This bar is weird, man, the liquor tastes like shit.”
“We haven’t cracked that one quite yet. Anyway, you strike me as more of a martini man anyway,” he snapped at the purple barkeeper and made a quick hand gesture, “You’re kind of a pussy, so I imagine you’ll drink like one too.” The bartender placed an appletini on the counter in front of Melvin.
“I’m not a pussy...” Melvin mumbled like a pussy, “But yeah, I like these.” Jamis snickered. “Anyway these guys are weird, especially that one.” He glanced briefly at the strange insectoid wearing the flesh suit.
“Yeah, I guess.” Jamis shrugged, “These people are all massive losers. No one would hang out all the way out here in the boonies.”
“Exiles?”
“No, not exactly.” Jamis’ smile twitched slightly.
“So the pariah dogs of the galaxy gather around Earth for... drinks?” Melvin snickered to himself slightly sardonically as he sipped his drink.
“That’s not the only reason.”
“Oh, I forgot about your whole humies thing.” Melvin snickered harder, “So you’re not only pariahs but massive nerds.” He drank the rest of his cocktail, “Losers...”
“Are you drunk?” Jamis asked, his grin so false it appeared only marginally less terrifying than a snarl.
“Just honest.”
“Stop being such a downer.” Jamis ran a hand through his hair in mild frustration, “You’re just taking out your stupid ass fish grief on me. You know, this whole thing is really fucked up, right? You’re probably mentally unstable or some shit, it was just a goldfish, it’s the most boring fucking pet possible.”
“You can’t say shit!” Melvin snapped at Jamis, “You’re not even human, you don’t know a single fucking thing about Earth, and you didn’t even meet my fish, and he wasn’t an it, he was a he. And you don’t know me, you don’t know what kind of relationship I had with Quincey.”
“I don’t want to kno-” Melvin cut him off,
“He was my only friend! I miss him.” He cried. Jamis, although a little offended, patted him on the shoulder.
“I know plenty about Earth... Anyway, cheer up, we’re here to have fun, right?” Jamis slid another appletini down the counter in front of Melvin.
“I dunno why I’m here.” He groaned, “But sure.” He downed the fresh cocktail and stood up, “I’m drunk enough, introduce me to your freakish friends.”
“That’s the spirit! Good man!” Jamis stood and, dragging Melvin by the sleeve, led him to a little lounge that seemed to be annexed to the side of the room, probably causing an awkward protrusion elsewhere.
Melvin took a seat on one of the couches that lined the walls of the lounge, plush red velveteen things. Somehow, they reminded him of something from a burlesque house, not that he’d ever been to such a place. At each spot, a fresh flavor of freak sat, things that had too many arms or not enough, things that were difficult to figure out where they started and ended, one in particular constantly appeared to be in a state of melting. Adding to the surreality of the situation, each of them seemed to be dressed in some sort of earthly clothing, wearing bowler hats and suit vests. The melty creature seemed to have the tips of it's scraggly, wiry hair frosted. Each of them looked upon Melvin with the utmost awe and fascination with their weird watery alien eyes and vaguely phallic sensory organs. It made him uncomfortable.
“ After a long and palpable silence, Melvin spoke up.
“Good morning.” He greeted politely, if not stiffly.
“Good morning!” The lot of them replied in unison, some speaking with perfect clarity and others replying with a growling gargle only very vaguely resembling language in any form. Their enthusiasm reminded him of a class of very young children. The group fell into silence once more and the penile sensory organs extended towards him again. Melvin reached for the nearest drink. Jamis, picking up the slack in the conversation, put an arm around his buddy’s neck, rubbing his shoulder and leaving a hand lingering awkwardly. Melvin mumbled something or other about personal space and boundaries.
“What? You guys are always talking about how much you wanted to ask a human something, now you’ve got one.”
“Hey,” Melvin scowled, “I’m a person.” The alcohol from earlier had begun to kick in. He slouched down, the overstuffed couch absorbing his body. Sighing, he relaxed into his plush crater. “Whatever, do whatever you want.” He threw up his arms in a half-hearted melodramatic gesture, “Let me entertain you.”
The troupe of freaks stared at him in either awe or confusion for a moment. Jamis interpreted his speech to the others. One of them spoke up, a small thing with beady little eyes, circular ears and a little beaklike mouth. The thing chirruped in some language that Melvin couldn’t distinguish different noises in. Jamis, seeming to understand, chuckled slightly.
“Eh? What’s happening?”
“This guy,” replied Jamis, holding in a chuckle, “He asked... ‘Where is the dog involved in doggy style’” Melvin stared at him incredulously for a moment. From Jamis’ eyes, despite the fact he bit his lip to hold in his laughter, he could tell the question was in earnest.
“I-I don’t...” Melvin mumbled, putting an arm over his eyes and began to giggle. An old man made himself present amid the group, mostly bald with a scattering of white hair and bulging blueish eyes.
“I know this one.” He said, putting his head into the fray, “You need the dog at the start when you-”
“No, you don’t- you don’t need any dogs for it.” Melvin cut the man off, his speech broken by short intermittent fits of laughter, “What’s with this dude anyway?”
“Someone picked him up one day, like an abduction, y’know?” Jamis explained, “It’s sort of against intergalactic code, but I don’t think anyone would miss him.” The old man nodded.
“and they don’t.” The man leaned forward and extended a hand, “The name’s Hager.” When Melvin touched the man’s skin, it had the most unpleasant texture. Weird and bony and smooth and clammy to the point of seeming slimy. Although it disgusted him, Melvin laughed.
“Is this dude even a human?” He rolled over on the couch, laying a little on the alien next to him, something vaguely resembling a shrimp but with soft, moist skin, something he generally would find disgusting. The sticky shrimp man shrugged, adjusting it’s cravat with one of it's noodly arms.
“Yes, a creep.” The shrimp man replied. As his mandibles opened and closed, one could see some foamy bubbles within. He spoke with surprising clarity for such a thing with a watery accent and a clicking tone. Laughing, Melvin said:
“Yeah, he’s a fuckin’ weirdo.” He glanced at Jamis, “This dude is pretty cool.” Jamis nodded but pulled him away.
“He’s alright, though his sort preys on large mammals like you.”
“Don’t we all, man? Meat is good, dude.” Again, Jamis put an arm around his shoulders, but this time, Melvin didn’t even seem to notice.
“Yeah but-”
“You’re just being like... fuckin’ prejudiced, man.” Melvin said, speech peppered with a few laughs, “Just ‘cause some shrimp guys eat people doesn’t mean this guy will.” Shrugging, Jamis dragged him back onto the couch. “Dude, I’m feeling fucking good now.”
“Yeah I bet you do.” His voice was tinged with a vague annoyance, “Let’s go somewhere else, alright?”
“No, like, no man.” Melvin giggled, “I’m starting to have a good time- hey, someone should fucking turn this music up.” Jamis sighed, the garbled noise masquerading as contemporary house music irritated him as much as it would anyone else in their right mind.
“They’re closing up shop soon.” Lied Jamis, “It’s almost seven, you don’t think they’re gonna stay open past sunrise, right? Anyway, you’ve been up all night, haven’t you? You should be getting to sleep.” Naturally, a bar in orbit doesn’t confine to the silly rules of Central Time or Eastern Standard time or even Greenwich Mean Time. Coinciding with a nod, Melvin followed the man back into his ship, waving to the pack of creatures behind him.
“I’m glad I met you, no one else would’ve taken me out for drinks. You know, everyone always vents to the bartender, you don’t get trained for that, all you get trained for is making mojitos, not that shit. Who gets the bartender drunk? Who listens to his problems when he’s too poor to afford a therapist? It’s all bullshit, y’know? Fuck Earth!” He complained in a glum yet giggly voice.
“I know the feeling.” Muttered Jamis as they entered his ship again. Looking at the interior with fresh eyes, Melvin broke into the fit of laughter Jamis expected he would.
“I’m in fucking space!” He exclaimed in a not quite indoor voice as he was pushed onto one of the uncomfortable blocky couches, “You idiot aliens can’t make good couches!” He laughed, although he likely couldn’t build a couch either. Tuning his companion’s outburst, Jamis began to diddle with the ship’s controls. “The couch is like... the cradle of civilization when you think about it.”
“In around twenty-eight seconds we’re going to leave this solar system at nine light years per minute, so I hope you’re ok with that.”
“I have no idea what’s going on.” Said Melvin in the midst of a fit of giggles brought on by the contemplation of seating, “Dude, I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”
“You probably won’t be seeing Earth for a pretty long time.”
After a brief pause, Melvin replied.
“Fuck Earth.”
Melvin awoke on an unfamiliar bed with a powerful headache and a strange hollow feeling in his gut. Groaning, he rolled over, making contact with someone lying next to him. The combined feeling of his arm sinking into some gelatinous substance and realization that the someone he shared the bed with was a man. Thus, he shrieked softly.
“What’s your problem?” Jamis yawned, lifting his slender figure from the mattress, soft satin sheets slipping from his nude form.
“Jesus fuck! Why are you naked? And... squishy?” He recoiled.
“Why aren’t you?” He said, flopping back onto the bed.
“...That’s... not an answer.”
“I’m basically a colony of jellyfish-like organisms in a hivemind,” Jamis yawned, “Don’t let that turn you off, though, babe.”
“Yeah but... that’s not an excuse for being naked.” Melvin, too, laid back down on the ground, throwing an arm over his eyes with an exhausted sigh. “Why am I sleeping with you? ...I don’t remember half of last night...” He groaned.
“It’ll be like that.” Jamis rolled over to face Melvin, propping himself up by the elbow, “You started annoying me so I gave you alcohol until you fell asleep, didn’t take too long.”
“It’s a bit fucked,” Melvin’s pounding headache kept him from feeling the proper gravity of the situation. He ran a hand through his hair, piecing together the memories of the previous night. “I was acting weird last night... sorry...” He muttered, then after further recollections, “Wait, did you dose me with something?” Jamis nodded.
“Yeah.” He answered.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Melvin shot up angrily, “That’s fucked, dude, it’s fucked! Why’d you slip shit in my drink?”
“I dunno, you were just being a downer, I thought it would be easier to get along or something. Sorta worked.” Jamis shrugged, “Don’t be so grumpy about it, you’re just coming down, in a week you’ll be fine.” In utter shock, he stormed out of bedroom, back into the main chamber of the ship. After walking around through the ship for a moment, he peered through one of the windows. Staring out into the beautiful vastness of space, speckled with endless shimmering stars and clouds of multicolored gasses. With a glance he knew he was far from home.
In that moment he wanted to die. For real.
Shortly following him from the bedroom, seeming to have thrown on his usual kitschy sci-fi getup haphazardly, Jamis appeared.
“I know you’re all down about this, but they would’ve erased your existence from the universe if I didn’t, the space police would, that is.” He said in a defensive tone. Melvin said nothing. “...How about this, we have the entire universe and all the marvels of the cosmos. You can go anywhere, do anything. What do you want to do?”
His words hung in the heavy air for a long moment. Melvin turned his head to meet Jamis’ eye with a dark expression.
“I want revenge.”
