HAPPILY COMPLACENT

A short story by Eric Toms

Bright lights! Reds, yellows, greens — whizzing by at thousands of miles per hour. The vast emptiness of space. A vessel rockets through the Galaxy. It’s not a ship. It’s a man. Covered in a viscus gel. This is Robert.

He’s moving at an astronomical speed. He wants to scream, but the gel won’t allow it. He’s leaving the Milky Way. Robert recognizes it from his motivational poster. In it, the star system is pictured along with the text: “Don’t worry about losing. You’re insignificant AF.”

He remembered staring at that poster hanging on the wall of his studio apartment. He was holding his bong as his now ex-girlfriend packed her belongings. Before leaving she said, “I need more. You’re just not going anywhere, Robert.” Then an enormous ball of snot smashed through the window and pinned Robert against his living room wall before sucking him into the sky. The irony was not lost on him.

An object was now speeding towards him. He strained to see more clearly, but couldn’t. When you’re hurtling you through space enveloped in a gooey plasma it’s hard to make out details.

The lights went out immediately.

Robert knew two things for sure. One, he was no longer moving. He was now lying prone on a cold hard floor. The gelatinous goo that had engulfed his body was melting into a puddle around him. And two, his naked ass was hanging out. Robert excelled in very few things, but knowing when his butt was exposed was one thing he took pride in. His fight or flight response was currently stuck in neutral. He wanted to scan his surroundings, search for a weapon and fight for his life, but he was gonna need a sec.

The lights flashed on, bathing Robert in a white aurora. His mother had instilled him with a good sense of shame, so he immediately cupped his genitals while thrashing around, violently taking in his surroundings. The walls were a smooth dark green color and the light didn’t seem to come from a source. The room just glowed white from above, which Robert thought was pretty.

His entire body shook as a sound began closing in on him. There were no exits, no control panels, no makeshift weapons to be made. The only thing Robert had was his ever-shrinking testicles in the palm of his hand. The sound was as if someone was twisting a sheet of bubble wrap, popping a thousand tiny bubbles at once. In the blink of an eye the wall adjacent from him slid down to reveal two… things.

Robert’s eyes cast up to see the entirety of his captors. He thought their blob-like bodies were a deep blue like the late-night sky. The bubblewrap popping sound made sense when he saw that they slithered along on a hundred tentacles in varying sizes. He wanted to look in their eyes, but in place of faces the two had a series of what looked like puss-filled bubbles that emanated from the center of their bodies and worked their way towards the surface.

Robert could not breathe, knowing that these would be the last moments of his life. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he was silently praying to a God he had ignored for decades. Two errant globs of goo streamed across the floor like cockroaches and skittered up Robert’s thighs. He swatted them away, but to no avail. The two imbedded themselves into his ear canals at the exact moment the first puss alien exclaimed: “Oh my guuoood! It’s sooooo frinkin’ cute!”

Robert’s paralyzing fear was replaced by confusion.

“I told you, babe, my dad’s ship can get weird stuff from wherever.”

“That is soooo cool. But don’t you feel bad for them.”

“Naw babe. The environmentalizer reads their mind and provides them with like, whatever.”

Robert did notice that the same gel that had delivered him here was now bubbling up and taking solid forms. Robert’s mouth hung slack as he watched his couch, coffee table and bong materialized in front of him. The two puss aliens began tentacle-walking away.

“I’m bored again. When are we going to the party?”
“Wait, I though that you thought this was cool? Isn’t this cool?”

He sat down and clutched the side of his couch. It worked well as a place to have a panic attack. Robert quietly wished for his sweatpants and t-shirt, if for no other reason then the burlap material of his couch chafed. And just like that the ooze trickled up the couch and his clothes took shape in front of him. With shaking hands he slipped them on and breathed a sigh of relief.

After a much needed moment of acclamation, Robert tried to come up with a plan. He closed his eyes. Upon opening them he watched as the ooze formed a handgun on the coffee table. He picked it up and felt a chill run down his spine. Immediately changing his mind, he set it back down and closed his eyes again. When he opened them this time a steaming hot Hawaiian pizza and a baggie of weed were sitting on the table.

Robert leaned back with the weed and bong. He would arm himself, escape his zoo and find a way back to Earth… but, you know, in a sec.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed my short story then check out my article, “SCREENWRITING’S 5 MOST COMMON MISTAKES.”
https://erictoms.com/screenwritings-5-most-common-mistakes/

And if you wouldn’t mind following me on the social medias then that would be the bee’s knees… that’s a thing people say to be both endearing and confusing. Every tweet is a short story if you think about it*!
(*please don’t think about it too hard)
http://www.twitter.com/tomsfunny