FICTION: FARSPACE FAIRYTALES

1.

The Collossii enjoyed an occasional game of football. Kicking planets across the multiverse with their raucous random gait was their favourite pastime and hobby in the eternal night of space.

Hearing the billions scream as they died was all part of the fun for them and they revelled in their power, purring with joy as they played.

Fkxm was the champion of the Collossii. He always had been and it seemed he always would be. But then came Lpgz who was determined to win the throne. Lpgz towered some hundred meters high and was not yet full grown.

In this region of the multiverse there was a group of dense galaxies, round in nature they presented a legend-making challenge. No one had ever contemplated their destruction and never as part of a football game.

Lpgz set his large heart on their spifflication and began a training process like none other.

He'd find a way by hook or by crook to decimate these starry swarms and so he did.

In his neighbourhood was a black hole of enormous size. It was feared by most and avoided by all. It was here Lpgz set his hopes for ultimate stardom and it was to it he now hopped.

As Lpgz approached he felt its tug. It loomed black as the blackest coal before his wide-eyed gaze. Into it he flew with a ridiculously wild notion of unfounded confidence. Its maw gaped universally wide to swallow him.

As he entered the hole he spoke thought to the All. By mental opening, he postulated himself infinitely big. With this he emptied himself of all other thoughts and became one with the thing that now took him.

There was a cataclysmic explosion of light as he emerged. Shimmering rings of vibrant light burst rippling around him. Ring after ring of jiggling energy emitted from his form as the pillar of unstoppable power soared within him.

At light speed he traversed the space to his target. As he hit the galactic swarm it seemed space itself would be rent. Clattering shards of eye-shatteringly bright light cascaded at unimaginable speed. Fire and light were all. Sound blinded every sense. The end of all appeared near here in a now glistening within a material illusion that bled and leaked.

Fifty billion trillion souls blinked out as he triumphed. Fkxm rose himself high in triumph as they did so a trillion trillion planets cascaded across the multiverse, while Lpgz took the vast crown of light he now claimed as his very own.

2.

Humans were very small but they browned very nicely on the spit. Xlx had fetched in three for the night and now languidly watched them turn.

A tiny bud of saliva slowly traversed one of his slender black mandibles and fell elastically into the fire with a sizzle.

Tonight the moons were full. This always made him feel a touch romantic. He remembered their first kiss through gaily jousting mandibles and a highly erotic meeting of their many eyes.

Xlx turned the humans to an uncooked spot, pouring a little oil on them as he did so.

Perhaps a little nibble on a toasted eyeball as it fell between the stones he thought, or a salted testicle, his favourite.

Ruminating on which sauce to drizzle onto these morsels he raised himself to his full height of some twelve feet and walked pondering to his cave entrance.

Here he gave an almighty & joyous clack to shake the heavens. Life was good he thought, so very good as he sent a prayer of thanks to the far stars and to the Great Black creator above.

3.

The air seemed to stretch and snap back. Black muck splattered in the treetops before exploding on the sidewalk around us, the black heavily streaked with red.

Then the rains came. Showers harder than ever known.

The night stayed totally black. There would be no daybreak.

The stars were gone. The moon was gone. The firmament was totally black and stayed that way, hour after hour.

The whole world chattered to itself in panic. Every airwave was full of human static while the streets were empty. No work was done.

We clung to our phones and screens. And to each other. As panic rose within us. The fear of all mankind.

The roar seemed endless when it came. The rent in the black fabric of night erupted and a searing light from it to us emerged. And at its foot stood a nightmare.

It was tall. It shone metallic in that blinding light, a weapon in its hand. But no face could be perceived.

The world quaked, all cameras on one spot. Hearts beat faster in every breast. Hands shook. Minds quailed.

It stood motionless for a moment. Then with sudden deliberation, it crouched, its weapon positioned for fire.

The rain beat down still. Darkness was all around. Save for one spotlight from the heavens, alighting on a hushed and waiting world.

4.

Grey head on grey head they came from some starslime. All jaws snapping and brimming with brine.

They came unstoppable, just to nest, kill and feed. Consuming and devouring with unquenchable greed.

Blood's running like water all down our main street. There’s horror on the faces of all that you meet.

“I’m here until now… but I don’t know how long. In Heaven’s name what's happening?

This thing is so wrong.

There’s guts on the stairwell. There’s skulls on the lawn. They arrived here at sunset and it’s only just dawn.

We have no protection. Our heads just explode. They reap us like garbage No need to reload.

Black flares spread the horror. All's dead in our land. Did God let this happen?

I just don't understand!”

Green lights in the distance. Screams on the next block. Humanity is dying, no time left on our clock.

“I look round the room… A surge hits the door. Flare lights, white heat. My last gun hits the floor.”

5.

Arnie found the alien in the desert wandering dazed and bemused. No one knew how it got there. Arnie was confused.

Living out there in a trailer he saw nothing from dawn to dusk. But one day a blinding explosion near blew him out of his husk.

Arnie got a hold of the weirdo and tied him up in his shed. Peering sometimes through the dusty window to make sure he wasn’t dead.

Now Arnie knew a certain guy called Dave who registered sole rights in his name. The CIA was kept well away while they kept a good hold on their game

Arnie's Alien was worth something, Arnie was sure of that. He could put on some kind of show. On this weirdo he'd grow fat.

They stuck it in a large steel pen, guarded tight by attorneys-at-law, ringed it with fences and flashing lights and shoved pizza down its jaw.

The next day the ads hit the screen, ‘Live Alien! This Time For Real!!’ with a pic of its weird spiral tit and a sound byte of its squeal.

Right away the green stuff hit the fan. Not green cheese, no, not this! We're talking moolah here, hard cash! A great pile of starry bliss!

Boy, the public really lapped it up. Each with a little electric prod. Making it scream and flash its eyes and protrude its fiery rod.

Now maybe they shoulda realised or, was it something it ate? Nah! It was crass human stupidity that consigned them to their fate.

A yellow blast soon hit the sands and scorched the very sky. A wipe-out thunderclap of slaughter so its tormentors would implode and die.

In the end, few really cared. Some trailer trash were mincemeat. For 50 miles round just a huge black smudge and Arnie's ass now a toilet seat.

<>

The CIA then came and took the thing, dissecting it in their lab. They pulled out its kaleidoscopic innards, lots of pretty pieces on their slab.

6.

We approached the fabled planet with trepidation. Many legends had spoken of this alien nation. Beasts that roamed in two-legged form. We wondered at such deviation from the norm.

The planet rose up from black in glittering blue where the sol shone down in stunning hue.

White clouds masked a good half of her arc in high altitude as we locked fields to park.

Invisishields on we headed then down to see what was true with a curious frown. We shuddered to a halt before city walls, amazed by the beasts' wild animal calls.

The air was filled with brown swirling dust as the walls were collapsed by our engine thrust.

The beasts all stopped in a silent stare, so speedily we backed far out of there.

Over mountains we sped much bemused. What beasts we had seen! And so confused!

Warriors in armour, in battle array, projectiles firing; alarm; dismay!

Ahead lay another city with turrets high as its gate came in the viewscreen nigh. In quiet this time through the walls we flew and to a marketplace strode our crew.

Invisishields on, no one could see as we gazed up close at animals three. Held in chains at the foot of a king, berated and chastised, heads hanging.

The beasts wore snarls with slobbering lips, so dirty and fetid we attached nose clips.

We circled the mob and attempted to see, what ritual was this? What kind of decree?

The screaming over, they marched away to the city gates in great array. What uncivilised madness could this be? And how to understand it in any degree?

Up to blue sky we then flew. Nothing made sense, not a single clue. On we sped as the rains came down, swirling grey mists over each town.

What strange beasts these two-legs were! Fighting and killing in mad despair. Faces contorted in hate so wild, as in legend, a part-grown child.

The legends were right we sadly concluded. This sector was ruined; of all sense denuded.

Such ugliness was a sickness that made us sigh as we re-entered our ships and sped to the sky.