How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy Read online

  “Aye, well it’s easy to be generous with other people’s money, like, Garth,” Eric argued, “but it’s a lot harder when it’s your own money.”

  “Well you don’t give money to charity either!” Garth pointed out, going on the offensive.

  “Aye but you see, I’m not some self-deceiving hypocrite trying to kid myself that I’m this totally class person who totally cares about the plight of poor African kids when really I’d blatantly rather spend all my money on booze and having a good time,” Eric replied. “I openly admit that I’m a selfish snide whereas you feel the need to convince yourself that you’re a really charitable person … as long as it’s with the government’s money and rich people’s money.” Eric paused for effect. “But not your own money.”

  “You’ve ruined the light-hearted atmosphere now, man, Eric,” Monty moaned, “with all this talk of malaria and kids dying and stuff.”

  “Aye, soz,” Eric apologised. “Anyway, are we heading off again now?”

  So they headed off once again. Hill-walking is tiring work though, especially when you haven’t done much training, as was the case with Monty and Garth, so after only another fifteen minutes they were once again starting to feel the burn. And as they had now reached the pool known as Red Tarn which lies just before you start the final stretch to the peak they decided it was the perfect time to stop once again for another round of ‘Would You Rather?’

  Once again it was Eric who came up with the scenario. “Right, you’re walking home one night, right. And then a spaceship lands in front of you and this alien steps out, right. But he looks totally like a human and he’s got a totally smiley friendly face, right. And he’s, like, ‘Ar, if you want to come into the spaceship and have a bit banter on, like, you can, like. But no pressure, like. Either way is fine. If you just want to go home then no worries either, but if you fancy a bit banter on with me and my alien mates then that’s sound as well, like.”

  “So he’s a Geordie then, is he, this alien?” Monty smirked, sarcastically.

  “Well obviously I’m paraphrasing the alien’s words into my own words, but that’s the general gist of what he says,” Eric explained.

  “Well it’s a bit unrealistic, like,” Garth commented.

  “Ar yeah, and of course having to choose between sitting in a bath full of Angelina’s piss or a sweaty tramp’s diluted piss is totally realistic,” Eric countered, sarcastically.

  “Well no,” Garth admitted, “but I’m just saying.”

  “Yeah, but you’re missing the concept behind ‘Would You Rather?’” Eric remarked. “The point of the game isn’t to see who can come up with the most realistic scenario. Otherwise I would have asked, ‘You’re walking home one day and you pass a newsagent. Do you buy a Twix or would you rather go for a Snickers?’”

  “I’d go for the Snickers,” Monty replied.

  “Well that wasn’t an actual question,” Eric explained. “I was just demonstrating how boring ‘Would You Rather?’ would be if you made it realistic.”

  “I dunno, like,” Monty disagreed. “I’ve had some pretty interesting chocolate debates in my time.”

  “I doubt I’d go in the spaceship,” Garth remarked, getting back to Eric’s original question. “It’d be too risky. The alien might just be pretending to be friendly when really he wants to kill you or do experiments on you.”

  “What if the alien looked like Angelina Jolie, though?” Eric inquired, tinkering with the scenario. “Would you be up for a bit banter on in the spaceship then?”

  “Ar, yeah,” Garth quickly replied. “If it looked like Angelina then I’d definitely go in the spaceship ... but it wouldn’t be for a bit banter on.”

  “Hey, you’re obsessed with Angelina Jolie, you, like, Eric,” Monty commented.

  “I just really admire her talents as an actress,” Eric answered. “And like, giving a third of her money to charity and stuff … that’s canny impressive, like. And adopting all them orphans and stuff. You can’t help but admire someone like that.” Just in case any naive trustworthy people are reading this I should probably point out that whilst Eric did actually admire Angelina Jolie’s talents as an actress and as a person, if he was being totally honest a big chunk of his admiration was nevertheless based on significantly more shallow motivations than the reasons he quoted.

  Monty turned to Garth. “Anyway Garth, so you’d be scared you might get killed ... but if the alien looked like Angelina you’d think, ‘Well, I might get killed but it looks like Angelina, so that’s alright?’”

  “Well, yeah,” Garth shrugged.

  “Hormones have never been renowned for their logic,” Eric pointed out.

  Eventually Monty finally got around to answering the question himself. “I think I’d be tempted,” he mused. “I mean, even if it was just a friendly looking dude alien. It wouldn’t have to be a fit lass. I mean, it’d be a once in a lifetime chance, wouldn’t it?”

  “Aye, it would, like,” Eric agreed.

  “I suppose you’d have to take the opportunity,” Monty concluded.

  “I’d definitely want to, like,” Eric replied, “but realistically, I reckon I’d probably bottle it.”

  “Realistically?” Monty queried. “That’s not a word you hear very often when you’re having a discussion about alien dudes that talk with a Geordie accent.”

  Then, right at that moment, something very strange happened which distracted the three friends from their game of ‘Would You Rather?’ In fact ‘very strange’ doesn’t really describe the thing that happened with any real degree of accuracy. If a slight cold was the equivalent of ‘very strange’ then the thing that happened would be the equivalent of a worldwide epidemic of really bad malaria.

  A spaceship appeared.

  No more than twenty metres in front of them.

  And it didn’t appear by coming down from the sky and landing in the traditional manner.

  It just appeared. One second it wasn’t there. A couple of seconds later it was.

  Monty’s mouth dropped. He turned to the others. “Fuck!”

  “Fuck!” Garth reiterated.

  “Flip!” Eric exclaimed, opting for a more family-friendly exclamation, although his sentiments were nonetheless the same.

  After all staring at the spaceship for a few moments, frozen in shock, Garth was the first one to respond. “Quick! Run!” he exclaimed, before turning around and quickly running, paying heed to his own advice. The direction he chose, not surprisingly, was away from the spaceship.

  “Flip!” Eric repeated. “Do you reckon that’s a spaceship?”

  “That big shiny silver thing?” Monty replied, seeking clarification as to what Eric was referring to. Or perhaps he was just being sarcastic.

  “Aye,” Eric confirmed, going on the assumption that Monty’s question was motivated by a desire for clarification rather than sarcasm.

  “That would be my guess,” Monty remarked.

  “Flip, that’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Eric observed. “We were just talking about spaceships and then one appears.” On the off chance that he had suddenly developed magical powers Eric quickly came up with another ‘Would You Rather?’ scenario. “Right, I’ve got another one, then. Would you rather watch Angelina and Keira having a bit snog on, or would you rather watch those two Swedish lasses in the nurses’ outfits having a shower together?”

  “Em ... it’s probably not the best time to be having a game of ‘Would You Rather?’” Monty pointed out.

  “Ar I know,” Eric agreed. “It’s just that we were talking about spaceships and then one appeared, so I just thought I’d try my luck in case it was a day for strange coincidences ... but sadly no famous snogging actresses or fit showering Swedish lasses have appeared so it looks like the spaceship was just a one off coincidence.”

  “Right,” Monty responded, rather bemused by Eric’s train of thought at such a unique time like this.

  They then stood there in silence for a f
ew more seconds staring at the spaceship with a mixture of shock and awe, before Eric noticed that Monty was slowly shuffling backwards, whilst still facing forwards to ensure he could keep an eye on the spaceship in case it made any sudden movements.

  “Where are you going?” Eric inquired.

  “I think we’d better run,” Monty opined. “Garth had the right idea.”

  “I thought you said it would be a once in a lifetime experience,” Eric recalled.

  “Yeah, but what you’ve got to remember,” Monty explained, “is that I’m completely full of shit.” At this point Monty turned around and began sprinting off after Garth.

  Eric watched him sprint away before turning once again to the spaceship and remarking once again, “Flip!”

  And then at this point Eric had a moment of realisation. A bit like the moment of realisation he had on his last holiday. For the past seven years Eric had gone away every winter for six months travelling around the world. He had always told himself that he would only do it for ‘two more years’ before settling down, but on his last holiday he had experienced a moment of clarity when reality had hit him and it suddenly dawned on him that having a six month holiday every winter was completely, utterly, totally, amazingly class. Much better than normal life. And he therefore realised that there was no way he was ever going to give up his privileged lifestyle in two years’ time in exchange for a life of nine-to-five drudgery. He was obviously going to keep on holidaying for the rest of his life.

  And the situation he currently found himself in was in some ways very similar to the moment of clarity he experienced on his last holiday. Okay admittedly it perhaps wasn’t a perfect match in the similarity stakes, given that realising the excellence of an annual six month holiday is, admittedly, in many ways rather different from stumbling upon a technologically advanced interplanetary vehicle from the distant regions of space. In fact when put like that the two events probably sound completely different and not related in any way, shape or form.

  But the point I’m making is that in both cases the reality of the situation hit home to Eric with a sudden forceful life-changing realisation. Up until now the sight of the spaceship had been too surreal for his brain to accurately comprehend. But now his brain had finally caught up with the situation and it suddenly dawned on him that he was standing only metres away from a spaceship.

  So as if to demonstrate that the reality of the situation had finally hit home, Eric let out another exclamation, this time upgraded from a “Flip!” to a “Fuck!”

  And then, as if to further demonstrate his comprehension of the reality of the situation, he fainted.

  Chapter Two – Pranks And Geordieness

  Eric woke up to find himself lying in the middle of a bright white room on a portable wheelie bed, like the ones you find in hospitals, with a bit of a sore head, in a mild state of confusion. He wasn’t sure if his mild confusion was due to apparently finding himself on an alien spacecraft or a result of a mild concussion from banging his head when he hit the ground from fainting.

  He removed the sunglasses he was wearing in order to rub his forehead, but before he got a chance to rub his wounds he noticed that his sunglasses were twisted out of shape. They had obviously bore the brunt of the force when he fainted and his head hit the ground.

  “Ar, man!” he exclaimed. “My new Oakley Crosshair sunglasses! Ar, what a gutter!” He had only had them a week so was understandably annoyed. “And I’ve only had them a week as well,” he exclaimed, confirming my narrative. He shook his head to further express his annoyance at damaging his new Oakley sunglasses. “Typical!” he exclaimed, as he shook his head some more, although perhaps in this case his use of the word ‘typical’ was possibly a little bit inappropriate given the circumstances, as it had to be said that stumbling upon an alien spaceship, then fainting and waking up inside it to find he had damaged his new sunglasses didn’t exactly represent a typical day in Eric’s life.

  He attempted to straighten them with his hands but then thought better of it in case he damaged them further, or worse still snapped the frames altogether. He instead placed them back on his head and was about to have a scan around the room he found himself in when suddenly a green scaly-skinned alien leaned over his head, raised its clawed hands and let out a loud, “Raarggh!”

  “Flip!” Eric exclaimed, as his whole body jumped. Once again he was a little slow at fully comprehending the seriousness of the situation. He had trained in Tae Kwon Do for three years though, so his physical reflexes were a lot sharper than his mental alertness and he quickly sprang from the bed. Then in one flowing movement he turned to face the alien, then tipped the bed forcefully against its legs. It struck the alien’s shins reasonably hard, forcing it to let out a loud, “Ow!”

  Eric followed this up with a reverse back kick into the alien’s stomach, causing the alien to double up clutching its stomach in pain, which meant that its head was the perfect height for Eric to do a jump switch kick right in its face. So that was what he did, knocking the alien to the floor.

  He then caught sight of another alien entering the room so he instantly adopted a fighting stance and began bouncing on his forefeet. On instinct, he switched from side to side, alternating his stance. The second alien wasn’t really close enough for this to be of any sparring benefit, but Eric’s logic behind it was that most people don’t actually know how to fight so if you dance about on your feet and change your stance regularly it makes you look as if you know what you’re doing. This then generally causes your opponent to panic and bottle it as they realise that they might actually be up against someone who at least knows the basics of how to fight. Eric had successfully used this strategy on one previous occasion to avoid a fight, but whether the same strategy would also work on aliens Eric wasn’t so sure, but he figured it couldn’t do any harm.

  He was then about to dance[5] towards the second alien when it began pulling its hands off, which confused and slightly scared Eric, as this was a fighting style he hadn’t encountered before. If he had had a few minutes to analyse things he would have concluded that removing your hands probably isn’t going to be of much benefit in a fight, so he had nothing to fear (other than the fact that he was on an alien spaceship), but he didn’t have a few minutes to analyse things and therefore instinctively became afraid.

  But only for a few seconds before he noticed that the alien wasn’t actually removing its hands.

  It was removing a pair of gloves. It appeared that its green scaly hands were actually just gloves. And beneath the gloves were what appeared to be normal human hands.

  The situation then got stranger still when the alien began clutching at its neck. A few seconds later Eric realised that it was removing a latex head covering mask. And beneath the mask was what appeared to be a normal human head.

  “Hey, man! What’re you doing?” the alien then proceeded to ask. “It was just a trick, man! You didn’t have to go hoofing my mate in the face, like.”

  Eric’s mind went into overdrive. There had been quite a lot of information to take in over the last few minutes. “So you’re not really aliens?” he finally inquired.

  “Well aye, we’re aliens,” the alien explained. “Well, I mean … to you we are. We’re not from Earth, like, if that’s what you mean … but we’re not aliens to us. You’re the alien to us. But what I mean is we’re not, like, green and scary. That was just fake masks and fake gloves … just for a laugh, like. You weren’t meant to go mental and start lashing out like a crazy radjee. It was just a joke, man.”

  Eric didn’t share the alien’s point of view. “Well in my defence, I had just been abducted by aliens. And I was just about to be attacked by a green scaly alien with sharp claws going ‘Rarghh!’ in my face.”

  “Aye, but we haven’t really got green scaly hands, man,” the alien protested. “Surely you should have realised. I mean, how would we be able to fly the ship’s controls if we had those green stumpy clawed fingers,” the alien argued, poi
nting at his gloves. “I mean, howay man. It’d be totally awkward.”

  “Ar, aye. Of course,” Eric replied, sarcastically. “It’s so obvious now. I feel like such a fool.” He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand and let out a Homer Simpson style ‘Doh!’ to emphasise his sarcasm.

  “Well at least you’re big enough to admit your mistake,” the alien replied, failing to pick up on Eric’s not so subtle sarcasm. It wasn’t that sarcasm was unheard of on the alien’s planet. It was just that his means of communicating (of which more will be explained in due course) was generally pretty accurate at interpreting words, but not always a hundred percent flawless when it came to interpreting the emotions behind those words.

  “Well actually I think you’ll find I was being sarcastic,” Eric remarked, doing away with the need for any emotional translation. “And anyway, if you’re all aliens then how come you speak English? And even stranger … you’ve got a Geordie accent! How realistic!” Eric remarked, with a tone of voice that suggested the opposite. “This is a prank TV show, isn’t it?” he suggested, proposing the only logical explanation he could think of for the events of the last few minutes.

  “A prank TV show?” the alien repeated. “Ar, why didn’t we think of that?” It was then his turn to slap his forehead and let out a ‘Doh!’ “Ar, we should have recorded it to send to ‘Pranks and Gags.’”

  “What’s ‘Pranks and Gags’?” Eric inquired.

  “It’s like what you were just saying. A comedy prank TV show. Hang on a sec.” At this point the alien reached in its pocket for what appeared to be a mobile phone. He pushed a few buttons and a second or so later appeared to be digesting information from the screen. “It’s a bit like You’ve Been Framed,” he then responded.

  At this Eric was sure they weren’t aliens. How could aliens have possibly heard of You’ve Been Framed? It had to be an elaborate TV hoax.

  “So let’s just get this straight, right?” Eric remarked. “You’re both aliens from another planet that just so happen to speak English, with a Geordie accent … and you also happen to be a big fan of You’ve Been Framed? Hmm, yes. Not the most believable TV stunt I’ve ever seen.”