THE TRUST OF GIANT INSECTS FROM OTHER GALAXIES

David Presceau got up late, as was his habit on Thursdays, and walked along the corridor filled with torn and scribbled pages to the kitchen, where he drank a glass of milk and ate three oatmeal cookies. He sat down for a few minutes to look at his correspondence, which Sylvia, his wife, had left, as always, on top of the refrigerator. The letters were: a phone bill (which he didn’t even open); a letter from the Reader’s Digest Million Dollar Competition (where David discovered that he had been admitted into the fifth -- and final -- phase of the competition); a letter (wrongly) addressed to Mr. David Presco, offering him a digital watch, capable of working forty meters underwater, should he become a member of the “Americain Book Club” (sic), with an initial joining fee of only $30 (thirty dollars) and the guarantee of receiving “informations (sic) about all the major editions on the US market”; and lastly a letter for his neighbor’s daughter, which the mailman had put in the wrong mailbox. Thus, a bonus on a particularly gray day in terms of correspondence. David read it, lustfully recalling the blond plaits and the school uniform of the girl, who, stupidly, David considered, was studying a course in something somewhere-or-other, and was probably no longer the pure maiden who used to play with his dog.

 

Then, get dressed, brush his teeth, get the wax out of his ears, sit down at the typewriter and try to finish his short story for the next edition of the “Almanac of the Incredible, Quarterly Journal of the Fantastic and Supernatural”.

 

David had already written the beginning, and “it wasn’t bad at all,” as Sylvia had put it, “but how are you going to end the story? If the guy dies, then it doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

 

But it was far from David to think of killing the guy. “Of course he doesn’t die, Sylvia. Do you think I’m crazy? How could I sell a story like that? What people want is stories that make sense. That’s rule number one. It’s gotta make sense.” “Sure,” said Sylvia, “but as you’ve never managed to sell anything up to now ... I just thought, that’s all.” And she carried on trying to disguise, with a blue-ink ball-point pen, the bleach stains on her jeans, the result of a little accident with a bucket when she was washing the porch and had had too much to drink over lunch. (They had eaten goulash, and you can only eat that with red wine, and she wasn’t used to it, and the porch needed a bit of a clean.)

 

But to be honest David had no idea as to how he could save the guy (if he was going to be saved), and he also had a few doubts about the content and the plot of the story. David read his short story again:

 

            “Daniel Trusseau got up late, as was his habit on Thursdays, and walked along the corridor to the kitchen, where he drank a glass of milk and ate two oatmeal cookies. He sat down for a few minutes to look at his correspondence, which Shella, his wife, had left, as always, on top of the refrigerator. Suddenly, an Esdalanopoflian burst in, armed with a PBH-X1, smashing through the window, sending smithereens of glass through the air and knocking the plants over, shouting (in Esdalanopoflian, which Daniel had studied at College) “I’m gonna kill you, you motherfucker! You killed half the people on my planet, and now it’s your turn!” And the creature prepared to fire its gun.”

 

That was it. And, considering that, in his earlier (unpublished) stories, the Esdalanopoflians never missed their target, and were the most feared creatures in the universe, David realized that it was going to be a little bit difficult to save Daniel. Indeed, looking at it carefully, the story itself had some structural problems. It had all the elements of an action and adventure story -- surprise, conflict, the hero in a situation of danger, etc. – that was true, but there was a lack of information about Daniel and Shella, and it also wouldn’t be a bad idea to give the story more “middle”. After all, not even the “Almanac” would publish a story which was only one page long, and David really needed the money, as his unemployment benefit would only last one more month, and his wife would probably be out of a job after the diner closed down. Although her salary was barely enough to pay the rent and for food.

 

David, deep down, knew that he had to write this story – just this one – to make his name, and the rest would be a piece of cake. And then he could give Sylvia those things she had always dreamed of: a vacation in Hawaii, a dinner in a fancy downtown restaurant. But what was needed now was the end, and the middle. And the deadline was next Monday. How could he solve this problem? David first thought about a mistake by the Esdalanopoflian: he might have come into the wrong house, and it was really the next door neighbor that he wanted to kill. But it wasn’t very plausible, as the next door neighbor didn’t get mixed up with these people from far-off galaxies. Or: get rid of the idea of the Esdalanopoflian – but then there would be no story, nor any conflict. Or: make the Esdalanopoflian feel remorse, and apologize, sitting down with Daniel and eating some oatmeal cookies, after all, gaining his trust, and the creature would understand that Daniel had killed the inhabitants of Esdalanopoflia in self-defense, or for the good of humanity. But it also didn’t sound very good, because the Esdalanopoflians (indeed, no being from the Carraconaquil Galaxy) didn’t eat cookies, particularly oatmeal cookies, which produced a sort of measles on their right legs which could only be treated by a Treguilistonian doctor, who no longer accepted any new patients, mainly due to his age (432 years old), but also due to the fact that Esdalanopoflian measles (misellus antoformigus) left a pus on the chairs in his surgery, which could only be cleaned up with powdered jade leaf, which costs a fortune.

 

And David is stuck in this dilemma. It’s so easy to start a story. You just invent a person, and then place them in a situation of conflict, or confront them with a difficult decision. You provide some facts about the person’s life, and, in theory, they become alive and act as they should do. But David hadn’t found any solution for Daniel and the Esdalanopoflian when someone rang the doorbell.

 

David went to open the door, expecting his wife, but it was the neighbor’s daughter. And there she stood, as pretty as ever: four meters tall, her five eyes sparkling, her red and kissable lips in the center of her green belly, her blond plaits falling like cascades from her knees down to her feet, and her false nose, made of solid silver. And David, his eyes fixed on her bright blue tongue whilst she wanted to know if there was a letter for her that the mailman had put in his mailbox by mistake. And how was the dog? And he, looking at her, thinking: “Why should I write this fucking story?”

 

And it was at this moment, with David standing there, looking at the girl of his dreams, that a weird crashing noise was heard coming from the kitchen.

(First published in Ópio magazine, vol 2.0, 1999)