"Roadtrip"
By Michael Marttila
Arthur Spring was an average fellow with sandy blonde hair that made him look very ordinary. He always wore khaki pants with whatever shirt that had edged its way to the top of his clothing drawer, accompanied by the dull brown loafers that accentuated his rather typical blue eyes. Being a very average man, Arthur had made many average friends. But unbeknownst to Arthur, he also had a very un-average friend who had many strange secrets. This is a story about the first time that Arthur Spring realized his friend Todd was not, relatively speaking, from Earth.
"Goood morning New York!" shouted the radio as Arthur was driving to work (though driving may not be the proper term in this case as his vehicle was crawling down the street as quickly as a paralyzed piglet could pull the Titanic). A quick glance at his watch revealed that Arthur was missing the first five minutes of his new job interview, conjuring a quick curse from under his breath. Disregarding the yellow traffic light, Arthur engaged fourth gear and started praying to the gods that his car would gain speed. Arthur received his answer when his car roared to life and gained momentum before running out of gas in the middle of a four-way intersection. Arthur gingerly climbed out of the car before savagely kicking the front of the portable pile of junk on wheels. The engine sputtered to life before making a long whining sound and droning out again. That's when Arthur heard it. It was hard to hear above the eclectic chorus of car horns but unmistakable, or at least it would have been if Arthur had knowledge of what the revving of a brand new nuclear-powered Phoenix Star space ship sounded like. Arthur looked frantically to every side to try and locate the origin of the constant purring of sub-atomic thruster gauges, which at the time sounded much like a mass of cows "mooing" in tormenting calls to the moon, but could not find anything that seemed to match his idea of the source of the sound, in this case Arthur imagined a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex with a serious case of bronchitis. The yellow-tinged light that suddenly surrounded Arthur made his stomach do flips, but in all actuality it was actually his whole body doing flips as though he were an Olympian gymnast as he was being slowly sucked up into the mouth of the invisible spaceship. If Arthur could have seen past the field of invisibility surrounding the Phoenix Star, he would have noticed that there was a beautiful paint job very evident from the nose of the ship to its end. The multi-trillion dollar design, currency translated to Earth's "dollars" from Zorkion Pnubs, was in most people's (or other organic life-forms in sector Y of the galaxy) opinion a waste of money as one of the Phoenix Star's features was a permanent invisibility field. But Todd Alakrudastitistinilicheth the 3rd x 10 to the 31st was a classy man that didn't care much for contradiction to his decisions.
Arthur's eyes opened slowly with deliberation only a post-man waking up to a fresh morning of abuse by dogs could muster. Intense lights above his head made him regret his reflexive action as they gave new meaning to the phrase, "blinded by the light". Arthur attempted to sit up but halfway there his head collided with the lights. As his brain scrambled for answers to this unusual accident, he came up with two conclusions: either he was having a rather terribly realistic dream induced by toxic car fumes from a savagely kicked car or he had grown several feet in all directions and was now gigantic compared to the small room. As the lump grew on his forehead, Arthur realized that the latter was true and his mind began to perform a very foreign process to him, it panicked.
"Don't worry about the lights, they are cased in translucent titanium, got em' for a real bargain down the solar system," exclaimed a very familiar voice. After he was done being very relieved that his source of pain had not in the least bit suffered from his head butt, Arthur's mind placed the hidden voice with a face that of his good friend Todd Alakru something, something, something… A quick glance in all directions revealed that it was indeed Todd who was, by the looks of it, quite enjoying himself as he sat in a large couch watching the entertaining affairs. Arthur realized that Todd's body had become as bloated as his own and was about to ask why when Todd conveniently answered his question.
"Since you are undoubtedly wondering why your body resembles that of a man who eats camels for an appetizer before his main entrée of sperm whales, I will explain to your stressed self why you have changed. First off, it is not in any way permanent, though I doubt you'll ever forget what it feels like to be measurable in tons. Second, yes you have been so called "abducted" by my brand new and very swanky spaceship, the Star Phoenix. And last of all you can put your worries away about the whole "big body" problem because it is a natural side-effect of traveling through dimensions, or at least I'm sure it would be if there was anything natural about traveling through dimensions." Alas, poor Arthur was still stumbling over this last bit of latest news and didn't notice when the dimension shift had suddenly ended and that he was now suspended several feet above the small unpadded chair he had been laying in moments before. In fact his mind was so hard at work feebly struggling to decipher his current situation that he barely had time to say "Ow" after crashing straight through the chair before his mind was racing through all possible possibilities. Todd waited patiently in his velvet-padded sofa that had gently supported his wiry frame as he fell from the ceiling until he assumed Arthur had passed through the initial shock of the dimension shift.
"At a point in the near future you might wonder why in the world, or 27 trillion worlds in the Y section of the galaxy if you feel particularly specific, a simple man like myself would own a spaceship and why I would take you along with me for my joy rides. Well to answer the first question, I am not a "man" so to speak but look very much like one. I am actually a Tropofelixian and come from a long line of fathers and mothers that had always had the dream of galactic peace and strived very hard to reach it. I'm afraid that I am the first in my family tree, which mind you would not fit in this entire spaceship, to have dropped out of Little Peacemaker's Academy for the Particularly Concerned of Galactic Unification. Well after dropping my somewhat drab title I decided to become a dimensional adventurer. Like it or not, I have chosen you to be my traveling companion for this millennium. That, by the way, answers both questions."
Arthur managed to sputter an unintelligible babble of mixed words before Todd raised a hand to silence him, though Todd was secretly very pleased at the progress Arthur was already making in accepting reality.
"I can understand your initial reluctance to being captured by a fine alien such as myself and being forced to join me for the next millennium running around pointlessly through things better left alone. All I can give you as compensation for your troubles, which I believe is a drastic overstatement, is the knowledge that you will find many interesting facts and such on our many trips I have planned. If you play your cards right I might even let you keep a couple of souvenirs. So Arthur good pal, sounds like fun doesn't it?" Another gurgle of confusion escaped Arthur's lips before he was able to pull himself together and make a worthy response.
"My family and friends?" he asked in a very stressed voice.
"Don't worry about a thing. They were all brainwashed yesterday and you officially never existed on Earth. Your house has been vaporized into a single microscopic unit of ash which was of course also vaporized, much cleaner for the air that way. You can thank me for my troubles later." Things were starting to make sense to Arthur as he remembered his earlier get-together with his girlfriend who shrieked out "Stalker" as he tried to hug her. Glad that he was finally able to understand what was happening, he had enough time to start to feel the sorrow of leaving his whole world behind. Of course it wasn't much of a life he had had. All of his relations had died except for his Uncle Jimmy who still made fun of him, and his friends had been rather dull people. With a sigh of acceptance, Arthur decided to ask where exactly they were headed. Once again Todd answered his unasked question with genuine complacency.
"Our first stop will be the planet Earth. That's right Arthur that would be your home planet. Of course you wouldn't quite be used to the version of your planet that we have landed on but I have always wanted to visit Literal Earth."
"Literal Earth?" inquired Arthur.
"Quite right ma' boy," Responded Todd who was now jittering with anticipation,"it's almost exactly like your Earth accept everything there is taken quite literally. For instance, never ask someone to "shake on it" because they will most likely break out into very terrible seizures that make their entire body shake as though they were sitting in an electric chair. I've heard that the United States' streets are indeed most definitely paved in gold though so not everything is too depressing. Ready to enter the bridge and then exit this craft on the first of our very many adventures?"
"Well, if you wouldn't mind me asking," said Arthur," I would first like to ask you how do we have these different dimensions?" This made Todd think. He was glad he had to think because that meant that Arthur might actually carry his own weight around.
"Just to make you understand, I'm going to use some metaphors in my explanation. Imagine this, the creator of all things in the world has flipped a coin for every planet in all the galaxies. If a planet gets a heads, it lives happily ever after, if it gets a tails, it is obliterated for no other reason than sport, but every once in a while, that coin land on its side and is neither heads nor tails. The planet is not destroyed but it isn't guaranteed a Cinderella story either, instead it splits into two separate "dimensions" that hold the two possible outcomes of the planet. In example, Earth was one of these "side" planets that was granted two dimensions. Eventually the Earth that you were from will destroy itself through nuclear warfare, as if you didn't see that coming, but the Literal Earth will grow ancient before being destroyed. Literal Earth's most powerful weapons are indeed atom bombs but the difference is that these bombs are actually the size of an atom. The worst damage they can do on direct contact is give its victim a slight sunburn on a radius of skin equivalent to a freckle. I speak from experience but of course you have never seen anything quite like this so now I will stop babbling and implore you that we move on before high tide hits the beach that we're at. High tides on Literal Earth usually result in a long chain of continuous tsunamis." And so they left the Star Phoenix, beginning their incredible journey through dimensions and space. They left not a moment too soon because by the time they reached a building to enter, it was raining cats and dogs and the probability of one of the falling house pets to be a Saint Bernard was very high. Though a death by a furry and somewhat lovable dog is much preferred over the tragic departure from this world after literally being eaten alive by mosquitoes.