Chapter 3: Dumb Rules
Gritting his sharp little teeth and fuming with frustration, Zim stomps home. Getting stuck in detention for "insubordination" is simply absurd. He's the most advanced entity on this miserable little rock, and a puny teacher should have no power over him. He deeply resents the necessity of his cover story.
He reaches his front door, and pauses. Red liquid is seeping out under the door. Nice. A good sign. Hopefully GIR took some initiative and got slaughtery with a neighbor. As long as no one saw him do it, that's a big step in the right direction.
Eager to see bits of human dripping from every surface, Zim tosses the front door open. "Well done GIR! You finally understand the purpose of our…"
His voice trails off.
All the furniture and equipment has been dragged out of the main room. GIR sits on the floor, with two living human children, playing a board game. Tons of detailed miniatures cover the board, including assault walkers, advanced infantry, and spacecraft. Multiple decks of cards and a bazillion dice clutter the area. The humans ignore Zim, intently listening to GIR's enthusiastic explanation of the rules.
Oh, and the entire floor and every wall are coated in spaghetti sauce.
The children, the board, the miniatures, the dice, and the cards, are all soggy with red liquid, which is disappointingly not blood.
Zim keeps his voice low and calm. "GIR?"
No response. "Ahem. GIR? It's your master. Could I have your attention?"
GIR keeps prattling on about the rules, which sound as random, nonsensical, and ever-changing as you'd expect.
"GIR!" Zim bellows loud enough that one of the children topples over in the sauce.
"Hi there! Wanna play?"
Voice soft again, Zim says. "No. No thank you."
"Ahhhhhh… But it's so fun!"
"GIR. I have a lot of work to do. I'm going to take a short walk outside. When I get back, the game needs to be put away."
"Saaaaaad…"
"And the… sauce… needs to be cleaned up."
"SAAAAAD."
"And these children need to be gone and/or dead."
"Easy!"
"Right then. Get to it."
Zim steps out and walks onto the lawn, wiping the sauce off his feet.
He takes in a deep breath… and slowly lets it out.
Why… WHY was he issued the worst robot in the whole fleet?
A window shatters outward. One of the children, wrapped up in a giant mass of spaghetti noodles, crashes into the lawn right next to Zim. He struggles to his feet and runs screaming down the street, leaving a trail of noodles in his wake.
The front door flies open, and the other child runs out, squealing, dodging a random spattering of dishes and laser fire.
Well… GIR might not be perfect, but at least he occasionally gets something right.
Author's Note:
Whenever I have a dream with a coherent narrative, I take extensive notes when I wake, with a view to one day writing it. But often, a dream is interesting/memorable without making any sense at all. I generally dismiss this as unable to be posted as a standalone story, because there isn't really a story. However, after adding a chapter 2 to "Embrace the Bacon," I realized this is the solution. Zim is so insane, and GIR so randomly bonkers, their world is the perfect setting for any of my dreams that are too chaotic/weird to stand alone. I will still leave this story marked as "Complete" because there are no specific plans for more chapters. But expect occasional additions whenever I have a dream too bafflingly bizarre to be its own story.
This dream actually focused more heavily on the board game itself, which was Star Wars based and resembled Risk in some ways. 2 inch tall AT-ST walkers, tons of little stormtroopers, and Star Destroyer models 5 inches long made it quite fun, though I can't remember the actual rules. I genuinely have no clue why the game required the room to be coated in spaghetti sauce. It made an absolute mess of everything, though none of the players remarked on it. In the dream, it just felt like a normal part of the setup, like using a playmat or having players sit in a particular order. For those with sufficiently wacky brains that you care about such details, I will add that it was smooth and boring spaghetti sauce with no visible meat, mushrooms, or anything else that might make it actually appetizing. Such a letdown.
