Once upon a time (which is how these things usually begin, unless you’re cursed or involved in a tax dispute), there lived a unicorn named Buttercup.
Now, Buttercup would like to make it abundantly clear that he did not choose the name Buttercup. It was given to him by an overly enthusiastic seven-year-old fairy named Twinkle Spanglestorm, who believed unicorns should be named after things you could put on cupcakes.
Buttercup had many typical unicorn traits. He had a horn. He could heal minor abrasions and one very specific type of eczema. He pooped sparkles (which was less glamorous than it sounds and more of a public sanitation issue). And he lived in the Enchanted Glade of Mildly Impressive Wonders, which was somewhere between the Forest of Doom and a surprisingly competent cicadas-led utopia.
But Buttercup had a problem.
A terrible problem.
Buttercup was afraid of glitter.
Now, this would be manageable if he had been, say, a goat, or an auditor, or even a particularly anxious porcupine. But he was a unicorn. In a magical land. Where the fairy economy ran entirely on glitter-backed currency.
Buttercup had tried everything. He had gone to therapy (his therapist was a sarcastic badger with a Ph.D. in Woodland Neuroses). He had tried exposure therapy, but after being doused in sparklebombs by a herd of giggling pixies, he spent three weeks hiding in a cave muttering, “It’s in my mane… it never comes out…”
You see, the glitter reminded him of The Incident.
No one really knew what The Incident was. Buttercup refused to speak of it, except to occasionally glare at a passing rainbow and mutter, “They knew what they were doing.”
It was whispered among the woodland creatures that it involved an experimental glitter cannon, a sentient disco ball, and a rogue elf named Shane. But the records had been sealed by the Council of Magical Mishaps (and also covered in jam, for reasons never explained).
Buttercup lived a quiet life, keeping to the less fabulous corners of the forest. He wore a hoodie (magically enchanted to be “anti-glam”) and avoided fairy gatherings, children’s birthday parties, and anything labeled “festive.”
But trouble, as trouble is wont to do, arrived anyway.
It came in the form of Princess Juniper Puddlepot, age nine and three-quarters, bearer of the Sacred Scroll of Sparkly Destiny, and wielder of the Bedazzled Wand of Slight Inconvenience.
“I need a unicorn!” she announced, bursting into the glade with all the subtlety of a trebuchet launching vuvuzelas.
Buttercup immediately attempted to flee behind a tree, but the tree was actually an extremely shy dryad named Marvin, who politely asked him to stop squishing his sap.
“Go away,” Buttercup said, attempting to camouflage himself by rolling in mud and muttering “I’m a large sad horse” repeatedly.
“You’re Buttercup the Brave!” said Juniper, brandishing a scroll that sparkled ominously.
“No, I’m Not Buttercup the Brave. I’m Buttercup the Emotionally Complicated. Now shoo.”
But Juniper would not be deterred. She explained, in that fast, breathless way that only small children and chipmunks on Molly can, that the Kingdom of Glitterlandia was under threat. An evil warlock named Sir Shinyboots had stolen the Glitterheart Gem and was using it to turn everyone into rhinestone statues. The only way to stop him was to summon a unicorn pure of heart and weird of hoof.
Buttercup, unfortunately, met those criteria.
Also, he was the only unicorn left in the phonebook.
“But I can’t!” Buttercup whinnied. “There’s glitter. I mean, you literally just said the word ‘Glitterheart’ and I think my eye twitched.”
Juniper frowned. “But you’re our only hope!”
“That sounds like your problem.”
There might have been a heartfelt moment of reflection here, if not for the sudden arrival of Sir Shinyboots himself, riding a giant hamster named Giorgio and wearing a sequined cape that violated at least three laws of physics and one decent taste.
“I HAVE COME TO BEDAZZLE YOU ALL!” he bellowed, as Giorgio squeaked menacingly.
Buttercup screamed. Juniper screamed. Marvin the dryad made a sound like a dying accordion and fainted.
And then something… strange happened.
Buttercup, in his terror, did something no unicorn had done in centuries.
He unicorned.
His horn glowed. His mane defrizzed. His hooves tapped out a rhythmic beat that summoned ancient and confusing magic.
A beam of pure, unfiltered sass shot from his horn and struck Sir Shinyboots square in the glitter. There was a blinding flash, a suspicious sound not unlike a wet sponge in a trombone, and when the light faded, Sir Shinyboots was gone.
In his place stood a confused mallard duck wearing a tiny top hat.
Juniper gaped. “You did it! You faced your fear!”
“No,” said Buttercup, trembling. “I blacked out from terror and shot chaos energy everywhere. Also, I think I peed a little.”
Still, a victory was a victory. Buttercup was hailed as a hero. Juniper named him “Sir Sparklebanisher,” which he hated even more than Buttercup, but he endured it because she gave him a sandwich and a glitter-free medal, and he hoped it would convince the bank to finally granting him that mortgage he needed.
Eventually, Buttercup came to terms with his fears. He still didn’t like glitter. But he no longer ran from it screaming. He just quietly scowled at it and kept a lint roller on hand.
And somewhere, deep in the woods, the sentient disco ball winked and spun slowly, waiting.
There’s a reason nobody talks about the retirement plan for the Grim Reaper. And that reason is a four-day long contract that nobody reads until they’re a few centuries into the job and their bones start creaking like a haunted house. No one ever checks the fine print because, well, who expects a lass who snatches souls from the mortal realm to have anything resembling a pension Nest? It’s only after centuries of scything that the harsh truth hits you: You’re stuck, like a fly in amber, except the fly is you, and the amber is eternity.
The Grim Reaper sat hunched over a sad, cluttered desk in a cubicle that looked like it hadn’t seen a thorough cleaning since the Black Death. In the corner, her scythe was propped up like a forgotten umbrella, gathering dust. The dim, flickering fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like an angry wasp that wouldn’t go away. The place smelled faintly of mildew, stale coffee, and something else—something that could only be described as “existential dread” mixed with the unmistakable stench of being stuck.
“So,” I said, sliding my mug of coffee across the desk to avoid looking directly at her. “You’ve been doing this for howlong?“
The Reaper didn’t look up from her paperwork. “Oh, since time started making sense. Roughly. Give or take a few eons. I’m not really sure, to be honest. Time’s a bit… fluid when you’re me.”
I blinked. “So, a few billion years. No big deal. Are you like… a contractor, or is there a boss?”
The Reaper chuckled, the sound like glass marbles clinking against granite. “Oh, there’s a boss. We all report to a higher… authority. But let’s not get into that, alright? They don’t pay enough for me to discuss their leadership style. Trust me, you don’t want to know what it’s like working for The Upper Management.“
I nodded solemnly, unsure if I was about to hear something scandalous or terrifying. “Gotcha. So, um… when do you get a break? Like, a real one? You’re probably due for some time off after all these years.”
The Reaper’s skeletal fingers paused on the form she was filling out, and for the briefest moment, I saw something that could have been despair—except it was so ancient and hollow that it became something I don’t have a name for. “Breaks? You think I get breaks?” Her voice was a rasp, but there was an edge to it. “I don’t get breaks, kid. I get paperwork.”
“Paperwork?” I echoed, trying not to let out a nervous laugh.”
Yeah, paperwork.” She leaned back in her chair—a creaky, ancient thing that probably had faded lots of long-dead office workers in its time. “You think this job is just about reaping souls, huh? That’s the fun part. The paperwork? That’s the nightmare.”
She picked up a stack of forms and tapped them on the desk with a sound that could’ve been mistaken for the rattling of bones if you didn’t know better. “I’ve got a filing cabinet full of complaints. And forms. And surveys. Do you have any idea how much I hate surveys? And don’t even get me started on the soul rating system.”
I blinked again. “Soul rating system?”
“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes—which, as a skeleton, is a remarkable feat. “After I take a soul, they rate me on a scale of one to five stars. If I don’t get five stars, I have to go back and explain myself. All the way back to the beginning. And if they’re really unhappy, they get to file a complaint. That’s where it gets ugly.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “So, you’re not just collecting souls—you’re also doing customer service?”
The Reaper stared at me for a long moment, then sighed like an old woman on a porch who had been asked the same question one too many times. “You think this job is glamorous? Let me tell you about the last time a soul rated me poorly. It was an angry guy named Jono who didn’t like the fact that he died in a potato sack race. He gave me a one star review. One star! After all the effort I put in, Jono thought I was too abrupt. That’s the level of entitlement we’re dealing with. Do you know how many forms I had to fill out? Three.”
“Three? You filled out three forms for a one-star review?” I asked, incredulously.
“Well, technically four, but one of them was an ‘escalation form.’ You don’t even want to know about that. I had to go all the way up to middle management in the afterlife. Do you know what a nightmare it is dealing with bureaucratic souls? They’ll argue about everything.”
I took a long, thoughtful sip of my coffee. “And you can’t just… retire? You’ve been at this job for—what—eons, and you can’t clock out?”
The Reaper paused, then leaned forward, her skull gleaming in the dim light. “I would retire if I could. But the paperwork is… well, it’s not just the filing. It’s the rules.” She gestured vaguely at the ceiling, as though the cosmos itself were watching. “You don’t just walk away from this job. There’s no pension, no retirement fund, and definitely no insurance. And if I retire, someone else has to take over. Someone who might not be as good at it. Someone who might decide to get all compassionate and mess up the whole system.”
I stared at her. “Wait. So, you’re telling me you don’t get a retirement plan?”
“Nope. No pension. No sick days. Not even any kind of decent job expenses. I’ve tried. They told me to ‘go to HR,’ and when I did, they handed me a brochure about ‘spiritual wellness,’ then tried to upsell me a 10-step program for feeling at peace with eternal existence.”
“Wow,” I said, incredulously. “That’s… terrible.”
The Reaper sighed deeply. The kind of sigh you make when you’ve just realized there’s no way out, and it’s fine because you’re used to it. Or it’s not fine, but you gave up. “Yeah. I tried taking a personal day once. Just one. I was feeling kind of down, you know? It happens. So, I filled out the proper forms and— bam —they denied it. ‘You must attend mandatory transcendence training first,’ they told me. So I sat through six hours of a cosmic wellness seminar where they handed out pamphlets about ‘letting go’ and ‘embracing the void,’ while I was expected to meditate in the presence of 500 other souls who were also dead but in varying stages of denial about it.”
“That sounds… horrible,” I said, cringing.
“Tell me about it. Do you know how hard it is to meditate while holding a scythe?” The Reaper shook her head. “And the worst part? When I got back, they made me fill out a post-wellness survey.”
I choked on my coffee. “A survey?”
“Oh yeah. They made me fill out a satisfaction survey to gauge how ‘centered’ I felt after the experience. Then they asked if I’d recommend the ‘transcendental meditation for soul-harvesters’ program to a friend. I said no, and they made me write a comment explaining why. Do you know how long it took me to type that comment on this keyboard with these skeletal fingers? Two hours.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “Two hours? To fill out a comment about why you hated transcendental meditation? For a mandatory wellness program?”
“Exactly,” the Reaper grumbled, shifting in her chair with a clink. “And after all that, what did I get? Nothing. No vacation. No relaxation. Just more forms. No one ever told me about this side of the job. When I signed up for the gig, I thought I’d be, you know, snatchingsouls and delivering justice. Instead, I’m stuck here in a cubicle, collecting complaints and explaining to souls why they can’t have another chance at life. It’s like I’m the customer service representative for the afterlife, only I don’t get any of the perks.”
I stared at her. “So… why don’t you just quit?”
“Quit?” The Reaper gave a humorless laugh, her skeletal face creaking. “Quit? If I quit, the system falls apart. That’s why I can’t retire. There’s no one else who can handle the soul-collection business with my level of efficiency. And do you think anyone else could deal with the sheer whining from the newly deceased? No. I’m the only one who can keep things running smoothly. I’m too good at it.”
Talking about being a victim of your own success.
“But you hate it.”
“Of course I hate it! Who wouldn’t? You think I want to spend eternity managing paperwork and listening to souls gripe about their afterlife experiences? All I wanted was a little peace and quiet! A beach vacation with a cocktail, maybe, while I read The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy for the hundrenth time. Just a dayoff where I don’t have to face an angry ghost or deal with… well, whatever you call this situation.” She gestured at the chaotic clutter of forms and file folders.
I leaned back in my chair, finally putting my coffee down. “I think you need therapy.”
The Reaper chuckled dryly. “I’d go, but… you guessed it: paperwork.”
And with that, she grabbed her scythe, adjusted her robe with a sigh, and turned to leave. “Duty calls. I’ve got another soul to ‘gently escort’ to the afterlife. Wish me luck with the ‘customer satisfaction’ form afterward.”
As she shuffled toward the door, I called after her, “Hey, next time you’re filling out a form, please remember to rate your experience with me. I’m aiming for five stars.”
Without turning, the Reaper gave a mock salute. “Yeah, yeah. If I survive the paperwork, I’ll make sure to give you a glowing review.”
And with that, she disappeared into the abyss of her eternal, paperwork-filled existence.
I never understood people who put mini-cacti in their home. Because cacti are covered in thorns.
What does a plant have to do, exactly, for you to understand that you need to mind your own business? Slap your gran around? What a plant has to do? They’re covered in stings, they’re like knives.
They’re the West Ham football hooligans of the floral world. You don’t put a football hooligan – but mini – on top of your fridge, above a Majorca magnet and one of your daughter’s shitty drawings, because it wants to kill you. What the fuck are you doing?
When God made the cactus, most probably, this is the conversation that has happened:
“So, cactus, I can see from your file that you love people. You really love people.”
“Well, I’d love to be as precise as possible on this point, because I believe that there must be a typo, seeing how heavily people get on my tits.”
“Well, they’re made in my image, so it’s a bit insulting, but still, no problem! No problem! Last night I was shitfaced, and I invented this thing: it’s called thorns, or quills, okay? And I put them all on a massive mouse, and I called it – listen here – porcupine. Not mouseupine. No, no. Porcupine, because I’m an artist, out of control.”
And the cactus said:
“I like this thorns thingy, I like it. If at all possible, I’d also love to have a kalashnikov.”
“No, bro, no… no need. No. Listen here, listen: you’re green, and covered in thorns. And they are made in my image. They’ll understand. They will.”
Every cactus on top of a fridge right now is:
“PISSIN’ HEEEEELL! THEY GIFT ME INSIDE A WEDDING FAVOUR! FUUUUUUUCK!”
Don’t ever place a firearm next to a cactus. Don’t tempt fate like that.
It’s a bright Tuesday morning, and you wake up to the relentless sound of your alarm clock—a noise not unlike the collective scream of humanity’s soul. You drag yourself out of bed, wipe the existential dread from your eyes, and get ready for another day in the unrelenting hamster wheel that is modern life.
First stop: the Office of Self-Improvement. This is a new initiative rolled out by the government to ensure everyone is feeling as productive as they should be. It was introduced in response to the findings of last week’s task force that identified the nation’s overwhelming need for ‘purpose.’ You’ve been assigned the task of completing the “45-Minute Morning Affirmation Routine,” an exercise in telling yourself how wonderful you are before you’ve had your first coffee.
You sit down at your kitchen table and look at the laminated self-help pamphlet, which reads: “Success is a Choice, and YOU Are the CEO of Your Own Life!”
You stare at it for a while.
Then you stare at the phone buzzing next to you with a reminder for the ‘Gratitude Meditation Session,’ which requires you to reflect on three things you’re thankful for. The only thing you’re thankful for right now is the slow, inevitable decline of your mental state, but that’s probably not on-brand.
You try your best, reciting things like, “I am thankful for my job, even though it erodes every ounce of my soul,” and “I am thankful for my health, though I’m fairly certain I’m just one social media post away from an anxiety attack.” It feels good, in the sense that stabbing yourself in the leg with a spoon might feel “good” for someone with masochistic tendencies.
At 9 a.m., it’s time for your daily meeting with the Bureau of Happiness. You’ve been assigned to a ‘happiness consultant’ who specializes in helping people who are “functionally dead inside™” (a term they’ve coined and trademarked for obvious reasons). Her name is Cheryl, and she asks you a series of probing questions like, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate your emotional resilience today?”You wonder if Cheryl herself has ever thought about the abyss of nothingness that lies at the center of our souls, but you’re fairly certain she’s too busy updating her Instagram with motivational quotes from dead philosophers. She smiles at you, showing her ‘empathy,’ which is so authentic it could be sold as a “brand new” concept to billionaires.
Your meeting ends with Cheryl assigning you the task of ‘reclaiming your energy’ by attending a mandatory ‘Live Your Best Life’ seminar. The seminar, naturally, will take place via Zoom, which will require a full 90 minutes of sitting in a call full of people pretending they care about things like ‘personal growth’ and ‘positive thinking’ as they simultaneously scroll through their emails. The fake background conceals how messy your living room really is.
By noon, you’ve accumulated enough “positive energy” to tackle the afternoon’s most daunting task: going to the supermarket. You’ve been assigned a ‘time slot’ for your grocery shopping based on your personal efficiency profile, which is created by the ‘Life Optimization App’ you’ve been required to download. The app tracks everything—your mood, your steps, your food intake, and your attempts to bury your personal demons in the existential void. You reach the store, only to find it’s packed to the gills. Inside, the aisles are divided by QR codes and color-coded labels, each one serving as a reminder that you’re not really ‘living’ unless you’re optimizing every second of your existence. As you grab the usual items—milk, eggs, bread, a small amount of despair—an AI assistant over the loudspeaker reminds you to “Maximize Your Time and Energy! You Deserve It!”You glance at the other shoppers, each of them pushing carts filled with ‘wellness’ products that promise to ‘boost energy’ and ‘restore balance.’ You roll your eyes and grab a bottle of vitamin supplements that may or may not have been scientifically proven to do anything.
Back home, the real fun begins: it’s time to ‘reorganize your life.’ Your calendar is so tightly packed with appointments and activities that even your vacation is booked out six months in advance—ironically, so you can work on ‘self-care’ during your next holiday. But before you do that, you’ve got a two-hour block set aside to declutter your house, because it turns out the true source of happiness is a Pinterest-perfect kitchen.You start by throwing out old shite that’s pinned to the fridge with magnets and that one coffee mug from your ex that you’ve been meaning to get rid of for two years. In the process, wedged in between two recipe books, you rediscover your old journal from high school, which contains angry rants about the meaninglessness of life. It’s a nostalgic moment, like finding an old photograph of yourself before you gave up on ever feeling anything. You look at the journal for a moment, sigh, and toss it into the bin with a grim sense of satisfaction.
The evening concludes with another round of ‘Positive Reaffirmations,’ followed by a meditation on the futility of modern existence—saying “I’m doing well” disassociating from the face of absolute chaos. You finish the night by watching a TED Talk on ‘How to Live Your Best Death,’ a promising new topic that combines the inevitability of death with the need to make money off it.
As you drift off to sleep, you wonder what tomorrow’s self-improvement task will be: perhaps ‘How to turn your Dying Inside into redeemable points,’ or ‘How to Maximize Your Grief into interaction.’
The future is bright.
And by bright, I mean it’s an unbearable flickering neon glow that keeps you awake at night with the relentless reminder that nothing, absolutely nothing, is ever going to be enough.
It’s a tough day for the Devil. You can tell by the way he is brooding over his desk, shuffling through what used to be the most valuable commodity in the universe: human souls. He’s not happy. Not because he’s out of souls – far from it. No, it’s because he’s come to a brutal realisation: souls are now utterly worthless. They’ve been devalued. And no one’s even noticed.
It wasn’t always this way, of course. Souls used to be the currency of damnation. People used to sell them like it was a get-rich-quick scheme. A quick little path here, a Faustian bargain there, and bam, eternal suffering in exchange for a shiny new car, a successful marriage, or a mildly successful music career. The Devil’s business was booming, everything was going according to plan. Hell was packed with the whiny, the selfish, and the ethically bankrupt – the usual clientele.
But now? Well, now the Devil’s sitting there, looking at his soul portfolio, and it’s like he’s holding a bag of expired coupons. The market has crashed. People are still signing contracts, sure, but what they’re offering isn’t worth the blood it’s written in. The souls have been diluted, rendered meaningless. The Devil’s got an office full of souls, but they’re like crappy timeshares or a cheap knockoff handbag you buy in a back alley – everyone’s got one, no one values them, and they only lead to disappointment.
He’s pacing around his penthouse in Hell, thinking that – the way things are going – he won’t be able to afford anything better than a shack, soon. Trying to figure out what happened. The thing is, souls have always been the commodity. They were sacred in their misery.
But now? Now souls are like a blue tick on a social media handle.
The Devil knows who to blame, of course. And of course it’s Him: God. Back when there were only two souls, the original two -Eve and Adam- back then, yes! Souls used to be true Wealth. The Devil’s chest still puffs up at the memory. He managed to corrupt them, to make them eat the apple, and to mark them with the original sin.
But, oh no: ever the sore loser, God couldn’t accept it. He wanted to keep playing, so He had created more souls. Eve gave birth with great pain and so on and so on, and now there were – how many billions of souls on Earth? Seven, eight, nine? Even the Devil couldn’t be arsed keeping count, anymore. They kept growing exponentially, anyway.
Back in the day, there was a king. From where again? Phrygia or something. Anyway, he was called Midas and wanted to turn to gold everything he touched, so Dionysus granted him his wish. The gift became soon a curse.
If everything gets turned into gold, soon the market gets saturated, and the gold becomes pretty much worthless.
It was genius! This is still studied in Hell’s schools. Turn the greed of humans into their ruin. The Devil used to laugh at Midas and his short sight.
You know what the Devil doesn’t find funny? When it’s God Almighty making the same short-sighted mistake, and souls now are worth as much as a fistful of Monopoly money.
“Almighty my bollocks, that’s like the first rule of market they teach you in business school” the Devil curses under his breath, as he watches the stock arrow of the souls market plummeting down to an abyss that even the Lord of Hell finds to be too deep.
The Devil doesn’t know what to do with Himself. He thought about pivoting into something else, maybe offering “eternal pain with an experience package” or selling VIP access to personal damnation tours, but everything is so commodified now. Hell has become a subscription service, a streaming platform for your worst nightmares, with way too many ads.
Maybe the worst part of it all? The Devil looks at humanity and realises they don’t care. They don’t need to be tricked into selling their souls anymore. They’re already doing it willingly, like they’re on some kind of endless, dopamine fuelled treadmill.
People don’t need an eternal afterlife of suffering to ruin their existences. They’re perfectly capable of doing it themselves, one bad decision at a time. Gambling, shopping spree, career choices, the irrational hate – it’s all a slow burn, and the Devil isn’t even the one holding the match anymore. He’s just a passive observer now, watching humanity self-destruct.
It isn’t even funny, in a B-horror movie kind of way. In fact, it’s fairly pathetic.
So here he is, sitting there with his stack of worthless souls, wondering if maybe the end of the world isn’t the worst thing after all. Maybe it’s time for a career change. Hell’s not what it used to be – not when you’re competing with 24 hours news cycles, reality TV, oligarchy being paraded as democracy, and influencers promising you the “ultimate experience” for just a low, low price. The Devil realises that in a world where people are selling their happiness for the smallest thrills, the soul has no intrinsic value. Maybe it never did, even when there weren’t so many around.
At this point, the Devil just shrugs. He’s already got the soul of humanity – and it has been paying dividend for centuries. But right now, he’s got a stack of paperwork to burn, an inbox full of apocalyptic memes, and no one left to torment.
Becks couldn’t tell what annoyed her more: being the human who finally made first contact with a race of superior aliens or having to work despite this.
She could remember her abduction, a combination of a spaceship that underwhelmingly looked like a cyan FIAT 126 crossing her path and a violent impact. As she lay on the road that would lead her to the corner shop, her mind had time to register the embarrassment of being splayed on the tarmac in a hoodie, tracksuit pants and flip-flops. Then the cyan 126 hovered above her and – under its chassis – a passage shaped like a doorframe opened, a rectangle of blinding white light breaking up the dark colouring of the car’s underbelly. And when – stereotypically – she was tractor-beamed across its threshold, she found herself standing upright in a very posh office, way bigger than logic would expect from the interior of such a small vehicle. Mahogany wooden floor, walls and a desk of the same material. The only accent of colour, strongly contrasting the room, came from two bright yellow upholstered wingback chairs.
The room was very well lit, despite a lack of windows, by a series of chandelier-shaped lamps hanging on the walls.
She took a step forward and twisted her ankle, “Fuck…” she muttered, as she looked down: she was now wearing a pastel pink power suit and black heeled shoes.
She couldn’t walk on heels and she hated it.
“Ms. Rebecca Stafford?” A voice that sounded like five different children with a Scandinavian accent talking in chorus made her jump out of her skin.
She looked towards the voice.
On one of the chairs – empty just a moment ago – sat the most singular being Becks had ever seen. Clad in a blue suit with pineapple prints all over and a yellow shirt, there was a scrawny… man? His face looked gray / greenish and gills were intermittently opening behind his ears. On his face there was a pair of those joke glasses, the one with a fake nose, eyebrows, and ‘stache incorporated, and the lenses were covered by some cardbox with very badly drawn eyes upon it. The top of the head was covered by a bald cap.
The hands were hidden by blue latex gloves, of which several fingers were obviously empty. Around the midriff of the suit, something kept flopping under the clothes.
Becks stared at the figure with ping pong ball-shaped eyes and a slackened jaw until he repeated: “Rebecca Stafford?”
“Y…Yeah…”
“Rebecca! I am Bobby! I just want to say congratulations! You’ve been selected for a very exciting business opportunity!”
“Okay, sorry… No offence but…”
As she stammered some excuse to turn down whatever scam this creature was trying to pull on her, Becks slowly moved toward the door of white light she came from, keeping her eyes on a sprig of hair of the fake eyebrows that was stuck to the slimy skin just under the bald cap, but – as she turned to leave – she was confronted by the black mahogany wall.The door was gone, and they were boxed into the room.
“Hey… where is the, uhm…?”
“Rebecca.”
“Hm?”
“Why don’t you come here?”
Becks approached very slowly, both out of fear and because of her shoes.
“Here,” the four or five different voices of the creature named Bobby said, kindly, as one of the mostly empty gloves pushed a tall glass of water towards her.
Rebecca looked suspicious. As if in answer to that, the strange man said “I mean… why would I spike your drink? I’ve already abducted you.”
Becks shrugged at this and accepted the glass. “Thanks?” she said, confused, but kindly.
“Rebecca, you’ve been selected to represent your species in what is probably the biggest court case in your history. I think. Well, either way, it’ll look good on your CV.”
“My species?”
“Gonna explain something to you real quick. Rebecca, do you know what sea-monkeys are?”
Becks was blank for a few second. From when the weird flying 126 had hit her to now had only passed, what? A couple of minutes? And in that short period of time, the amount of absurd stuff she had to process was so enormous, that – after a few beats – her brain just decided not to process it. To stage a strike. So, she suddenly calmed down and decided against logic that what was definitely a non-human in a bad disguise asking her about sea-monkeys, of all things, was just another Thursday.
“Yeah, those weird prawns that come to life when you add water to them, aren’t they?”
Bobby was delighted, “Excellent!” he clapped his mostly-empty gloves, then pushed the joke-glasses up to his face.
“Well, brine shrimps, to be pedantic,” he carried on. “But still. See, you’re my client’s sea-monkeys,” he blurted out, letting a nervous laugh ending the sentence.
Becks looked at Bobby.
Bobby looked at Becks.
Bobby coughed to break the silence. It didn’t work.
“May I call you Becca?” He tried.
“No, I prefer Becks.”
“I see. Well, Becks, would you like to take a seat and a sip of that water?”
Becks nodded, plopped on the yellow armchair and took a gulp from the glass without moving her eyes from the indefinite spot she was staring at without blinking.
“Is there anything you’d like to say about what I just told you, Becks?”
“Well…”
“Yeeees?”
“When you say you, do you mean I am your client’s sea monkey, or all of humanity?”
“All of humanity. I did say Sea monkeys, plural.”
“That’s true, sorry.”
“Not a problem.”
“Ok, soooo… all of humanity is one individual’s pet?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Right.”
“I’m glad you took it so well,” Bobby beamed, ignoring the fact that Becks’ eyes had never moved from the spot on the wall they were staring at nor blinked.
“BLOODY WHAAAAATT??” Becks snarled, suddenly.
“Well, I thought you guys would have understood, by now, that you haven’t originated on planet Earth?”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about? Planet Earth has the perfect conditions for our species!”
“Does it?”
“Duh!”
“Well, think about it: the planet has temperatures that range between minus eighty something and plus fifty something degrees Celsius, and you guys are only happy between seventeen and twenty-five-ish. Not to mention that seventy percent of the planet surface is covered in water that you cannot inhabit nor drink.”
“Yes, b- but…”
“BUT!” Bobby interrupted Becks’ stammer, “it’s good that you think that Earth is a suitable habitat for your species.” He concluded with a smile that threatened to dislodge the fake nose, which was promptly pushed back on the fish-like face.
“Snack?” one glove pushed a bowl of fish flake food towards Becks. When she shook her head, Bobby shrugged, scooped some of the food and fed it to the inside of his shirt collar. His midriff flopped squishably.
“Are you a bunch of fish in a suit?”
“A school of fish.”
Becks raised a warning eyebrow, so Bobby answered the question with a sigh: “We find that species are more comfortable dealing with representatives that look like them.”
Becks looked at the pulsating gills on Bobby’s neck. “I see,” she said.
“Hang on,” she carried on, her eyes narrowing with suspicion, “why is it good that I think Earth to be a suitable habitat for us? What is this biggestcourtcaseofourhistory you mentioned?”
“Oh well, it’s just that the UG has sued my client for animal cruelty…” Bobby trailed off.
“The UG?”
“The United Galaxies.”
“Right. And we are the animal who’s been mistreated.”
“Yes, we mean no offence by that.”
“None taken. So…?”
“So, my client has sent me here because we’d like you to officially agree that humanity has been taken care of in the best way possible and that my client doesn’t need to make any further arrangements moving forward.”
“Well… Society is a bit fucked up at the minute, and the planet is dying… so.”
“I’m confident we can get to an agreement.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, I do hate this part,” Bobby said, grabbing a heavy tome from next to his upholstered chair and dropping it open on the relevant section, on the sleek wood of the desk, “but as per interstellar law, we’re bound to conduct a good faith negotiation with a qualified member of the species…”
“I… I am the qualified…? And… and this is the good faith…?”
“Exactly! But you see, during the negotiation, the parties have no duty of care towards each other, and my client, unfortunately, does own the oxygen present in your atmosphere…” the fishes making up Bobby’s body made a sound like they were sucking air through their teeth, as if they were sorry to say that.
“Your client owns the oxygen? And… what? They’re just gonna take it?”
“Between you and I, you’re much better off just making a deal with my client.”
“But… how is this a negotiation? We’re going to die! Our planet is frying, our resources are running out! The ones in power aren’t giving us healthcare but are building space hotels…”
“Yeah, but that’s symptomatic of your society…”
“Society must be changed, then!”
“Also, we have to do this within today.”
“WHAT??”
“If an agreement isn’t achieved by end of business hours today, the case is dismissed.”
“Listen, I can’t do this… I do traffic tickets, why pick me?”
“We’d love a signed agreement immediately.”
“Oh God… You didn’t pick me because I am a good lawyer. I bet that you could pick anybody, as long as they’re technically qualified…”
“There were a lot of moving parts that our team had to consider…”
“You’re taking advantage of a loophole!” Becks stood up in the excitement, a finger pointing at Bobby.
“And it’s only good business to do so.”
An awkward silence suddenly exploded inside the room. Becks let herself fall back into the chair. She kicked the heeled shoes off her feet.
“You know…sometimes… You feel like you’re rubbish at your job. But – you know – then you tell yourself: ohno, you’rejustdepressed, therehastobesomeoneworseoutthere. I also have PMT today, this is really not the right time for me to realise this.”
“May I offer you a chocolate hash brownie? Is it too early for your species to do drugs?”
Becks looked at the clock above Bobby’s head. It said 9.29 am.
“It’s late enough,” she muttered. Bobby brought her a hash brownie.
As she chewed, Bobby tried to console her: “Oh come on, I’m sure it is just a coincidence you’ve been chosen. Maybe this is not your field, but I’m sure you’re good in what you do.”
Becks smiled a sad smile: “Well… I win sometimes…”
“You see?”
“Mainly when the cop doesn’t bother to show up… gotta love a no show!”
“See? Celebrate your victories!” Bobby cheered, pawing another fistful of fish food down his collar, as Becks finished her hash brownie.
For the next forty minutes or so, Bobby compiled the agreement that was to be signed by Becks, involving her in the process, though she only contributed to the conversation with groans.
Suddenly, her pupils grew very large, like a cat’s when focusing on a prey.
“Let me see that,” she said, grabbing the book Bobby had dropped on the desk.
“Hey, just a minute…” Bobby tried to protest.
Becks ignored him, instead making noises with her mouth as she hovered her finger above the page looking for something, until: “Here it is!! Whendisputingthesuitabilityofahabitat, thedefendingparty – that’s your client, he has been sued by the UG – willhavetherighttoahearingin the jurisdiction of said habitat. That’s Earth. You’re the representative, but your client has to actually be here to get a deal signed.”
“Well, I represent them…” Bobby said, but the squishy noise grew louder from inside his suit.
“And we must come to an agreement before the end of business today, you said. Earlier, you also said that you were sent here by your client. I take it they’re not local?”
“Well, they’re not in the galaxy, at the minute… some important business had to be taken care of…”
“And how long would it take them to come here to sign the agreement?”
“In Earth’s days?”
“In Earth’s days?”
“Please.”
A massive sigh escaped Bobby’s gills and after a long pause, his voices croacked: “About six thousands years.”
“A no show!!!” Becks jumped from the chair, both fists held up high in celebration.
Bobby shouted his frustration at losing the case, tentacles erupting from his collar, sleeves and from under his jacket.
Becks recoiled in horror.
Then he recomposed himself, “Sorry, that was very unprofessional of me. Congratulations on a successful negotiation. You’ll have to email the UG with the changes that you’d like for my client to apply to your planet. I’ll give you their email address.”
*
A few months later, Becks received the following email from the UG:
“Dear Rebecca Stafford,
We’ve reviewed the changes you’ve requested to your own natural habitat.
They were the following:
1) TV programs are not to invite as guests populist politicians. Alternatively, do not invite populist politicians equipped with mouths.
2) Both religious and secular authorities can wear funny costumes only during Carnival or on Halloween, exactly like everybody else.
3) All racists must become the ethnicity they hate. For white people hating black people, this will not extend to their penises.
4) Any person believing in a deep state can use the term “they” to indicate the hypothetical, evil, secret masters who control everything only the same amount of times they use the same term to refer to a non-binary person. If they run out of uses for the term “they,” the believers in the deep state will have to refer to the evil masterminds as “magic meanies.”
5) Whoever kneels to accept a knighthood from a royal figure anywhere in the world, won’t be allowed to stand up again.
6) Every singer, poet, and writer will be allowed to use the word “love” up to ninety-nine times. At the 100th use of the word, they’ll be punished by execution.
7) All of those who will try to convert other people to any religion using the phrase “It’s impossible that the perfect beauty of the universe was just random and not the creation of a divine mind” will be instantly infested with the taenia solium, colloquially known as the pork tapeworm, so that they can observe the perfect beauty created by the divine mind of their god from up close.
8) Every time a person will try to convince a person who isn’t their partner and didn’t ask for advice to have children, a kid from foster care will be immediately dispatched to their living room for them to parent for life. This will be repeated for every unsolicited sentence such as “Who will look after you when you’re old?” or “You will love kids when you’ll have yours.”
9) Every person who listens to music or watches videos loudly in public will get a pair of headphones welded to their ears.
10) For intellectual honesty, every video or program about UFO, ghosts, or miraculous apparitions, will have to feature a laughter track.
11) Every worker working for a business that they don’t own and votes right wing must have their wishes immediately granted: halved salary, sixty weekly hours, unpaid overtime, and two white hot pins in their nipples.
12) Deflect the orbit of the asteroid Apophis on Prince Andrew.
13) Every cliché, spoken or written, will cost £13 per letter.
14) All national anthems must be played with the anus.
15) Every man who puts his hands on a colleague, even “as a joke,” and even on “innocent” places such as arms, back, shoulders, or hips, will become fluorescent yellow for a week.
16) When someone is delivering a homily, a lecture, or any moral-ish sermon, a number of how many times they’ve masturbated in their life will flash above their heads. This is to maintain the right perspective.
These possible changes are pending reviews and the process will take between six and nine Earth’s decades.
You will be notified with the outcome as soon as one is reached.
Cantankerous Cockerel 