Pew! Pew! – Sex, Guns, Spaceships… Oh My!
This week’s Saturday snippet is a preview of the story I’m submitting to the second volume of this hilarious comedy sci fi anthology, Pew! Pew! – Sex, Guns & Spaceships… Oh My! I was very flattered to be approached by the editor, M.D. Cooper, for a submission. He’d seen my Carrie Hatchett, Space Adventurer series, and he thought my writing might be a good fit.
Arghhh! As I wrote in this week’s Patreon post, I’m not a natural comedy sci fi writer. Writing funny science fiction is hard! What was more, I’d just finished polishing Shadow War, the final book in my Shadows of the Void series, and that was far from funny or light-hearted.
I had to go back to basics and revisit comedy sci fi classics, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Red Dwarf, Galaxy Quest, Men in Black, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel and Dark Star to remind myself of what makes comedy sci fi funny.
Did I succeed? Here are the first 1,000 words. I’ll let you be the judge.
Trash Beings of the Galaxy, Unite!
By J.J. Green
Collecting the garbage of the civilized galaxy isn’t all soirees and glamour. Sometimes, there’s hard work to be done, as new intern Jaquil Rarebit found out on his first day on the job.
“Y’see,” said Bantram Hepplehiggy—she’d told Jaquil to call her Banty—as she exhaled a cloud of rose-tinted vapor that entirely enveloped the young man, “it isn’t just a matter of collecting the trash, we have to dispose of it too.” She waved around a tube with a large bulb hanging from the end of it, full of a liquid that was supplying the gas she was huffing. “That’s the hard part.”
Jaquil coughed and hitched up his dungarees. His mom had bought them and made him wear them even though they were two sizes too big. They were the latest fashion, she’d assured him , and would impress his new boss. She’d also told him, when he’d complained that they tripped him up, that he’d soon get used to walking in them. All the other tweenagers did.
“What’s the problem with dumping garbage?” Jaquil asked Banty. “Can’t you just find a quiet part of deep space and eject it there?” He eyed the pile of broken starship parts, old clothing—including a suspiciously large number of pairs of dungarees—and swamp garden waste, some of which was still moving, that sat in the corner of the steel, square refuse bay where they were standing.
His remark drew guffaws from Banty, hiccups from Lollololp, a yellow, tube-shaped individual who constantly undulated, and excited bleeps from U8AB, who made up the remainder of the staff at Trash Iz Uz.
Another cloud of rose vapor was expelled from Banty’s capacious lungs as she laughed. “Now where would be the fun in that?”
“He don’t get it,” exclaimed Lollololp before starting off on another round of loud hiccups.
Banty raised her meaty hands as if to put them on Jaquil’s shoulders. If Jaquil hadn’t been twice her height, and if she hadn’t been wider than she was tall, and she might have made it. As it was, she had to content herself with resting her palms just below his nipples, her fingertips almost touching them. “Kid, if you’re gonna roll with us for the next three months, there’s one thing you need to understand. Garbage is gold. You’re too young to remember it, but they must have taught you about The Great Hot War in your schooling?”
Jaquil nodded. Modern history had been his favorite subject, mainly because the teacher would forget to turn off her camera, allowing the class to see whatever she got up to in her spare time, which was a lot.
“So,” Banty went on, “not so long ago, the intelligent species of the galaxy were on the verge of wiping themselves out. Then finally they saw sense and drew up the Declaration of Never-Ending Peace and Galactic Harmony. But life gets kinda boring when there are no more wars, especially when you hate your neighbors’ guts just as much as you always did. You get where I’m going?”
Jaquil nodded again, wondering where she was going and wishing that she hadn’t shifted her hands that little bit higher.
“So what do you do when you want to piss off your neighbor?” Banty asked.
“Err…” Jaquil thought of all the annoying habits of their upstairs neighbors in their cubicle housing. “Play loud music?”
Banty shook her head.
“Hold roller derby competitions in the living room at three in the morning?”
“Not that,” said Banty.
“Drill holes through the floor and pour water through? At least, I think it’s water.”
“No,” Banty said, “but that’s a good one.”
“I give up.”
Banty turned to her tubular and electronic employees. “All together everyone.” She conducted the chorus with a sweep of her arms as they chanted, “You dump your trash in his backyard.”
“Oh,” Jaquil said with the kind of all-knowing look that had stood him in good stead for most of his academic career, with the exception of tests.
When Banty didn’t elaborate, he said, “So…when you say we have to dispose of trash, what you really mean is…” He left a pregnant pause, hoping that someone would fill it.
“He still don’t get it,” crowed Lollololp.
Jaquil was beginning to form a gentle hatred for the over-sized draft excluder.
“Kid,” said Banty, “if you’re gonna last three months here, let alone achieve steady employment in the trash business, you gotta use your noodle.”
Jaquil wondered if she was referring to Lollololp, but Banty was tapping the side of her pointy head, which was narrower than the neck it sat upon.
“Look, when we go collect someone’s trash, we take an order too. We ain’t just picking it up, we’ve gotta know where to set it down.”
“And so you…dump it in their neighbors backyard?”
“Figuratively speaking,” Banty said, waving around her tube and bulb so that the liquid sloshed around inside. She took another huge huff.
“I think you mean literally,” said U8AB.
“Whaaaat?” Banty exhaled a cumulus cloud of vapor as she spoke.
“Figuratively means you don’t really do it,” U8AB explained.
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Literally. That’s what we do. We dump the trash wherever it’s gonna annoy the neighbors the most. But we gotta be sneaky about it. Do you get it now, kid?”
To his surprise, Jaquil felt like, for once, he did actually get it.
“So now you know our first trade secret,” said Banty.
“That’s our only secret, Banty,” Lollololp said.
“Is it? I guess it is. Now you know our only trade secret, kid. Are you with us?”
“I’m with you,” Jaquil exclaimed. He’d heard somewhere that trash collectors had a slogan, and he thought this would be a great time to shout it to join in with the camaraderie. He took a deep breath before announcing, “Trash creatures of the galaxy, unite!”
Banty paused, her tube hanging from her lips. Lollololp stopped, well, lolloping, and even U8AB’s quiet machine noises ceased.
“Kid,” said Banty, “you need to be more careful with your language. That term is not acceptable any longer. Trash Iz Uz is an equal opportunities employer. Please reflect that in the terms you use.”
“Oh,” Jaquil said. Things seemed to have been going so well. “What should I say?”
“The correct word is beings.”
“Right. So, trash beings of the galaxy, unite?”
“Now you’re getting it,” said Banty before taking another huff.