Day 97

Getting close to that 100 day mark.  Should not have dropped the ball or I'd be way passed it by now.  But, I'm not stopping!  Nonstop keep going!  Hi everybody


            The first month was a difficult one.  Space Cowboy knew it would be.  After two weeks of laboring over the quessadila maker, he finally figured out something to cook.  He settled for making quessadilas, the smoke clouding up his windows to the point where he was forced to open one. 

            The whitenoise fuzz was pretty entertaining, and Space Cowboy felt a little like one of Pavlov’s dogs for continuing to push the button on the remote.  He gazed out the window at what might have been the stars, but pollution shrouded the sky in mystery. 

            He woke up on the rigid square iron surface of his cot and rolled over to his side.  His whole body ached with the stiffness of the cushion, and he played with the TV button again for a minute.  He looked across the room at a stack of books, up at the ceiling fan that no longer spinned, and over at the door.  The kitchen was completely empty, the fridge smelled like old eggs and waffle batter. 

            A dog barked on the other side of the dor, its claws scratching on the frame.  He imagined it as a spotted little beagle, its round sad eyes looking up at the viewfinder in the giant wooden slab.  He saw it in his minds eye through a fish eye lense.  He opened the door and a cold breeze fluttered over his cheeks, a bad trick had been played on him.  He cursed the air and shut the door, wrapping a scarf around his face.

            He ran into Alice in the hallway, an older woman with a bad smokers cough and a lighthearted air.  He couldn’t think of anything to say to her, and she was usually content just smiling over.  He cringed when she began to open her mouth, but luckily she coughed, and he walked past.

The grocery store was across the street, the only noteable landmark on the block. The apartment building dwarfed it in size, it looked like a little white shoebox sitting next to a pair of black boots.

 In this socialist paradise, he could take whatever he needed.  The signs on the windows and door both stressed he not take more than he needed, and leave whatever he could give.  Luckily for him, that was nothing.  Like the rest of the buildings on the planet, there were bars on the windows.  A long skinny man in a kevlar vest wheeled a sealed icebox with meat through the wide doorway, and they expanded as he pushed through.  A gentle sucking noise powered the automatic doors.

Wally, the night and day clerk, thumbed through an ordering clipboard and put a big checkmark in a box with a black magic marker.  He wiped his face to remove a blemish that wasn’t there.  He sighed as he saw the size of the crate, pulling the collar of his checkered shirt loose and letting his neck breath a little bit.  

            Space Cowboy took his boots off at the door, eliciting a nod and smile from the armed security guard. 

            “No hard feelings about last time?”  The guard said, brandishing a black hitting stick.  “You can’t go trudging around with your boots on, you should know that.”

“No, I guess not.  How could I be mad at you?”  Space Cowboy said.  He felt a part of himself inside well up with anger and then dull like a dying ember.

He picked up a little green basket and chose between twelve different kinds of bread.  They all looked the same other than the packaging, so he picked the one with the football players on it.  It was between that one and the one with the army men. Armed guards on the outside escorted hooded men in cut off sweatshirts across the sidewalk, their ears .  The oily asphalt street looked like it might bubble up and swallow them as they crossed, the black pock marks like burnt pizza dough.  The fifth sun of Merp illuminated the glass of each building, heating the street to a toasty red.

            A rack of escape based equipment beckoned Space Cowboy behind the counter of the service desk.  The flammable liquids, astringent alcohols, and packs of razor blade.  They sat behind the counter, Wally noticing Space Cowboy staring over at them.

            “I see you have your eye on the cordless drill.  Now what would you want with something like that?”

            Space Cowboy looked down at his feet and shook his head.  He picked up a box of Delicious O’s cereal and dropped them into his basket, reading the back about possible prizes.  One such prize was a nail file, which the box explicitly stated might be found in “1 out of every 10,000” packages.   There was a recipe on the side panel of the box by the ingrediants for “Delicious O’s Brand Cereal Bars”, the other ingrediants being marshmallows and margarine.

            “Margarine?”  Space Cowboy asked himself out loud.  He found a container of it in the refridgerated aisle.  “Just like butter?”  Space Cowboy felt his mind extending on the spot.  “Little midget creature was correct.”

            The newspaper by the checkout celebrated the arrival of a newly appointed group of Space Dignitaries.  The caption said Bernard Bernie, the esteemed tribunal member of the Space Operahouse.  His monocle was etched into his face, projecting out in a hologram.  A face Space Cowboy recognized was seated directly to his left at the large rectangular table, gazing up into his eyes with a childlike confoundment.

            “Luther Pennybags!”  Space Cowboy crumbled to a knee.  “He has been behind this all along!”

Day 96(?)

         Alright so I'm not updating this as regularly.  I should be.  I am missing out on so much material by not updating these last bunches of days.
         I've been a little obsessed with podcasts.  Mostly this Mental Illness Happy Hour one.  You guys should check it out.  Whoever checks back here, I mean!

            The midget caught his balance on the sink and turned around on one foot.  It wiped its face with both hands and had to catch its balance again.

            “Listen up,”  It said, looking straight up at Space Cowboy who was tall in comparison.  It was a midget afterall.  He slipped on the slippery floor and regained his balance by latching onto Space Cowboys pants.  Taking a seat on the floor for a second, he redid the velcro on his shoes, pulling them as taut as they would go.

            Space Cowboy reached across his body with his sweaty right hand facing out, and the creaturelike man cowered in fear.  He shook his head and helped him up.

            “I’m just trying to tell you what happened.”  The midget whistled between his gaping tooth gap.  “I’m trying to tell you why I’m here! See that?!”

            On the other side of the door, a prism shaped ball opened and released three critters.  Their large marble shaped eyes flickered against their dark black bodies.  The Intersteller Diner stood sentry by the black hole.  It’s parking dock pooped out a stream of cars, while a different stream of flying vehicles entered intravenously from the same orifice.

            “They are all coming for you.  They know what you did.”

            “What I did?  What did I do?”

            “You opened the gate.  They come out of the gate.  They go back into the gate.  They come for you.  They know you opened it.”

            Space Cowboy sneared indignantly.  “Anyone could have turned that key.”

            “You pulled the sword out of the stone.  Do you… still have.. the key?”

            Space Cowboy pulled the key out of his inside suspender pocket.  It looked boring and unimportant.  The brail like etchings on the flat top were the only distinct markings.  It didn’t even glisten in the bobbing overhead light. 

            “Let me see,”  The creature purred and snatched the key.  He turned it effusively in his grubby little hands, like a squirrel packing nuts into its cheeks.  “You will not need this any more.  I will take it back for you.”

            Space Cowboy snatched at it and the creature recoiled.  It pushed him away with one hand and stretched the elastic waist of it’s pants with the other, dropping the key inside.  Space Cowboy reached for his gun, sighed, and let his hands rest at his side.

            The ship continued to move, tacitly walking into an ambush.  If it had a tail it was between its legs.  The sentries stared from the windows.

            “Do not worry about the key, do not!  You must prepare your brain for this planet.  It must adjust.  There is a prisoner mentality here.  It may rub off on you if you are not mentally prepared.”

            Space Cowboy took a couple of potshots at the cops on the wing, the hot laser missiles striking uselessly.  The creature hid behind what looked like an old fashioned gas stove.  It gestured at the cops on the wing, who proceeded to reapply their makeup and board.  Space Cowboy eyed them carefully, unsure of whether or not he should hide his space weed that was sitting openly in its incubation station.  He opted for the lazy route.  The men walked past him to the control station at the front of the ship and inserted long pronglike fingers into its mainframe.

            The face of the autopilot on the screen transformed into a gelatinous mess.  It was replaced by a police badge, and the screen became a navy blue.

            Space Cowboy’s brain catalogued everything that could happen.  They’re not going to imprison me, he thought.  There’s no reason for them to.

            The ship was sucked in a quick gush into an interplanetary highway.  It whistled on a fixed route, the hull relieved that it was finally at peace.  Space Cowboy made a feeble attempt to escape into the bathroom, mumbling under his breath that he had to use it.  He wasn’t much of an actor.

            They showed Space Cowboy to his new apartment, which was festooned in an area that used to be the planets jail.  The wardens office was still marked “Warden’s Office”, and the warden still sat behind the door.  His looming silhouette ellicited fear from all of the tennants, who normally chose to walk the opposite tunnel although it was nowhere near as nice as this one.  The squeek of the dinner cart accompanied by the squeek of its oversized attendants feet echoed through the hall.

            “If it’s perfectly fine,”  Space Cowboy said to the liason robot showing him to the dank cell shaped room with the etchings of gated cells still imprinted into the walls.  “I am going to go look for another different room, somewhere else.”

            He started to walk away and his path was blocked by an oversized robot facing the wrong direction.  It reached its arms out and blocked the whole tunnel.

            “This is your room.”  The slightly friendly robot repeated with an even keel.  It was a used car salesman of a robot. It’s face was incapable of emotion, although its legs walked with a street smart swagger.

            “You can cook on this.”  It showed Space Cowboy the kitchen.  A quessadila maker sat on a counter, surrounded by peeling white paint.  It looked like an ancient relic.  Or one of those things people buy on QVC and then never use. 

            “This is the quessadila maker.  You can cook other things on it, as long as you do not mind grill marks.  It is a grill.”

            “I’ve seen a grill before and this isn’t a grill.”

            Space Cowboy poked his head out of the kitchen and saw the facsimile TV.  He picked up the remote and pressed the buttons, they stretched and clicked the way buttons are supposed to.  The TV flashed on with images of violent protest and then powered back on.  It functioned like an electric razor that hasn’t been charged enough.  He pressed the button again and it flashed on again.  It just as quickly went off.  Each time was a quick glimpse into madness.

Day 94: Free Will

        And the beat goes on.
        I need a toaster, a cookbook, and a dictionary.
        I have became the person I wanted to be a lot quicker than anticipated.  Now, how to exploit it for money.  Must obey laws of society.


          
     

            Space Cowboy flicked on the switch on the box shaped tube radio.  He hit the thing on the side and it stopped making its warbling noise.  Then, he turned the knobs on both sides until the language was recognizably English.  He was uncertain why English was the language he spoke.  He could feel a source controlling his actions from somewhere, but this allowed him to rationalize the actions of his existence.

            Thoughts of New Dallas clouded his mind.  The endless highways, the surrounding islands of suburban sprawl.  Maybe that Kenny Rogers Roasters was still there, the last one in the galaxy, he could get one of their enormous thighs to bite into.  He looked over at the fridge; he knew without opening it that it was completely empty.  His stomach gurgled with defiance.

“How much longer can we let these Space Liberals run the Universe?”  The radio came back into focus.  It was Sterling Marlin, that old scatterbrained firebrand.  His suspension for what he said about the equal rights laws must have ended.  “That was one of our most prominent outposts, and now any rascal can fly their ship into it.  No protocols, nothing… It’s a free trade zone.  This is your America.”

“Weird he still talks about America in terms of the entire galaxy.”  The ships robot voice said.

“Could have sworn I programmed you to stop making intellectual comments,”  Space Cowboy said, pushing himself up against his knees and fiddling with the ships artifical intelligence screen with a lazy right arm.  The unique features of the programmed face softened and smoothed out, soon it looked like just an ordinary set of eyes, a basic nose, and a full lipped mouth.

“We’re going to have to pause her, John, we have a certain obligation to our sponsors.”  The radio host said.  They went to an indefinite stream of commercials, Space Cowboy allowing the white noise to fill his head.  He pictured the man inside floating in an intertube inside a little swimming pool.  The mans wife and kids were upstairs in the hotel room, maybe screwing around with pay per view or ordering room service, but it did not concern the little man.  The pool lights shut off and the clorine smell became more pronounced as the lights dimmed, but he refused to wake up.

The recycled water in the latrine washed over a disgustin Space Cowboy.  He peeled his knee high socks off over the knee pads, squeezed out of his rigid Mad Max body armor and laid in the oversized utility sink heaving.  His arms were sagging where their used to be muscles, the stringly flesh hanging off the oversized bone.

“Autopilot is fine.”  He told the computer, its changed face compliant.  “Autopilot!  New Dallas!”  The lobotomized mainframe acknowledged him with a huff.  They had already been on the way to New Dallas, but it knew better than to tell him that. 

“Can we stop by the Fourth Sun?  There is heat there for me.  I function on heat.”  The voice said to deaf ears.  Space Cowboys head was underwater, with his arms sitting on the sharp sides of the utility sink.  Like a giant in a roofless little car.  “You can hear me perfectly well under there.”  

Space Cowboy reached to the bottom of the sink and pulled out a shampoo bottle.  He unloaded a hand full of goo into his hair, throwing the bottle on the floor.  Just when he began his sensual self caress, a steam whistle went off and he jumped, splashing water over the sensitive equipment.  Droplets of dirty water dotted the screens.  Space Cowboy splashed his way over to where the towel was supposed to be hanging, shampoo covering his eyes and face.  There was no towel there, so he leaned in close to the super powered fan that cooled the engine.  He was brought back to when he was in the war, his sleep constantly interrupted by bullhorns and mortars.

He grabbed blindly for his same shitty outfit, reapplying his suspenders and undershirt.  He looked at his face in the mirror and looked away and then back up again, like there was a foreigner staring back at him.  The shampoo in his hair made him look like an amaciated Santa.

“Boarding!”  The robot voice yelled.  “Prepare to board!”

Space Cowboy put his hands on the top ledge of the outlooking porthole and peered through the tiny window.  He felt like a squirrel trapped inside a tree. A black junk collector ship had him in its tractor beam.  He could see the old disconnected dots of the out of date of tractor beams tugging at the hull, nagging him towards it.  It looked like those broken lines from connect the dots were trying to incorporate him into their coloring book.

Space Cowboy pried the glass window open with his rough hands and called to the men decked out in full black suits outside. 

“Hey!  Shit for brains!”  He said, his skin crawling with excitement.  “This is a private vessel.  If you check my plates you’ll see that…”

The men took off their black robes to reveal blue policemen suits.  Each had a blue police cap with a black bill and tinted sunglasses.  Their moustaches were broomlike.

“Oh, oh, no!”  Space Cowboy said, slamming the window grating right before the lasers started poring towards him from the six shooter style guns.  They didn’t break their gazes up as they continued to unload. A taser clinged on the window, turning the pane bright blue.  Space Cowboy splashed it with water from the bathtub, which wouldn’t reach that far.  The droplets shined in the air with an extra blue blue.

“This can’t be happening.  They couldn’t find me here.  In space!”

Space Cowboy spun in a circle on the linoleum floor, his heels squeeking.  He was too late, his door had swung open, a midget with a gold necklace was falling through backwards with its tiny Trex arms swinging wildly in the air.  He didn’t know whether to catch it before it fell or stomp it’s brain out after it landed on its head.

Day 93: Still writing

Treading water a little bit but getting better at other real life things.  Will be a writer.  Almost through with Warriners Grammar book (the big red one where you teach yourself everything).

Need more of a dedication to theme.

That's all I got today.  Getting started.

             Debris fell from the sky in the form of a scrambled omelette getting spilling on the floor.  Bigger pieces clanked against the pier, Space Cowboy turned his body lengthwise as he dodged around large girders splitting through the air.  He reached for his gun to shoot one that fell in front of his path to the pier, it tumbled end over end in an unpredictable way, but the gun finally slipped out of the holster after it had already landed in front of him.  He shot it anyway, and the little piece heated to a bright red glare.  He hadn’t been exercising it regularly.  His ungloved hands flinched and he dropped the gun into the abyss, dropping immediately onto his hands and knees and peering over the side into the endless emptiness.  The space below wasn’t quite clouds, and it wasn’t quite water, and it lacked distinguishing properties.  Luckily it produced buoyancy, and the gun floated back up to the top.  He grabbed it quickly, tiny black hands popping out of the surface on the lagoon after him.

            A man was split into two behind him and all he heard was the sound, like a loaf of balogna being sliced.  He turned around to see a giant metallic object that looked like a pizza cutter moving by its own volition, floating with a wobbily sheet metal noise.  It turned completely vertical, like a peacock showing off its plumage.  Space Cowboy let loose a barrage of lasers at it, his hand recalling the searing agony of overusing the gun in the past.  The lasers reflected and shot skyward, the oil from the tumbling barge bursting into flames and vaporizing in a blue hiss.

            “Hey!”  A guard called from up by the brick buildings in a row.  He pushed out into the street from behind the front door of the old galla, rubbing his eyes.  “You, you’re the Space Cowboy!  That’s the Chopper!  You’re firing the Chopper!”

            Roustabout kids scrambled on their hands and knees up the side of the pier, a wooden structure that led into a galleys.  Space Cowboy saw his ship at the end of the pier, hanging in the air like an inflateable intertube.  It was nothing to write home about, but it got him from place to place. 

            Space Cowboy pulled his hat over his eyes, offering a ostensible protection from the madness ensuing around him.  The guards by the pier hit the ground, covering their heads like a bomb had been dropped.

             It was just this residential guy who showed interest.  They looked at eachother, Space Cowboy careful not to move too quickly.  Each skittish step he took further away from the house, the man would ease out further like a dog on a leash.

            The sky started to cry black splotches, which when they fell splattered much like gigantic raindrops.  Whatever they touched was coated completely, the tarlike consistency drenching the pier like an oilspill.  In fact, it was an oil spill, as the sputtering gurgling aircraft carrier above was scraping its tank across an invisible boundary into a new nothingness.

            “That was awful city planning.”  Space Cowboy said, and begun his run down the pier at full speed.  The man by the house went back inside, doubtless to make a phone call. 

            Space Cowboy swung the steel grating of his ship open, the familiar smell of the leather interior reminding him of the old days on the prairie.  The outer vestibule of the ship was completely vacant of design frills or color, the engine on the opposite side of the chamber whirring idly.  The room was a dark blue circle housing a rectangular room in the middle, with a submarine style hatch entrance.  Space Cowboy spun the wheel on the door and jumped through, the interior of the next room a sight for sore eyes.  His girly posters hung from the walls, the dashboard was completely broken and replaced with christmas lights, the wicker chair he replaced the suggested pilot seat with.  The operating system consisted of four levers and a row of red buttons, all of which Space Cowboy had learned how to use only from trial and error.

            He pulled a cold coffee flavored beverage from the minifridge and ignored the sound of objects bouncing off the hull of the ship.  He reached for and pulled the middle lever, chugging the coffee smelling thing while the ship turned to a ninety degree angle and spat itself up into space.

           He flew by the air craft carrier tanker at a close shave, hitting a red button repeatedly to steady the wagon.  The giant ship emerged into the membranous void of the sky with no beginning or end, as it continued to come closer it revealed the impossible breadth of its design.  Millions of passengers watched in horror from the windows as they plummetted helplessly to the planet outposts surface. 

From the other side of the dock, the Space Ranger loomed on horseback, his body resting on top of the horse completely upright.  It ran directly into a giant invisible metal object, both falling sidelong off of the pier into the empty sky.

             A group of guards stood flabregasted staring directly up, like angry tenants waiting for someone to turn the power back on.  The majority of debris fell passively into the water, the rest of it bouncing insubstantially off of the seemingly unbreakable metal pier.  Space Cowboy refrained from looking in the mirror down on the planet anymore, turning the satellite security camera monitor off as well.

He rested back in the chair, kicking his feet up onto the dashboard.  After a few minutes, the explosion from the planet pushed him far out of the gravitational pull, the inside of his stomach feeling like something that had been in the microwave too long.  He unfolded an itinerary hanging from an overhead storage compartment, reading to the part where he was.

“Kenny, you poor sucker.”  He thought outloud.  “I’m going back to New Dallas.”

I had better keep this up on a daily basis again.  It becomes a real pain in the ass to make it to 1,000.

Day 92: Better hurry up and write something!

Happy New Year guys!  Ninety two days of writing for me.  The internet sure makes it easier to do stuff.  I realize I have learned a lot of impractical knowledge by reading all of this crap over the last couple of years, but that's ok.  Impractical and interesting are one in the same, right?  I don't mean to turn into a humorless philistine though.  I have definitely learned what philistine means (but am I using it right?).

Love is better than money.  That's true.  Does this mean I should go back to school, where I might devise a plan for making more money, or get another job?  Present vs future.  Either way I'll continue writing.

Let's acknowledge some things between us, blog.  It might bring us closer.  First of all, I know you're not going to make me any money.  This isn't about writing to make money.  This is about "love of the game" (with Scottie Pippen).

What they mean by a "natural" is someone who doesn't worry about what they're doing.  They act like it's not the first time the first time.  A genius is someone who is born with confidence?  Yeah I've been out of this fiction loop for a couple of days, I know.  But I'm getting back in.  I'm going to pretend nothing happened.

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            A cuckoo clock bleated on the wall next to a giant fake fern.  The lights dimmed back down.  Space Cowboy looked around with puzzlement, Kenny didn’t notice any difference. 

            The Space Ranger slowed and hovered there for a minute.  It removed a large metal tube, heated one end with a bright red glowing hand, and inserted it into a facial cavity.  The smoke hissed as it exited through its eyeholes.  It whistled between its teeth and pulled up a chair, spinning it around backwards and leaning towards the stage.

            “Sorry about the entrance, I’m off duty now.”  The noxious gas coming out of its eyes added an eye irritant to the air.  The bartender tapped the No Smoking sign and bit a stick of jerky.

            Paige took her instrument back out of the case, the smoke swirling up over the stage in a cloud.  The spotlight flashed on and off, the drummer sitting alone in the dark.

            The jukebox spun its CD tray back inside, resetting itself to its factory conditions.   The harp creaked on her lap, and a man with an old timey moustache at the unruly truck driver table started dealing out a hand of poker. 

            Space Cowboy reached and slipped his fingers into the gun again, smoothly slipping it out into his lap.  Space Ranger was entranced with the stage, his laser beam shining directly on Paige’s face.  She sweated unnoticeably, the way beautiful girls do.  The spotlight brightened and her face resisted the urges to let a drop loose.

            Then there was that first music note.  A droning E minor chord, and the mode of the room was set.  She surveyed with a newly rechristened face, like a hawk perched in a room of rats.  A rat hid under the trapdoor of the stage, its wide smirking face.

            “Better not do any of my political stuff.”  She said into her sleeve.

            She reached down to hit another string and the Space Ranger jumped out of his seat.  He slowly spun in a ricle and surveyed the room again.  Kenny thumbed through a matchbook in his lap.  The seat across from him was empty. A shiny Space Confederate flag was emblazoned on the back of his helmet.

            Space Cowboy was outside grappling with the results of his actions.  He managed to duck out from behind the chair and past the crowd without any difficulty, which felt like enough work in itself for the day, but with the space highway open if he didn’t get out in a hurry he would end up being recruited again..  The darkness perfect cover, but as he looked back over his shoulder he noticed no one was looking for him.  Space Ranger seemed aware that someone was missing, his blinking light looking as puzzled as a blinking red light could.

            Space Cowboy took the long walk back to the pier.  He peeled the Cowboy insignia off of his suit, twisted the knob on his space helmet to darken his visor, and cast the letter from the Space King down to the ground.  It unraveled in the sand, followed by a trail of everything else that was in his bag.  A pager, security papers, insurance papers, everything but the gun.  Enormous metal shadows flashed against the newly opened sky, reflecting like a mirror off of the clouds.

            He hurried at first when he noticed the giant objects breaking through the membranous sky and then slowed down out of futility.  A metal bridge suspended above a space oil pipeline was littered with onlookers, the days work had been canceled.  Darryl, as he went by now, was the only one on the lonely visage of the road.  Onlookers  stared transfixed, their heads moving slowly left to right as he passed every new hundred meters of land.  Looking up at them made him dizzy, so he continued on like a pilgrim on a quest.

            “Could really use that horse now…”  He lamented.  “Black Betty.”

            Gunshots rang out at the bar, Kenny spilling like a bag of coins onto the table.  The Ranger stood with official looking federal agents, their badges pressing out from their shirts buoyed by their bulletproof vests.

            The Space King’s royal carriage floated safely in the sulfur clouds.  It would have been hidden if you didn’t know what you were looking for.  It was like an angels wing, phosphorous and effervescent.  Space King sat with his two guards inside.

            “Are we going to sit up here in the princesses ship all night?”

            “It was the only ship!”  Space King yelled.  He wrapped frivolously at the luggage compartment above him.

            “And it wasn’t my fault things aren’t going according to plan!  You heard what Arthur said, both of you did! If I just opened the bridge, they’d be right down!  If the Marble Dynasty gets here first…”

            “Sir, we’ll protect you, sir.”  The more confident bodyguard asserted.  The less confident one nodded and shrugged, taking his eyes off the window for a moment to show support.  “I know those Marble Dynasty guys from high school, Ring Dynasty ’05!  Whoop whoop!  We swept the floor with them.”

            “The view up there, man I bet it’s crazy”  The other guard said to himself louder than intended.  He craned his neck to peek up at the above sky.  The unmarked vessels loomed ominously.

            “What was that?!”  Space King said.  His eyebrows beat against his brow with pugnacious camradery.  “We are useless.  I better get to work on my next press conference.”

            “I’m just going to go make you another cappucino.”  He rose out of the green nylon wrapped bucket seat and shuffled bent over to the back of the compartment. 

            The Space King thumbed through a binder of information about the Marble Dynasty while biting his other thumbnail.

            “Says here even if you never have seen them you will know them when you do.  They have what is called a presence.”

            “Of course they have a presence, they’re people Space King.  People just like us or anyone else.”  He patted the Space King on the head and furtively flicked the switch for the cloaking device.