Day 92 Writing Short Stories

Gob

Yep, that was my luck. A giant space monster wants to eat me whole and shoot me out of its arse just for the giggles. I should never have taken the assignment, but there’s little choice when you are running out of money and fuel. Not to mention chow. Then you take anything you get, even pest control.

I ignore the chatter coming from my pilot. She’s telling me off and not using pretty language. There’s a moron, piece of shit, and ahole being used in a highly inventive way along with other words she’s making on the go. None of them are good.

The huge-ass gooey, acid space monster tries to grab the spaceship and haul it inside its mouth.

Ida makes evasive movements and curses me to do something. It’s just that all my thoughts involve blowing the thing up, but the bastards paying us want it whole for their studies and who knows what. From the look on the man’s face, I wouldn’t put it past him to want to molest the thing. So I can’t blame the space monster for trying to eviscerate us. I would too.

I tie myself and my fortified spacesuit into the ship’s hull, and then I lower the cargo door open. I have one option, and that is to launch a net that will stun the creature and, hopefully, pacify it until I can drag it into the bay. But I have my doubts. The thing is bigger than I thought, and I’m not sure if the net will have enough voltage to stun it. But there’s no other choice. It’s this or fly back home without the money to pay for a round trip to this piece of shit part of the galaxy.

I launch the net. It shoots from the open door and lands around the monster, whose open mouth has other ships lodged into the soft tissue, slowly liquefying and becoming part of the goo.

I really don’t want to know what the professor is going to do with the monster and how. An image of an acid explosion flashes over me as I see the professor cutting into the creature.

I shake the image away and charge the net, releasing maximum electricity. The space monster lets out a horrible cry, and I almost feel sorry for it. But almost as it spits out an acid gob at the ship, taking half of the cargo bay door with it.

“You can’t do that,” I shout at the thing and shake off remnants of the gob that have landed on me. Luckily, the spacesuit holds the acid away. I shoot another electric current at it.

The space monster collapses to the ground, triggering an avalanche of rocks and sand that discharges beneath it toward the abandoned settlement. The rocks knock down some of the houses, taking down a school and a house of worship.

I look at the thing and the destruction we have caused, and wonder if the kids will thank us or hate us. Either way, we will get both the reward from the settlement and the professor, so win-win, despite the cargo door needing a fix. We will eat well for a week or two. Ida can’t be too mad about the door. She will get her sake and fresh sushi, and I will get my hamburger with fries and lots of mayo.

—

I have become good at ignoring the whole assignment. I got omniscient third person, and I refused to use it as it didn’t work with the narrative. First person fits better with a comic science fiction story about overcoming a monster. I still refuse to use figurative monsters, as clearly I love writing about actual monsters. They are more fun than those lurking under the surface to be faced and vanquished. I get to be part of that with my paying job, and it is not fun most of the time. Though it has taught me that nothing is taboo and there’s no subject that can’t be addressed. Talk about the awkwardness of talking about sexuality and the sexual needs of a youth with a developmental disability. It can go bad, really bad, or well, but it is always a dice roll I cannot refuse to take. So, actual monsters it is for me. Not that sexuality and disability are monsters. Okay, they can be if they are made as one, and sadly they are sometimes made so as to be. But I won’t go there, as there wouldn’t be an end to this post.

I enjoyed writing the scene today. I had fun making it work, using action to give the story substance, yet keeping it light. I keep my fingers crossed I get monsters tomorrow too.

Thank you for reading! Have a gob-free day with all the sushi and hamburgers you want, and see you tomorrow ❤