Chapter 1
He woke up and shook his head.
"What did I do?" he muttered "And more importantly, who else was involved and do they have my name?"
He stared blearily around the tiny room.
No windows.
No doors.
"Oh no." he said to the empty walls.
He stood up and trod on something soft and squishy.
"Aaahh! Fuckin' get off me dickhead!" screamed the irate thing. Which turned out to be Paul.
"Mornin' Paul. Wait. How did I know that? Did this person- wait- how come I don't know why I know that? Of course i know why i know that I know that because I am... I am... God. I don't know why I know that. I don't know who I am! Who am I?" he said frantically.
"You're a brainless prat, you brainless prat. How much did you have to drink? Those weird Midget guys had some powerful stuff," Paul paused to sneeze loudly into his sleeve, "Not sayin' that's a bad thing though, you know what I mean?" Paul leered at him.
"Who? What midgets?"
"You don't remember? Wonder wh- wait... it could be from when me 'n' Tim played polo... with vacuum cleaners and you." he looked furtively at the amnesiac, "Your head. Richard. You know, Tricky Ricky?"
A light dawned in Richard's face.
"Oh yeah! And then you threw away the sticks and got the vacuum cleaner hoses and-" Richard looked at Paul reproachfully "Oh Paul."
Paul grinned sheepishly, "Sorry mate. You gotta admit it was fun though eh?"
"Not for me!" moaned a voice from underneath the bed Richard woke up in.
"Good morning Timothy." said Richard in a stand-offish voice.
"Mornin' ya brain dead dog turd." said Paul cheerfully."
"I hate you Paul." came the muffled reply.
Paul's irritating grin turned into a grimace.
"Don't talk about unhappiness Timothy. You don't appreciate what you have. At least they like you. They tried to kill me you know. All I wanted was the last bottle, the last bottle, and what did I get a lovely smack in the head and a kick up the arse. The feline one called me smelly and that fuckin' dead bastard called me a hobbit. A hobbit!" his face clenched like he was about to cry, "It's not my fault I'm vertically challenged! No one understands me! I hate my life!" Paul curled up into a ball.
"I hate your life too Paul and would love to take it away for you!" said Tim from beneath the bed. He emerged covered in dust clutching a half-filled, pungently alcoholic bottle. Paul paused in his self-deprecating suicidal;l mumblings to snatch the bottle from Tim and drain it dry.
"I hate my life!"
"What the fuck are we doing in here Paul? Rich? Either of you care to notice we are in a doorless, windowless box?" He charged over to the air vent.
"Hello? Is anyone out there?" He went back and sat next to Rich on the bed. "I bet it was those Crimson bastards! We never should've trusted them!" His voice cracked and squeaked.
"Oh! Tim, what happens when the air runs out?" asked Rich worriedly.
"Nah, that's what those vents are for. The air vents? Stupider than my noise hairs..." He walked over to the corner and examined the floor.
"But Tim! You mean the vents are taking the air? Oh no! We have to stop them!" He lifted up a sheet and dragged it over to the vent. Tim, oblivious to Richard's musings, he was digging his nails into the ground, scrabbling to find an opening.
"Ow!" he cried "I broke my nail!" He leapt up, shaking his hand about.
Mean while Richard was doing his best to block up at the air vent.
"Need some help, buddy?" came an unfamiliar voice.
"Ahh!" screamed Richard and he ran over to Tim.
"Tim, Tim the Airvent was talking to me!"
"Go away, my nail's broken, I'll never dance again!" cried Tim melodramatically.
Rich ran over to Paul.
"Paul!" he shook him and Paul hit him in the head with the empty bottle. Rich fell over then got up and went over to the vent.
"Hello? Vent?"
The noises of a scratchy conflict came from behind Richard. It appeared Tim was trying to convince Paul that a broken nail was worse than death, birth and buggery.
"Nothing's worse than buggery! Nothing hurts like buggery!" came Paul's oft angry voice.
"It does! It does! I should know!"
Richard ignored them and again spoke to the vent.
"Hello?"
"Yeah buddy, is this your sheet. Do you mind gettin' it out of my face, it's ruining my quiff!"
Rich pulled the sheet out of he vent and took off the cover. it revealed a black, brightly (yet so stylishly) dressed man with extraordinary teeth.
"You're that cat!"
"Of course! Now would you get out of my way!" The cat leapt out of the vent, not as gracefully as usual, and almost crashed in to the bed.
"Man, man, what did we do last night?" he exclaimed "My head feels like the set of Robbie Rocket Pants after a big fight with one of them evil geniuses!"
"Hey! I remember! That's what they meant about crimson midgets!"
"Its Red Dwarf. Blimey, man, did we drink all the marijuana gin or wha'?" commented a different voice. the pile of leather, fur, grime and dreads in the corner unfolded to reveal a sick looking Lister.
"Hey, buddy! You look as bad as I feel! I could never look that bad."
All the while, Rich was getting steadily more alarmed and turned to Tim and Paul for support to find that Paul had Tim in a headlock and was telling him about his childhood as an orphan in Tangawarra.
"Paul!"
"What, Rich? Need to go to the toilet? I thought I told you, I'm sure you can do it alone. Wait, who the fuck- you bastard!"
Paul dropped Tim, who fell to the floor gasping, and charged up to Lister.
"Wow man, calm down!"
"Calm down? Shut up you stinkin' sap, why are you still on my ship?"
"Man, i don't know what the smeg happened last night..."
'I do! You gave us some fuckin' filthy booze and slept in our beds! And THEN after we show such hospitality-"
"Hospitality? You nearly beat me to a pulp after we played smeggin' fish with you five times!"
"DON'TINTERRUPT! After such hospitality you fuckin' lock us up!"
"Hey, rhinoceros head, why would we lock us up too?" interjected the Cat.
"Yeah. And where's Kryten? He can't drink, can he? What's he done?" asked Lister.
"You mean the talking shop dummy?" asked Paul, "He tried to clean my room."
"Yeh. So?"
"No one cleans Paul's room," gasped Tim, leaning on Richard for support, "no one."
Paul grinned unpleasantly, "So I stopped him."
"You what?" asked Lister, aghast at the thought of what this odorous little smeg could've done to Kryten.
"Well, first i got the chain saw-"
"You smeggin' nutter! You smeg! Your askin' for it!" Lister threw down his jacket and jumped on Paul, fists flying. It was round about that time that Tim spotted the Cat, who was trying to do his hair in the reflection of the puddle of liqueur spilt by Paul's depressive rockings.
" No pets!" screeched Tim and went for Cat. He fell flat on his face.
"What is this, slapstick for beginners?" taunted the Cat, giving Tim one of those grins. Tim leapt up and slapped him. Cat hissed and went to bite Tim.
"Why can't everyone just be nice to each other?" cried Richard, distressed.
Every one stopped.
They looked at each other, then four pairs of eyes turned to Richard, standing alone, looking at them appealingly.
As one, four pairs of hands found a hard object and four different (yet equally bruising) projectiles hit Richard, who promptly collapsed.
Several hours later, after Lister had set fire to Paul's hair and eaten another cigarette, and Lister had a fat lip and both had lovely blue-black eyes, after Cat had his clothes wrinkled and Tim had broken two nails (not to mention the damage to their hair) and Richard was altogether bruised and paranoid, the exhausted five ceased conflicts.
"Wait a smeggin' minute. If Kryten has no legs," Lister gave Paul an angry glance,"and we're all here, then..."
A light dawned and something clicked into place.
"Goal post head!"
"That dead bastard!"
"insert tim's name for Rimmer here (i thought "my love!" would be inadequate)"
"Yeh. Rimmer."
MEANWHILE, OUTSIDE...
Rimmer was standing next to Flacco, an untenable position at the best of times.
"So with your alien technology and all that, are you sure this is the only way I can get a body?"
"To be sure, to be sure, at least I think I'm sure, I can never really be sure unless my hair is sure, are you sure? Well its shorn, that's enough."
"So are you or are you not you stupid bald goit?"
"I did always say I was a boiled egg on stilts, so did my mother, i should've patented it so she couldn't steal it but, well you're only young a few thousand times and what's a little hay and spittle between friends." Flacco smiled at Rimmer inanely.
"Oh fine, it'll have to do. I want a body."
Flacco raised an eyebrow. Rimmer sighed.
"Oh, if you insist, 'I wish' I had a body."
"Oh-kay, and be grateful for the beautiful face you shall be endowed... with. Have a mirror! No don't, I need it for my goldfish."
Rimmer grimaced and bent double.
"Argh! This is terrible! Its worse than when I ate bad oyster, then had a meeting with Rampaging Rob 'I'll Rip You're Teeth Out' Smith to get my money back from a broken car he sold me- argh!"
Rimmer faded out in a burst of light. His light bee clattered to the floor.
"Well that's all Ross, we'll be off..." Flacco wandered to the end of the corridor, steadily shrinking as he went. He leapt on Ross's back, turned back and winked, then the lone clown rider jumped into the emptiness of space.
Rimmer reappeared three metres away from where he vanished. He was dead white...
... with a single curl.
