How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy Read online

  “Yeah, definitely,” Jixyl agreed.

  “Anyway, nice meeting you,” Azleev added, “but next time if you could maybe try not to start things off by kicking uz in the stomach it’d be appreciated.”

  “Aye, soz,” Eric chuckled.

  “Actually Azleev…” Jixyl remarked, as an idea appeared in his head. “You should give Eric your Nukol 4460 … just so we can keep in touch.”

  “Do your mobile phone’s work all the way across the galaxy, like?” Eric inquired.

  “Aye,” Jixyl replied. “Some parts of the galaxy you don’t get very good reception, though. But on Earth we’ve been getting class reception, like.”

  “I’m not giving him my phone,” Azleev objected. “Give him yours.”

  “Well I would but I’ve already got a good phone,” Jixyl reasoned, “whereas you could do with an upgrade so you might as well give Eric your old 4460 and then get yourself a new one.”

  “Nar, I like my 4460,” Azleev protested. “Besides, mine’s on contract, whereas yours is just Pay As You Go.”

  “But yours hasn’t even got G.O.T. 2.0, man!” Jixyl argued. “How can you manage without lip synching imagery?”

  “I’m not fussed about lip synching imagery,” Azleev insisted. “It’s just what I’m used to.”

  Jixyl tutted. “I can’t believe you can walk round with that antique and not feel embarrassed by it, like.”

  “It was a good phone in its day,” Azleev remarked.

  “Aye but its day was 3.19726027 years ago,” Jixyl smirked. “Here then, Eric,” he remarked, as he removed his mobile from his pocket. “You can have mine … seeing as how Azleev is being a tight wad.” Eric’s eyes widened at the prospect of the generous gift of alien technology. “There’s just one condition, though. Don’t go showing it around to everybody. Like we’ve said, Earth’s a non-contact planet at the moment so we don’t want loads of people sussing that there’s loads of other inhabited planets in the galaxy.”

  “Ar, no worries,” Eric agreed. “I wouldn’t have showed it to anyone anyway. Cos like I said, if I started going on about aliens, people would think I was mental and I don’t want people to think I’m mental, like.”

  “Sound then,” Jixyl replied. “I’ll just run you through the features first, though.” He firstly showed Eric how to work the G.O.T., then he showed him how to get on the G.I.N.[16], but cautioned him not to use that very much as it was a total rip-off and he only had five hundred credits (roughly equivalent to about ten pounds) left on the phone. Jixyl then ran Eric through a few of the phone’s other features but it had so many that in the end he just decided to show Eric how to bring up the internal instruction manual, so that he could learn how to use the features himself.

  Finally, Eric was all clued up on his new phone. “So, like, totally cheers, like,” he remarked, gratefully. “I totally appreciate you giving uz your phone, like.”

  “No worries,” Jixyl shrugged. “The new Zekon Trav 72 came out the other day, like, so I fancy getting one of them in any case.”

  “Ar, right. Well anyway, sound meeting you and all that,” Eric remarked.

  “Aye, sound meeting you as well,” Jixyl replied. “It’s just a shame we couldn’t give you an anal probe.” By now Eric was sufficiently over his paranoia to realise that this was a joke.

  “Yeah, sound meeting you,” Azleev agreed, patting Eric on the back, in the style of someone sticking a piece of paper to someone’s back with a comedy phrase written on it along the lines of ‘Kick Me.’

  Eric then set off on the hike down Helvellyn, looking back and giving them another nonchalant hand raise as he began his walk. Jixyl and Azleev once again returned the gesture, this time with a bit more coolness, then headed back inside the spaceship. When Eric got to the twenty metre mark he spent a few seconds moving his head backwards and forwards, marvelling as the spaceship disappeared then reappeared several times due to the wonders of light refraction displacement technology. He then remembered, however, Jixyl’s joke from earlier on about it being ninety three percent safe and whilst he probably believed Azleev’s claims that this was just a gag and it was actually totally safe, he nevertheless got another slight pang of paranoia and therefore decided to stop messing about and make his way down the hill.

  Jixyl and Azleev peered out of one of the spaceship’s viewing interfaces[17] and watched Eric head off into the distance. When he was almost out of sight they looked at each other with smiles on their faces.

  “Do you feel guilty?” Azleev asked Jixyl.

  “Not at all,” Jixyl responded, shaking his head. “You have to consider the greater good.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it’s all about,” Azleev agreed. “The greater good.”

  Chapter Five – Bad Karma

  Eric found walking down Helvellyn a lot easier than it had been walking up. Partly due to the effects of gravity but also because his body was totally full of adrenalin from the excitement of his encounter with the aliens. He spent the first few minutes of his descent with a big smirk on his face, sort of in a trance as the strangeness of his night started to sink in. Then after about ten minutes he decided to give Monty and Garth a text.

  ‘Thanks for waiting for uz, you snides,’ he texted.

  Monty and Garth were currently in a pub at the bottom of Mount Helvellyn enjoying a pint[18] and a game of pool. They had decided that the best course of action was to wait for Eric in the safety of a pub, rather than hang about on the mountain.

  They were pleased when they received his text, as it seemed to suggest that Eric was still alive, but at the same time they were a bit nervous about replying for fear of discovering what had happened to him. They eventually sent back the following reply:

  ‘You should have ran away like we did. Are you okay?’ They were happy with this reply as it placed the blame for Eric’s predicament back on himself and thereby excluded themselves from any blame, if indeed anything had happened for which blame was relevant, which they didn’t as yet know.

  ‘Yeah, I’m not coming back though,’ Eric texted back. ‘It turns out that the aliens are a species of Angelina Jolie look-a-likes so I’m just gonna live on their planet.’

  Monty and Garth were pretty sure this was a joke but then again a couple of hours earlier they were pretty sure that they weren’t going to encounter an alien spaceship so they weren’t quite sure what to think. They decided to text back, ‘Is that a joke?’

  ‘I got to visit Suzuka and Everest,’ Eric texted back. He had toyed with the idea of stringing them along but decided the truth was impressive enough and couldn’t restrain himself any longer from bragging about his amazing adventures.

  ‘Suzuka? Is that where they make the bikes?’ Monty texted back.

  ‘Nar, it’s where the Japanese Grand Prix is,’ Eric texted back. ‘Well at least it used to be, until Bernie decided that money was more important than having an excellent track on the calendar.’

  ‘Seriously? You went to Everest?’ Garth texted back.

  Actually, it’s probably easier to forego traditional grammar and just list what they texted to each other:

  Eric: Aye, it was class, like. I’ll tell you about it when I get to the bottom.

  Garth: Okay. No worries.

  It was almost as if they knew the narrator had decided to change his writing style in anticipation of a long-winded text conversation and they had therefore deliberately decided to conclude their text conversation just to spite him.

  Back at the pub Monty wanted Garth to give Eric a ring to further probe him about his alien encounter as he was too impatient to wait for Eric to arrive. Garth was at first reluctant, as he was on a special T-mobile tariff which only cost him 3p per text, and the penalty for this was that it cost 40p per minute per call, but eventually Monty persuaded him that given the amazingness of the situation 40p per minute was more than worth paying.

  Unfortunately though, Eric had at this point lost his signal so they had to wait for him to
arrive at the bottom of the hill anyway and therefore decided to treat themselves to another round of drinks.

  After another forty minutes or so, Eric made it back to the bottom of Helvellyn and strolled into the pub. The pub was empty apart from his two mates who were over at the pool table.

  Eric strolled over to greet them. “I’ve got one for you…” he announced. “Your mate gets abducted by aliens … would you rather run away and leave him, or would you rather stay and try to help him?” In reality Eric was too exhilarated from the excitement of the last few hours to be annoyed at his friends and was merely pretending to be annoyed.

  “Soz, but we didn’t think there was anything we could do,” Garth explained. “You should have ran away like us.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t as if we could have knocked on the door of the spaceship and said, ‘Excuse me, can we have our friend back please?’” Monty reasoned.

  “Actually I’m glad you didn’t cos I’ve had a class few hours, like,” Eric boasted. “I got to see Everest!”

  “Everest!” Monty exclaimed. “Was it good?”

  “Aye, class!” Eric enthused. “It reminded uz of Jurassic Park.”

  “Everest?” Garth inquired, looking slightly baffled. “How’s Mount Everest like a load of dinosaurs?”

  “I just mean when they turn around and the dinosaurs are standing there, and they’re, like … flip!!!” Eric explained. “Well, that’s what it was like for me with Everest. I looked down and I was, like … flip!!!”

  “We should have come with you,” Monty remarked.

  “Aye, you should,” Eric agreed. “You missed out big time, like. Honestly, this is how class it was … if you asked uz would I rather have a night of fun and frolics with Angelina Jolie or fly over Everest in an alien spaceship…” Eric stopped to ponder for a moment. “Actually that example doesn’t work very well,” he conceded, “but it was still really good, though.”

  “Aye, we’ve had a good time as well,” Monty replied. “I’m winning 4-1 … and Garth only won his frame cos I potted the black.”

  “It’s this cue,” Garth protested. “It’s got a rattle.” It has to be said that Monty and Garth’s pool playing exploits didn’t seem quite as impressive as Eric’s recent spaceship-based adventures.

  “Anyway, d’you mind if we head off?” Eric suggested. “Just cos I’m meant to be meeting that Rachel lass and I’m gonna be late now. And I’m already in the bad books cos I bombed her out on Thursday as well.”

  “Well basically, you’re already in the bad books now, so you might as well get your money’s worth and have a few frames of pool first,” Monty suggested. Monty completely loved pool. If the aliens had abducted him he would probably have asked them to take him to a pool hall for his request.

  “Nar, at the moment I’m only totally in the bad books,” Eric explained, “but if I’m any later I’ll be totally utterly in the bad books, so I’d rather just be totally in the bad books rather than totally utterly in the bad books.”

  Monty and Garth quickly finished their drinks then the three friends headed out to the car park.

  “What are you going to say to that Rachel lass, then?” Garth inquired, as they began their journey back to Newcastle.

  “Just tell her, ‘Sorry I’m late. I got abducted by aliens and went to Mount Everest,’” Monty suggested, tongue in cheek.

  “Yeah, honesty’s always the best policy,” Garth agreed, ironically.

  “I tell you what’s a gutter,” Eric replied. “I’m normally totally honest with her – well, with everyone – but on Thursday we were meant to be going to town to see some film, but I was recording a song[19] and I was totally into it and I didn’t want to interrupt the creative flow, so I texted her and said I had a bit of a headache, so could we make it another night. But that was, like, the first time I’ve given anyone any patter in months … but now it’s come back to haunt uz coz if I make up another excuse now she’s gonna start to think I’m always full of patter.”

  “Does she not think that anyway?” Monty asked, sarcastically.

  “Well yeah, probably,” Eric admitted, “but at the moment she probably thinks my patter is just jokey patter, rather than fake dishonest patter. Like, I mean hopefully she realises that when it comes to serious stuff I’m normally totally honest. Just cos I reckon that’s the easiest way to live your life and keep things simple. Lying can be a right stress,” Eric explained. “But now cos I lied on Thursday I’m in a pure double stress now cos she’s gonna blatantly know if I lie to her two times running.” He shook his head in regret. “I tell you … that’s probably why I got abducted,” he went on. “It’ll be bad karma punishing uz for lying on Thursday. My bad karma’s deliberately putting uz in a situation where I can’t tell the truth and I have to lie again, just to purposely teach uz a lesson for being full of patter on Thursday.”

  “Aye that’s what I thought as well,” Monty agreed. “When I saw that spaceship I thought, ‘This’ll be to teach Eric a lesson for lying to that lass the other day.’”

  Eric smirked. “Actually, guess what the real reason was why I got abducted,” he replied.

  “They didn’t do an anal probe on you, did they?” Monty inquired.

  “Nar, but that crossed my mind as well for a worrying moment,” Eric admitted, “but nar … it was cos they’ve got this festival of pranks where they go to other planets and play tricks on people.”

  Monty and Garth chuckled at the weirdness of Eric’s revelation.

  “So what tricks did they play on you?” Garth asked.

  “They put on these green scary masks and these scaly gloves and went ‘Raarrrggghh!’ to scare uz, and then pulled the masks off and went, ‘Nar, man. It was just a trick.’”

  “So they had Geordie accents, did they?” Monty mocked.

  “They did actually...”

  And so as they headed back to Newcastle, Eric told Monty and Garth all about his experiences over the last couple of hours until his mates were fully up to score on everything that had happened.

  Chapter Six – ‘I Was Abducted By Aliens And They’re Going To Destroy The World’

  When Eric finally made it round to Rachel’s house later that evening, he decided that his best course of action was to place all the blame for his late appearance on Monty’s shoulders. And so he told Rachel that he and Garth had opted to climb Helvellyn, whereas Monty had already scaled Helvellyn a couple of years ago and had therefore decided to attempt a different hill instead. Eric and Garth had made it up and down Helvellyn according to timetable, but Monty had underestimated the distance and difficulty of his alternate peak and had therefore taken a lot longer than planned, hence the reason for Eric’s lateness.

  “Well why didn’t you just ring uz then, to let uz know you’d be late?” Rachel inquired.

  “I didn’t have a signal,” Eric explained[20]. “It’s out in the middle of nowhere, man.”

  “I had a signal when I went to the lakes last year with the lasses from work,” Rachel countered.

  “Well mebbees your network is better than mine,” Eric shrugged.

  “Yeah and it’s funny how you had a headache on Thursday as well, isn’t it?” Rachel remarked, suspiciously.

  “Well it might have been funny for you but it wasn’t funny for me,” Eric remonstrated, pretending that he hadn’t noticed the ironic tone in Rachel’s voice. “I hate having headaches. They’re completely non-humorous in any way, shape or form.”

  “I was being sarcastic!” Rachel snapped.

  “Look, man. I’m sorry,” Eric shrugged, in a very unapologetic tone of voice. “But what could I do? Monty was driving so we had no choice but to wait for him to get back. It was either that or start hitch-hiking.”

  Eric was quickly starting to realise that Rachel wasn’t going to fall for his made up story so he gradually began to consider the option of telling her the truth. He couldn’t get away from the possibility though, that if Rachel was sceptical about a story invo
lving Monty climbing a different hill, then there was every chance that she was going to be possibly even more sceptical about a story regarding Eric getting abducted by aliens.

  In the end he decided he had no choice, though. Rachel didn’t seem in any mood to discuss the ‘alternate hill’ story any further so Eric finally decided he had nothing to lose. If it turned out that Rachel didn’t believe the truth then he was no worse off in any case as she didn’t believe his lies either. Plus, he reasoned he could show her his newly acquired alien phone to prove his story. He’d no doubt feel a little bit guilty about breaking his promise to Jixyl not to show the phone to anyone else, but right now his priority was curing Rachel of her unjustified huff.

  “So do you not believe uz, then?” he asked her.

  “It’s just that it’s two times running now that you’ve had an excuse,” Rachel replied, “and you have to admit … you are full of patter.”

  “Aye, but only daft comedy patter,” Eric defended. “When it comes to serious stuff I always make a clear distinction between when I actually mean what I’m saying and when I’m just making daft stuff up.”

  “So was your story about it being Monty’s fault serious patter or made up patter?” Rachel asked.

  “Well actually that was neither,” Eric admitted. “That was just a lie.”

  “I can’t believe you!” Rachel snapped. She shook her head in disbelief.

  “Do you mean you can’t believe uz as in ‘you find me untrustworthy’ or as in ‘you’re shocked by my behaviour?’” Eric asked, seeking clarification of Rachel’s outburst.

  “Both!” Rachel snapped, giving him a fiery glare.

  “But there’s a good reason why I didn’t tell you the truth,” Eric insisted.

  “Aye … cos you’re full of patter!” Rachel replied.