EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL DATING - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - JUNE 2020

This is my entry for the Australian Writers' Centre's June Furious Fiction competition. Rather than moulder away on my hard drive, I decided to let this blog take another detour from the film writing and put it up here, in case anyone fancies a read . It's a bit of a departure for me in terms of concept as it's basically just a straight romance tale - albeit one with alien insects and the ever present spectre of narcissistic genetic enhancement.

In addition to 500 word maximum and a three day window to write it, the rules for June were:

Each story’s first and last words had to begin with J.
Each story had to include a game being played.
Each story had to include the phrase MISS/MISSED THE BOAT.

EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL DATING

Just hear me out on this. Extra-terrestrial dating is as hard as terrestrial dating. Several friends mentioned they thought it’d be easier, that I’d be spoiled for choice. Fact is, whether you’re using a paid app or a free one, they’re always the same. Always inundated with horny bipeds. But I’ve been working on Earth for several months and we all have needs, so I figured I’d give one of ‘em a shot.

The humanoid was waiting in the pub and he looked like his picture, more or less, which is a small victory. He’d made an effort but didn’t want it to look like it. He was cosmetically free from cybernetic enhancement, although the signs were there that someone in his family tree had undergone Aesthetic Sub-Atomic Redesign.

Before making my way over, I sneaked a look at the dating app. I was relieved to discover his humanoid vapour was universally compatible. Which made the following all the more annoying. As I sat down at the table, my spore pouch burst. I know, right? Total nightmare. No idea how it happened. One minute we’re raising appendages in greeting, the next a brilliant explosion of glittering dust illuminates the whole pub and my Spore Cloud blossoms into dazzling, beautiful, pollinated life. Of course, seconds later it’s vacuumed up into the air conditioning system and syphoned off to a medical waste vat. I mean, it’s not like you can just put Spores back, but it would’ve been nice to feel their euphoria for more than 8 seconds.

The humanoid looked surprised. His eyes were big. They appeared rounder than usual. I didn’t know they could do that.

“Was that your…”
“Spore pouch? Yes. Can you believe that?”

“Was that supposed to happen?”

“No. It’s meant to deploy at coital zenith, when my fluid strands are at their highest tensile strength and my gills are primed to receive them. So as you can imagine, this is quite mortifying.”

The humanoid’s face started to crinkle. His eyes went from wide to narrow quite suddenly.

“I should be running from the building in total embarrassment, except there’s no point. Spore deployment means I’ll be entering an eighteen month chrysalis stage in about an hour. Like the old saying goes: you can’t be embarrassed in a pupal stage.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry, I think it loses something in the translation. My point is that by the time I hatch, no one will care. Plus, I’ll also have wings.”

The humanoid said he was confused.

“I’m confused”

“It means we’ve missed the boat on our date, I’m afraid”

The humanoid’s face was doing all sorts of weird things by this point. So in order to salvage something from our night I pointed to the stack of boardgames on the shelf behind him.

“Fancy a game of Monopoly?”

We played until my carapace hardened and I couldn’t roll the dice. Then he rolled for me. It was really quite romantic. And I let him win, just.

END. 

picture by SavaSylan at Shutterstock