Episode 7: The Campfire

It’s starting to get dark when The Deer returns to the camp site.  Ewan is passed out on his back on one of the logs and he’s snoring very loudly.  He’s still holding the remote in his left hand and a half full beer can in his right.  Half a dozen or so empty beer cans litter the ground in a loose pile nearby.  The television is still on.

“Hey buddy, wake up,” says The Deer as he nudges Ewan with a hoof.  Ewan grumbles something unintelligible and rolls over.  The Deer pokes him with a hoof again, “Come on, man.  Wake up.  We’re expecting company soon and I need your help getting ready.”

Ewan grumbles some more and rolls over a second time, but this time he rolls off the log and onto the pile of beer cans.  The surprising thud of his dead weight hitting the ground and the crunch of the aluminum cans shocks him up and to his feet, “What, what, I’m up, I’m up, what happened?  Where am I?”

“You’re in the woods.  You were passed out in front of the TV.”

“Ahh, that’s right.  Why does my face hurt?”

“You took a header off the log and did a face plant into a pile of beer cans.”

“Yeah, that’s about right,” says Ewan rubbing his face.  “That wasn’t cool.”

“Yeah, well if you recycle your cans next time instead of just throwing them on the ground that won’t happen.”

“You guys have recycling up here in the mountains?”

“Of course.  There’s a couple blue bins on the other side of the fridge.  Toss your empties in there.”  Ewan nods.  “Oh, and the others will be arriving soon so come help me make a camp fire.”

The Deer leads Ewan over to a large, chest-high wall of firewood that has been neatly stacked between two trees.  There is probably about three or four cords of wood total.  “Start grabbing logs,” says The Deer.  The Deer grabs a small log between his teeth and carries it over to the fire pit where he drops it in.  Ewan loads about eight or nine medium size logs into his arms and does the same.  “Wow, you’re good at that.  This is going to go pretty fast,” remarks The Deer.

“Thanks,” replies Ewan.  “Where does all the wood come from?”

“Beavers.”

“That’s nice of them.”

“They don’t do it out of charity.  We pay them in pizza and beer.”

“I thought beavers ate wood?”

“Yes, and pizza and beer.”

“Wow, there’s so much I don’t know about nature.  Is pizza and beer good for them?”

“I don’t know if it’s good for them, but it’s pretty hilarious for us.  They eat a bunch of pizza, get tanked off half a beer, and go back to cutting down trees, which is highly entertaining in their inebriated state.”

“I’ll bet.  I’m guessing it’s like that show Jackass, but with more beavers, more trees, and less full, male nudity.”

The pile of wood gets about three feet high in the fire pit, “That’s enough,” says The Deer.

“Do you have any patches or kindling to start the fire?”

“Nah, we don’t need any of that.  Just stand back for a second.”  The Deer pulls out his iPhone, brings up another app, and points his phone at the fire.  A red laser shoots out at one of the logs, which then begins to smolder before catching ablaze.

“You start fires with your iPhone?”

“Of course!  I use my phone for everything!”

“How does it do that?  Does it have a ‘laser’ built in?” asks Ewan, making air quotation marks with his fingers as he says the word “laser” in an evil-doctor sort of voice.

“Sorta.  It’s called Redtooth.  It’s like Bluetooth, but clearly better as you can also start campfires with it.”

“I’ll say,” agrees Ewan.  “Looks like we got the fire started just in time,” he says to The Deer as he points to the last bit of the sun peeking out over the horizon just as it slips below the distant line.  “It’s starting to get chilly out, too.  Can you pass me another bottle of Jack?  I’m gonna sit a little closer to the fire and start putting on my liquid long coat.”

“Good idea, me too,” says The Deer.  He pulls out a new bottle of Jack from the freezer, takes a healthy swig from it, and passes it to Ewan who does the same.

“So now what?”

“What do you mean?”

“So what do we do now?”

“Oh, we sit and we wait for the others to arrive.”

“That sounds pretty boring.”

“Well that’s not all we’re going to do.  We’re going to drink some more beers, too.”

“Oh, okay.  I’m back on board now.”

“We could also play some darts, too, while we wait.  Do you like darts?”

“Yeah, most definitely.”

“Great, let’s get in a couple games before everyone else shows up.”

The Deer walks over to a very large, very wide tree nearby on the edge of the tree line on the other side of the fire, grabs a hold of two knots sticking out of the bark, and tugs them open like cabinet doors.  They swing open just like cabinet doors, because in fact that’s just what they are, revealing a dart board behind them.

“That’s pretty darn slick!” says Ewan as he admires the craftsmanship of the built-in dartboard.

“Thanks.  A beaver did it for us.”

“Really?”

“No,” laughs The Deer.  “But you’re sweet.  Actually, I did it with my iPhone.”

“Really?” asks Ewan again, even less sure this time as to whether or not what he’s hearing is the truth.

“Absolutely.  There’s a tree-cutting app and a dart board making app.  You just link them together with the chaining app, and voila!  You can run apps together, you can pipe the results of one app into the next app, and so forth.”

“That’s a pretty slick idea.  I wonder if anyone has ever thought of doing that before.”

“Doing what before?”

“Chaining programs together, piping the results of one into another.”

“Nah, probably not.”

“Agreed.”

Ewan gets up and starts to walk away from the fire towards The Deer when he suddenly shivers.  “Brrrr!  It’s chilly away from the fire.  Better thicken up the ol’ liquid long coat a bit more.”  He walks back over to the log and takes two good sized swigs from the bottle of whiskey before placing it back down and walking over to The Deer.  “Okay, well here, you go first,” says Ewan, extending an open palm with three darts towards The Deer.

“Thanks,” says The Deer.  “Well, here I go!”  He throws the darts in steady succession at the bull’s-eye and all three land just outside the mark.

“Good eye,” remarks Ewan.  “Wait a minute; how did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Throw darts.”

“Oh, it’s easy.  Just like this, watch.”  The Deer gathers his darts and throws another one.  “See, there’s nothing to it.  Have you never played before?”

“No, I have played before.  I didn’t mean that.  What I meant was how can you throw darts when you have hooves?”

“It’s easy, watch,” says The Deer.  He fires another dart into the wood.

“How are you doing that?!” exclaims Ewan.

“It’s easy.  It’s just like using an iPhone,” he throws the third and final dart into the wood.  “See?”

“But…”

“But what?”

“Nothing.”  Ewan shakes his head for a second and takes the darts from The Deer after The Deer pulls them out of the dartboard.  He throws and has similar luck.

“Hey, you’re pretty good, too,” says The Deer.

“Thanks.  I used to play a lot back in college.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.  It was a heck of a lot better than going to class!”

“I hear that!”

They both laugh and cheers their beer cans together.

“Where did you learn how to play darts?  Here in the forest?”

“No, I also learned how to play in college.”

Ewan laughs then looks back at The Deer whose expression hasn’t changed, “Oh, you’re serious?  You really went to college?”

“Yeah, what’s so crazy about that?”

“You’re a deer!”

“What, just because I’m a deer that means I can’t go to college?”

“Well, usually, yeah.”

“That’s pretty close-minded.”

“You know, I guess it is.  My bad,” apologizes Ewan.  “I grew up in a pretty small town and so I didn’t have any deer friends growing up.  Heck, I didn’t even know any Indians until I went to college.”

“Indian as in from India?  Or as in Native American?”

“Both, actually.”

“Ahhh, okay.  Well no worries.  I could see that happening.  It was pretty isolated growing up here in the forest, so it was kind of like that for me, too.  Luckily I’ve had a chance to travel though, which has been a saving grace.  I think the first person I ever met from Asia was during my first trip to Vegas.”

“Really?  How’d that go?”

“Well I was somewhere in Caesar’s Palace trying to decide where to eat.  I had the choices narrowed down between this noodle place and this other place when out of the noodle place walks this nice Chinese couple.  Their kids see me and yell, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Bambi!!’ and they run up to me and start hugging my legs.”

“Then what happened?”

“I insisted I wasn’t Bambi and after the third of fourth time I guess the kids heard me because they calmed down for a second and got this sad look on their faces.  I looked over at the dad and with a pleading look on his face he said to me in broken English, ‘Please, very much to be Bambi.  Kids love all Disney.’”

“So then what did you do?”

“What else could I do?  Little, Asian kids are so cute!  I sighed and said I was Bambi and the kids started flipping out again.  I posed for a bunch of pictures with the kids, and everyone was happy.”

“That was nice of you.  People often go to Vegas in hopes of seeing celebrities, and it’s cool when that actually happens.”

“That’s what I was thinking, and so it was only fair for me to meet a celebrity in Vegas, too.”

“Let me guess; you turned to the dad and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Jackie Chan!’ and then asked to take a picture with him.”

“Close, but you’re way off.  That would have been too obvious.  Instead I turned to him and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Tiger Woods!’”

“Tiger Woods isn’t Asian, he’s black!”

“He’s part Asian.”

“And then you took a picture with him?”

“Then I hit him with a golf club.”

“You hit some Asian guy with a golf club just because Tiger Woods is part Asian?  That’s not fair.”

“You’re right and I had the same thought.  So to be fair I only hit him with part of the golf club, and it was a small part.”

“Oh, okay.  Well, why Tiger Woods?”

“All deer love Tiger Woods.”

“How come?”

“Well like how every kid growing up playing basketball who’s not so good at it wants to be like Michael Jordan, every deer wants to be like Tiger Woods.”

“Deer aren’t usually very good at golf?”

“No, not usually.”

“Is it because you have hooves?”

“No!  It’s because golf is really hard!  Geeze, what is it with you and hatin’ on hooves??  Golf is really hard, period.  That and it’s pretty hard not to drive the ball into the rough when you live in a forest.  Everywhere you hit it it’s in the rough.”

“Yeah, I bet every course here is at least a par fifteen.  But anyway.  We were talking about college.”

“Right, college.”

“So where did you go to school?  Deer University?”

“Nah, University of Maryland, College Park.”

“Really?  Me too!  What year did you graduate?”

“I didn’t.  I flunked out.”

“Really?  Me too!  Hi-five!”  They hi-five.  “What was your major?”

“Agriculture.”

“And you failed out?”

“I know, right?  That’s what I said!  I’m a deer, right?  I should get a ‘B’ just for showing up to class, right?  Wrong.  Failed it.  Turns out I didn’t know spit about trees.  I knew grass out the ass, but I couldn’t tell a fur from a pine.”  The Deer sighs and slowly shakes his head, then continues, “What was your major?”

“Business.”

“Why did you fail?”

“Because business is all about numbers, economics, marketing, managing a team, etcetera.”

“Yeah, so where’s the problem?”

“I thought it was just all about being a baller.”

“Oh.”

“I still think I’m right, but I know now that if you write that on a test and hand it in your professors won’t take you seriously after that.  Not even if you’re wearing a really fly hat.  And I’m talking stupid-fly.”

“Yeah… I’m going to need you to come in on Sunday, too, right…” says The Deer doing a fake stretch with one front leg out and one front leg cocked.

****

Darkness has set in and everyone has arrived for the campfire party.  Ewan is sitting on the same log as before in front of the roaring fire pit.  To his right sits The Deer and Al and to the left sits two new guests he has never seen before.

The first new face sits to Ewan’s direct left and is a tall, lanky, middle aged man with long, stringy gray hair.  His beat up, faded green cargo pants match his old, light blue, tie-dyed T-shirt.  He’s wearing an old pair of sandals with no socks and the faded graphic on his T-shirt vaguely resembles that of something out of an old Voltron cartoon.

“Ewan, this is Tall.  Tall, this is Ewan,” says The Deer as he introduces the two to one another.

“Nice to meet you, Ewan,” says Tall extending a long arm to shake hands.

“You too,” replies Ewan as they shake hands.  “Cool name, by the way.  How did you happen to come by it?”

“It’s short for my Indian name, Tallasotherboy,” replies Tall.

“Tallasotherboy?” says Ewan while making air quotations.  “That’s an unusual name.  I’m assuming you mean that it’s Indian as in Native American?”

“Yeah, I never knew my real parents and instead I was raised by an Indian family in New Mexico.”

“And they named you Tallasotherboy?”

“Yep.”

“Why?  Why not something else like ‘Dances With Wolves’ or ‘Avatar’ or whatever?”

“Apparently when I was named I was standing next to their other son and we were about the same height.  Another member of the tribe passing by happened to refer to me as that and it stuck.”

“And you don’t ever feel like you got jipped out of a cooler, Indian name?”

“Nah, not really.  Everyone and everything has to be called something, right?  Tallasotherboy is good enough for me.”

“Fair enough.”

“How about you?  Ewan is a pretty unique name.  How did you end up with that?”

“I’m named after my dad; his name was Ewan.  So was his dad.  And come to think of it, so was my great grandfather.”

“That’s, um, pretty special,” says Tall as he tries not to make a strange face at what he just heard.

“Thanks!” replies Ewan with an oblivious smile.  “So who is the other person you said I would meet tonight?” asks Ewan of The Deer.

“Oh, that would be Geoffrey,” replies The Deer.

“K, when is he going to show up?”

“He’s here already.”

“No he’s not.”

“Yes he is.”

“What, is he invisible or something?  I don’t see anyone else here I haven’t met yet.”

“He is here.  He’s sitting on your left just to the left of Tall on the same log.”

“What, the giraffe?” says Ewan pointing his half-empty beer at an orange-ish, eighteen inches tall, stuffed giraffe sitting on the log next to Tall.  The stuffed giraffe has big, bright eyes, a button nose, and a sewn on smile.

“Yeah, that’s Geoffrey.”

“No, that’s a stuffed giraffe.”

“Exactly.  Geoffrey is a stuffed giraffe.”

“Okay, I agree with you on that part.  What I’m saying is that I may have had a few of these,” says Ewan jiggling the brown bottle in his hand, “but I haven’t had enough of them to believe that stuffed animal was invited to hang out with us as an honored guest.”

“Well of course he was.  Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Because he’s a stuffed giraffe!  He’s not a real person!”

“Then why is he drinking a beer?”

Ewan looks over at Geoffrey and notices a half-empty beer bottle in front of him, “One of you must have put that in front of him.”

“Nah, we don’t have to do that,” chimes in Tall.  “Geoffrey can hold his liquor.”

“Probably because he’s so absorbent,” replies Ewan.

“We don’t know where he puts it, actually,” continues Tall.  “He must have a hollow leg or something.  I’ll warn you though: just don’t get into a drinking contest with him.  Even if you win you’re going to lose in the morning; Geoffrey doesn’t get hangovers.  So he’ll just wait to celebrate his victory until then.”

Ewan stares skeptically at this stuffed giraffe for a moment.  The giraffe smiles back at him with the same sewn-on expression he always has.  “Okay, well if Geoffrey is real, I want him to say hi to me,” says Ewan facetiously to the group.  “I’ll even go first.”  He turns towards Geoffrey, “Hi, Geoffrey.  I’m Ewan.  Nice to meet you,” says Ewan to Geoffrey as he extends his arm to shake hands with the tiny giraffe.

Geoffrey just sits there motionless, smiling back at him.

“See?  No response,” says Ewan.

“He’s just a little shy,” replies The Deer.  “He’ll be more talkative once he warms up to you.  And he’s really not much of a talker anyway.  He’s more into text messaging and email, like the rest of his generation.”

“Oh yeah?  And how does he do that?  With his magic phone made out of a coconut?”

“No, he has an iPhone.”

“He does not,” says Ewan with complete and utter disbelief in his tone.

“Of course he does!  Everyone has an iPhone!  We all have one of them, so why wouldn’t he have one, too?”

“Because he’s a stuffed giraffe!!”

“You know what I think?  I think you’re just jealous that you’re the last person on the planet to not have an iPhone.”  The Deer’s iPhone dings, signaling to him that he has received a text message on his phone.  He pulls it out of his pocket, holds it up in front of him, and silently reads the message to himself, “…Ha!  Good one, Geoffrey!”

“What-what?” exclaims Ewan.

“Geoffrey’s text message says, ‘This guy doesn’t have an iPhone?  No way!  Is he for real?  Or is he a figment of my imagination?’  Hah ha!  Good one, G!” laughs The Deer.

“It does not say that,” says Ewan, still in disbelief.  He leans over toward The Deer who leans toward him and extends a hoof to show him the screen on his iPhone.  Ewan reads it, looks over at Geoffrey, reads it again, looks over at Geoffrey again and this time notices an orange iPhone out in front of him next to his beer.  “I’m still not buying it.  One of you guys must have put that phone in front of him.”

“Yeah, because we just have extra iPhones lying around that we’re not using,” scoffs The Deer.

“Alright, well, whatever.  We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one for now,” says Ewan extending the bottom of his beer bottle towards The Deer and Tall.

“Fine with me,” says The Deer.  He clinks his bottle with Ewan and then Tall nods and does the same.  Ewan then extends his bottle towards Al, who just remains standing there, bobbing up and down as usual, except that he has a ping pong mallet in one hand and a beer in the other hand that was placed there by someone else that he doesn’t appear to be drinking.

“He hasn’t quite picked up on that social grace yet,” says The Deer.

“Okay, well no worries.  We’ll teach him later.  So on a different note, how did he get the name Geoffrey?” says Ewan pointing to the little giraffe.  “Is there a story behind that like with Tall’s name?”

“Nope, that’s just his name,” says Tall.

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Why, is that strange to you?”

“I don’t know yet.  It’s more like I’m not sure what name a stuffed giraffe would have, only that it wouldn’t be Geoffrey.”

“Well have you ever met a giraffe whose name wasn’t Geoffrey?”

“I’ve never met a giraffe before.”

“Well, brother, you just haven’t lived then,” says Tall rolling back on his log bench.  “Geoffrey is a very common name for giraffes.”

“Just like Frank is for deer,” chimes in The Deer.

“Exactly,” says Tall, nodding his head and pointing the finger of his beer-holding hand towards The Deer.  “Just like Frank is for deer.”

“Yeah… I’m not sure if I’m buying that yet…”

“You probably need to drink more,” says The Deer.  “Or less.  But either way you probably haven’t drunk just the right amount.”

“Well it’s too late to drink less, so press onward I must!” says Ewan downing his beer.

“Cheers to that!” says everyone else as they down their beers.

The Deer looks at Geoffrey, “Hey G, are you getting up to break the seal?  You are?  Can you get me another beer while you’re up?  I’m out,” says The Deer shaking an empty beer bottle.

“Yeah, me too,” says Tall.

“And can you get Ewan one, too?  He’s out, but he’s too proud or something to ask for one himself.  Thanks, G.”

Upon hearing this Ewan looks down at his empty beer bottle and then over at Geoffrey only to find that Geoffrey’s seat is empty.  “Whatever,” he says shrugging his shoulder.  “Let’s pass that bottle of Jack around in the meantime.”

“Good idea,” says Tall.  He stands up, grabs it from the freezer, and sits back down.  He unscrews the cap and takes a long swig from the bottle before passing it to his right to Ewan who does the same.

The bottle goes around the circle in this fashion for a couple minutes when it arrives back to The Deer.  He reaches down in front of the log he’s sitting on and holds up a fresh, cold beer, “Thanks, G,” he says toasting the beer in Geoffrey’s direction.

“Yeah, thanks Geoffrey,” adds on Tall.

Ewan looks over at Geoffrey who is back in his seat with a new, full beer in front of him.  He then looks down at his feet and sees a new, full beer of his own.  Very hesitantly he reaches down to pick it up, as if he’s expecting his had to pass right through it like ether.  It’s solid though and so he slowly raises it up towards his mouth to take a sip.  Again with great hesitation he slowly tips the bottle back and makes a face as if he’s bracing for impact.  The cold liquid hits his lips and splashes down his throat, giving him a mild jolt of surprise.  He lowers the bottle and looks at it as if he’s not quite what to think.  Finally he looks over at Geoffrey and raises his beer, “Um, thanks?  I guess?”

The Deer’s phone dings, “Geoffrey says you’re welcome.  See, Geoffrey?  I told you Ewan was a nice guy.  He just needed to warm up a little bit to you, too.  Looks like you’re not the only one here who is a little shy around new people.”

“Did that really just happen?” asks Ewan to the group.

“Did what just happen?” asks The Deer.

“All of that.  The beer.  The text messages.  A giraffe with a squirrel bladder is the first one to break the seal.  All of that.”

“Yeah, of course.  I get text messages from Geoffrey all the time, too.”

“Well then how come I don’t?”

“Probably because he doesn’t have your phone number as you’ve never met any giraffes before today.”  Tall’s iPhone dings and he looks down at the screen to read the incoming text message, “Oh, and because you don’t have an iPhone.”  He looks over at Geoffrey, “Thanks for the clarification, buddy.”

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 Next episode: Campfire Stories
Previous episode: The Bridge

Episode 6: The Bridge

Ewan, The Deer, and Al walk along for another mile or so through the woods when they see a small clearing in the trees up ahead.  As they emerge from the tree line they find themselves in a roughly circular clearing in the woods that’s about thirty feet in diameter.  In the very center is a small crater about three feet wide and a foot deep that’s partially filled with ash and old, charred logs.  Around that is a ring of bare dirt a couple feet wide that looks well trodden on.  Past that the grass starts growing again.  Where the dirt ends and grass begins are several old, fallen trees lying on their sides as makeshift benches, arranged around the campfire in a loose, circular formation.  In the left corner just past the log benches in the shade of the surrounding massive trees is an old, lime green, 1950s style refrigerator.  In the opposite corner is a sixty inch, high-definition, plasma TV mounted to a tree.

“Wow, this is pretty nice,” says Ewan.

“Yeah, it ain’t much to look at, but we have the basics covered,” replies The Deer.  “Dvd and blu-ray player,” says The Deer as he points to two small devices sitting on a shelf mounted to the tree just below the tv.  “Dolby 7.1 surround sound system,” he continues as he points to some wireless, Bose speakers mounted overhead around the outside of the circle to the trees along the tree line.  “You gotta watch Heat on this setup.  It’s badass.”

“Nice tv.  What is it plugged into?”

“Ummm, maybe it’s plugged into an electric socket?” replies The Deer, rhetorically.

“Does it work?”

“Yeah, of course it works.”  The Deer reaches down to one of the log benches, picks up a remote, and presses the big red button at the top of the remote.  The TV’s display lights up and Sports Center appears.

Ewan immediately recognizes the staple of his nights and weekend afternoons, sits down on a log, and starts watching the highlights.  “This is damn near perfect.  It’s just missing one thing,” says Ewan.

“Say no more,” answers The Deer.  He walks over to the fridge, pulls open the door, pulls out two cold beers, and tosses one to Ewan.  Ewan catches it and pulls the aluminum tab to open the can.  The Deer sits down next to him a couple feet away on the same log.

Ewan takes a long swig from the beer, “Ahhhhhhhhhh,” he sighs approvingly after swallowing it down.  “Need any help with that?” asks Ewan, motioning towards The Deer’s unopened beer and non-existent opposable thumbs.

“Nah, I got it,” replies The Deer.  He places the beer on the log, pulls out his iPhone, points it at the beer, and with a couple deft swipes of the hoof across the touch screen the tab of the beer punches down and lifts back.

“You use your phone to open your beer??” exclaims Ewan.

“Of course I do!  I use it for everything!”

“How did you do that?”

“It has a beer opening app.  It works on bottles, too.”

“Even if it’s not a twist-off bottle?”

“Yup.”

“What about corked bottles of wine?”

“Yup, those, too, but it’s a different app.”

“Pickle jars?”

“Yup.  But again, different app.”

“That’s pretty badass.”

“I know, right?”

At the first commercial break Ewan hits the mute button on the remote and turns to The Deer and says, “So who else his coming to this bonfire party?”

“All the usual suspects; you, me, Al, Geoffrey, and Tall will probably come.  The Colonel is a maybe.  I have to go invite him though.  He doesn’t have an iPhone or even a cell phone and so we always have to invite him in person.”

“Who are Geoffrey and Tall?”

“They’re friends of ours from way back.  You’ll meet them tonight.  Geoffrey is a giraffe and Tall is—well, Tall is a very special individual.  You’ll see what I mean.”

“Anyone else?”

“We might get some random deer and other animals from the forest.  Speaking of random,” says The Deer, looking to the left as he stops himself in mid sentence.

There is a shimmering light as some sort of figure materializes in front of them.  After about three seconds the light solidifies, takes on normal color, and a strange looking man seemingly about Ewan’s age is standing before them.  He is just shy of being six feet tall, has a slender build, and is wearing a white, futuristic looking robe outfit with a high collar and a long tail like that on a very formal tuxedo.  The robe is loosely belted around the waist by some sort of white cord, which exposes an under layer consisting of a shirt and some tights, also white, and made of some sort of form-fitting, space age material.

The man pulls out a long scroll from inside his robe, unrolls it, and speaks, “People of Earth, listen well.  You may call me Bridge.  Though I come in peace I bring a message of the utmost importance.  I am an emissary for another civilization from many, many light years away.  Their war fleet has crossed the galaxy to your doorstep and lies in wait in orbit overhead.  The warlord of the fleet has commissioned me to deliver unto you this warning.”  The man clears his throat and begins to read from the scroll:

People of Earth:

You have become a virus.

You are not the just keeper of this host.

We've been watching you with all of our eyes

And what you seem to value most.

"So much potential," or so we used to say.

Your greed, self-importance and your arrogance;

You piss it all away

We heard a cry.

We've come to intervene.

You will change your ways and you will repent.

Or we will wipe this place clean.

               Ewan just stands there blinking in disbelief for a few minutes.  He turns to The Deer and asks, “Is this guy for real?”

The Deer pauses for a moment to think.  “I don’t know,” he replies.  “Let me check; I have an app for this.”  The Deer whips out his phone, punches a few buttons on the touch screen, and points his phone at Bridge.  He pauses for about ten seconds before speaking up, “Yup, this guy is the real deal.  My BS detecting app is reporting negative ten weatherbys.  So if this guy says it’s going to snow, you best believe it’s gonna snow.”

“So what do we do?” aks Ewan, his anxiety level slowly rising.

“I dunno.  Like I’ve said, we do get a lot of alien visitors in these parts, and about half of them come to give a similar Armageddon speech.  Usually they either have the wrong planet, or we tell them that they have the wrong planet and they believe us and leave.  This guy seems to know what planet he’s on.”

“So basically what you’re saying is that we’re boned.”

“Yup, we’re boned.”

“Oh well.  I’ve had a good run,” says Ewan acceptingly as he takes another swig of his beer.

“Hey Bridge,” says The Deer, turning towards the new visitor.  “Does this whole eradication of the human race ordeal include deer?”

“Hmmm, let me check,” replies Bridge.  He looks down at the scroll for a minute, turns it over, and checks the other side.  “Nope, it doesn’t say anything about deer.  Just the human race.”

“I’m cool with that,” replies The Deer.  He turns to Ewan, “Well, Meatbag, it was nice knowing ya.  I’m going to go invite The Colonel to the bonfire party, and tonight we’ll all drink together to your bones.”  The Deer stands up on his hind legs for a second, gives Ewan a mock salute, and then scampers off into the tree line.

Ewan watches The Deer leave and then turn to Bridge, “Well, so now what?”

“What do you mean?” replies Bridge.

“So what comes next?”

“Hmmm.  I don’t know.  I’ve never encountered a civilization that accepts the news of its own apocalypse so easily.  Usually they’re rebellious in some way, and they try to unite in a global resistance, which ultimately ends in defeat as they can’t coordinate such massive logistics with so little time to prepare.  That and their most sophisticated defenses can’t stand up to a blast from a measly child’s death ray.”

“You give your children death rays to play with?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

“Only slightly more dangerous than giving them a baseball bat or a hockey stick.”

“Touché, salesman.  So it always ends in defeat?”

“Pretty much.  This one civilization managed to fend off the invasion, but that was only because rather than uniting behind their armed forces they rallied along side of what would be the equivalent of your planet’s UPS or FedEx.  They put them in charge of coordinating the global logistics of the planetary defenses, had a couple generals sit side saddle, and the rest was history.  The invaders couldn’t disrupt their supply lines and ended up over extending themselves trying to do so.  This left the military free to come in and mop up all the small assault groups.”

“Ha!”  Ewan laughs at the outcome of Bridge’s story.  Then in his best TV announcer voice he says, “What can Brown do for you?  We can defend your planet, bitches!”

“I know, right?” replies Bridge.  “It turns out that people in the package delivery business know how to hustle at a level akin to your planet’s Marines and other special forces and are already proficient with small arms fire.  So they gave all the package delivery guys guns, and they gave all the Marines packages, filled with explosives, of course, and voila!  They had a fully armed, fully synchronized, highly motivated global protection force.  Whatever though.  Even though my employers lost I still got paid the same.”

“Right on.  So like I said before, what comes next?”

“Well like I said before, I don’t know.  I wasn’t expecting the news to be accepted that quickly, and now I’m not sure what to do with my time as I didn’t have anything else planned for the day.  All I know is that now I’m boned.  If I get off work early and my girlfriend finds out, she’s going to want to spend that precious free time with me, which I’m not looking forward to.  To be honest, that’s the real reason why I got into the business of delivering intergalactic doomsday messages as it’s my only escape from her constant nagging.”

Ewan sympathetically places one hand on Bridges shoulder, “My people tell the same story here, brother.  I feel your pain.  I’ll tell ya what; why don’t we pretend like it’s going to take all day, that way you don’t have to go home early?”

Bridge’s eyes and ears perk up a bit, “Go on…”

“How about we hang out and drink some beer and watch some TV?”

“I don’t know what beer is as we don’t have it on my home planet, but I love TV.  You’re on.”

Ewan leads Bridge over to one of the log benches near the TV and motions for Bridge to have a seat.  Bridge sits down and Ewan walks over to the fridge and pulls out two more cold cans from inside.  He tosses one to Bridge and then he walks back over to Bridge and sits down next to him two seats away on the log.

“So how does it work?” says Bridge, eyeing the can suspiciously from various different angles.

“Find the round, narrow end with the tab on it and make sure it’s facing up.  Hold the can with one hand and lift up on the tab with your other hand.  Look here, I’ll show you.”  Ewan rotates his torso towards Bridge and holds up his can of beer.  He positions his hands as he described and pulls up on the tab of the beer.  Bridge half flinches as if he’s expecting a grenade to go off, then relaxes when Ewan pushes the tab back down and takes a swig from the newly formed hole in the top of the can.  “Now you try it,” says Ewan to Bridge.

Bridge follow in suit and is elated when his can opens, “I did it!” he says smiling.  “Now what?”

“Drink out of the hole like I did.”

Bridge nods in acknowledgement, tilts his head and the can back, and takes a big swig.  He gets halfway through swallowing it when he spits it back out in a big cloud, “Ugggh!  This is disgusting!  It tastes like urine!  Are you trying to poison me?”

“No no no!” says Ewan quickly and assuringly.  “Look,” he holds up his can so that the label is facing Bridge.  “You and I are drinking the same stuff, and I’m not drinking poison.”

“Well maybe it’s just my glass that has been poisoned.  Or maybe both glasses have been poisoned.  Are you Sicilian?”

“Give it here,” says Ewan reaching over for Bridge’s beer.  Bridge hands it to him and Ewan shifts back into his normal sitting position.  “Maybe your beer is skunked.”  He takes a sniff.  “Nope, it smells okay.  Let’s try it,”  Ewan takes a big swig and swallows.  “Yep, it tastes just like my beer,” he says and starts to hand it back to Bridge.

Just then a voice in Ewan’s head says to him, “Silence, you fool!  His beer could be yours!”

Ewan stops extending his arm with the beer in hand towards Bridge and instead retracts it, “You know, I better have one more taste just to be sure.”  He takes another big swig and then jiggles the now one-third full can of beer.  “One more, just to be safe.”  Ewan downs the last four ounces in the can and lets out a deep, long burp.

“What was that?! You just roared like a beast!” exclaims Bridge.

“It’s called burping.  Everyone can do it.”  Ewan gets up and walks over to the fridge and pulls out another beer.  He tosses it to Bridge, “Here, you try.”

“What do I do?”

“Just drink the whole can really fast and let nature do the rest.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”  Bridge pops the top of the beer, closes his eyes, and begins to drink.  He gets about three or four swigs into it when he spits out another cloud of beer.  “Ugh.  I just can’t do it.  It’s terrible.  It’s like drinking cat pee.”

“I don’t think there’s cat pee in it, but there could be deer pee in it.  It’s a local microbrew that the deer make here up in the mountains and so I wouldn’t be surprised if they pee in it.  Heck, that’s what I would do if I was a deer and I made beer!”  Ewan chuckles at the last part of his sentence.

“That’s gross!  That’s—,” Bridge stops in mid sentence as his stomach and throat convulse for a minute, “*burp*.  I did it!  I did it!  I burped!  It wasn’t very impressive, but I did it!” he exclaims.

“Two,” says Ewan.

“Two what?”

“Your burp.  On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, I give it a two.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t nearly impressive as yours.”

“Meh, it just takes practice.  Give it a couple years of training and you’ll be roaring like a lion in Africa; a very drunk, very surly lion.”

“I don’t know if I can drink pee for several years just to acquire such a skill.”

“Yeah, beer is an acquired taste.  Most people on this planet learn how to drink it in college, in the military, or growing up at home.”

“Really?  How interesting,” says Bridge, taking a mental note of that.

“Well if you don’t like beer we might have something else to drink.  Let me check the fridge real quick.”  Ewan gets up and walks over to the fridge.  He opens the fridge door, bends over slightly to peer inside, and glances through several bottles of different sizes and colors before shutting the door again.  He stands up straight and opens the top door to inspect the smaller freezer compartment.  “This should do the trick,” he says, producing a small, brown, square bottle with a black label before shutting the freezer door.

Ewan walks back over to the log and sits back down next to Bridge.  He unscrews the black cap and takes a swig from the bottle to show Bridge that it’s okay.  “Ahhhh.  That’s the good stuff,” he says as he offers the bottle to Bridge.

Bridge holds the bottle under his nose and takes a sniff.  The aroma burns his nostrils, “It smells like rocket fuel,” he says as he quickly pulls his head away from the bottle.  He looks nervously at Ewan who shoots him back an assuring glance.

Bridge takes a sip from the bottle, “Ugh!  It even tastes like rocket fuel!” he exclaims in a hoarse voice as his throat burns and face twists in pain.  “What is this stuff??  Rocket fuel?!”

“We call it whiskey,” replies Ewan with a proud smirk on his face.  “It’s a big hit at parties, and in Ireland.  Would you like some more?”

“By the stars, no!”

“Okay, well let’s just skip the beverages and other related pleasantries and watch some TV.”

“Yes, let’s,” says Bridge, eager to steer the focus of the situation away from any more possible vile concoctions.

Ewan hits the big power button on the remote and the TV springs to life.  Bridge then begins to explain the whole concept of television to Ewan who listens politely for a few minutes before interrupting him and explaining that he already know all about it.

“Really?  None of this is new to you?” asks a surprised Bridge.

“Yeah, this is not a major newsbreak.  We’ve had television for at least about probably fifty or sixty years already.”

“Well that’s quite a shock to hear.  You see, our race is technologically far more advanced than that of your planet, but TV is a relatively new concept.  We’ve had the potential to do it for awhile as we’ve been archiving three dimensional, holographic movie research data thousands of years, but the thought of its application to entertainment and two dimensional images is only two years old with the first televisions having been made last year.  In fact, the inventor of the television is considered one of the greatest thinkers of our time.  He won what is the equivalent on your planet of the Nobel Peace Prize for his invention.  He’s probably the most famous person in our race’s history.”

“Hunh.  Well ain’t that something.  We’ve had it since before I was born.  But like your planet we are also very fond of its inventor.  Yep, that’s right, we love good ol’ Mister—um, I mean, Doctor—um, well whoever that guy was who invented television.  He was awesome, and we all love him.”

“Well that is surprising news nonetheless,” replies Bridge as the gears in his head begin to turn.  “Maybe invading these earthlings isn’t such a good idea after all?” he thinks to himself.  “Would you please excuse me for a second?  I’ll be right back,” says Bridge, pardoning himself.  He pulls out his iPhone, presses a few buttons, and is enveloped in another shimmering light, which he disappears along with.  About thirty seconds later the light returns and he reappears with it.

“How do you do that?” asks Ewan.

“Do what?  Teleport?”

“Yeah.”

“I have an app for that on my iPhone.”

“You use your iPhone to teleport?”

“Of course!  We use our iPhones for everything on my planet!  Isn’t it the same for your civilization?”

“Nah.  We mainly use it for playing games and watching porn on the subway.  Oh, and for surfing the internet, checking email, shopping online, reading the newspaper, calculating tips at restaurants, finding your way back to your car, making sure hung picture frames are level, taking pictures, identifying songs you can’t remember the name of, writing down a grocery list, as an alarm clock—but that’s it.  We don’t use it for everything; just that stuff.”

Bridge rolls his eyes and shoots Ewan a nonchalant look, “But that’s all?”

“Yeah, that’s about all.  But I digress.  So where were we?  Ah, yes.  So let me get this straight,” begins Ewan.  “On your plant there’s no beer, no whiskey, and TV was just invented last year.  Is that about right?”

“That more or less sums it up, yes.”

“That sucks.  What do you all do for fun?  Or here’s a better question: what did you guys do before television was invented?”

“Well, before television we pretty much just sat around and got nagged by our girlfriends and wives all day.”

“That really sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” says Bridge widening his eyes sarcastically.

“Well if you have all this other cool, advanced technology, why can’t you just use it to move to another galaxy or something and get away from all the nagging?”

“It just can’t be done.  Believe me, I tried, and that’s how I ended up with my current girlfriend.  I searched many galaxies in the far corners of the universe and it’s a universal problem that no race has figured out a solution to.  Yes, I managed to get away from my ex, but ran into my current girlfriend in the process.”

“Was that just a figure of speech?  Or does the universe really have corners?”

“It has corners.”

“Really?  How many?”

“Three.”

“The universe is a triangle?”

“Yep.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“How come?”

“We’re not sure yet.  Our scientists are still working on that one.  The current theory is that it has something to do with a gigantic game of intergalactic pinball in an irregularly shaped pinball machine.”

“Are you sure it’s pinball and not, let’s say, oh, I don’t know, ping pong?”

“Hmmm, maybe I suppose?  I’ll pitch the idea when I get back and see what happens.  Anyway.  Where were we?”

“You were traveling the three corners of the universe trying to get away from your girlfriend-at-the-time’s nagging.”

“Ah, yes.  It’s such a problem in fact that many races have taken the strategy of trying not to find the cure for cancer and other threats to their existence as it only prolongs the lives of said nagging girlfriends and wives, thus extending the death sentence that is their relationship together.”

“And there’s nothing that could be done about this?  You just couldn’t fire them from a cannon into a nearby sun or something?”

“As a matter of fact you can.  We actually tried that, and it worked really well for awhile.  But we soon discovered that doing so didn’t actually destroy all that negative, nagging energy they carried, rather it just transferred it to the sun itself, thus speeding up the sun’s internal, ticking clock to its supernova.”

“You soon discovered that?  How soon?”

“At the rate we were going at it, it took about two weeks.”

“Then what?”

“Kaboom!  We fled our planet the day before the blast and colonized a new one, which was a terrible experience.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet losing your home world is pretty traumatizing.”

“We weren’t upset over the loss of the planet rather all the nagging wives and girlfriends who survived now had something new and fully justifiable to nag us about.  We tried to break the vicious cycle that we were trapped in, and in doing so we only made it exponentially worse.  It was a self fulfilling prophecy that we had no way of knowing would literally blow up in our faces.”

“Well why didn’t you just leave the nagging behind as you fled to the next planet?”

“We tried.  It didn’t work.  A few guys managed to pull it off by giving their wives or girlfriends a groupon to an all-day spa or an upscale cupcake boutique.”

“Women do love the groupons.”

“Indeed.  But the sales limit on the groupons wasn’t high enough to accommodate everyone, and so most of the remaining girlfriends and wives managed to nag their way onto their boyfriend/husband’s spaceship or an exiting commercial flight.  Many of those commercial pilots, in fact, received what you would call a Purple Heart for their bravery during the ordeal.  But most of them didn’t survive for very long after they landed their ships.”

“Did the ships crash?”

“Nope.  Aneurisms.  It seems that the human mind can’t withstand that level of nagging in such a confined space for that long of a duration without having a lasting effect.  In essence, they were dead before they even hit the ground.  It was sheer willpower and brotherhood that kept them alive long enough to land the ships.”

“Wow, that’s intense.”

“But enough about me.  So has your race really had television for several decades?”

“Yup.  I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Well the war fleet has only been observing your planet for about two weeks now, and all the observation has been done from space.  This means that they’ve only been able to look straight down and so from that angle it looked to them like all the earthlings were sitting on their couches staring at walls and boxes and laughing, which made sense at the time as they had deemed you all a much inferior race and thus probably more easily amused.”

“I guess that makes sense.  So how much more advanced is your race than ours?”

“Although our species is much younger than the human race, i.e. we haven’t been in existence as long as the human race, we are still technologically much further advanced.  All of the scientists and great thinkers of our world have been working together since day one and thus our technology is light years ahead.  But all our daily efforts have been focused on research and so no one had ever thought of using technology for fun until two years ago.  In fact, the whole concept of fun didn't even exist until that point either, hence why the guy who invented television is hailed as our greatest thinker.  He literally taught us how to laugh and gave us a means to do it.”

“Right on.  Well let’s relax and get our laugh on for a bit then.”  Ewan picks up the remote off the log and hits the mute button to un-mute the television.

Bridge’s head snaps around in the direction of the TV when he hears the sound come on.  “Wow, that’s a really awesome television.  I’ve never seen a TV like that before.”

“Yeah, it’s not bad.  It’s a fifty-five inch, high definition, wide screen TV,” replies Ewan as he flicks through the channels.

“How are you doing that?” asks Bridge.

“Doing what?”

“Making the picture on the TV change?”

“With this remote here in my hand.  I can press either this up arrow button or this down arrow button and it changes the channel.”

“What’s a channel?”

“Different television signals are called channels.  It lets different people or companies put on different television shows at the same time.  Wait, why do I have to explain that?  Don’t you guys have different channels?”

“No, we don’t.”

“So you just turn the TV on and whatever is on that one channel is what you get?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Wow, that sucks.  And you don’t have remotes?”

“Nope.  Just a knob on the front of the TV to turn it on and adjust the volume.”

“Well when you put it that way I guess you don’t really need a remote,” Ewan pauses for a moment.  “What happens if you don’t like what’s on?”

“We just turn it off and find something else to do.  I suppose if we had a remote and multiple channels we could keep flipping through all the channels for an undetermined amount of time hoping to find something we want to watch, but that would probably end up being a search with no positive yield and big waste of time.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that,” replies Ewan.  He finds a channel he likes, “Okay, this is a good show.  Check it out.”

“What is it called?”

“It’s called The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  He’s a really funny guy.”

As they watch for a few minutes Ewan laughs at all the jokes and Bridge begins to laugh more and more with Ewan.

“He’s funny, right?” asks Ewan.

“I’m not familiar with everyone he’s talking about or the events he’s describing,” replies Bridge, “but I love all the funny faces he makes when he finishes talking.”

“Oh yeah, I love those, too,” agrees Ewan.

“That last one was really funny.”

“Which one?”

“The one where he was wiggling his head a little and waving his hands.”

“Oh, you mean this one?”  Ewan presses the rewind button on the remote until the picture rolls back about ten seconds, then he pauses it.

“Yes… That one,” says Bridge, completely unable to unfix his gaze from the television and barely able to talk.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty funny face,” laughs Ewan.  He fast-forwards it until it catches back up with real time.

The look on Bridge’s face is that of a man struggling to process what he has just seen.  “How… how are you doing that?” he asks as he slowly points at the still image on the TV.

“Do what?  Pause and rewind the show?  It’s called TIVO or DVR.  It’s a device that goes back and forth through the show so that you can watch parts over again or skip parts you don’t like.”

Bridge’s expression goes from astonishment to thinly masked fear.  “I have to go,” he says hastily.

“But you just got here!” retorts a surprised Ewan.  “And what about your girlfriend?  Don’t you want to hide out from her a bit longer?”

“Oh, that’s okay.  I just remembered that I need to stop by the office right away and do some more work before I go home, so I’ll hide out there for a little bit.  I really must go though.  Thank-you for your hospitality.”  Bridge quickly gets up to leave.

“Well hey, at least take a six pack of beer with you to go.”

Bridge cringes at the thought of drinking more beer, “Ugh, I mean, no thank-you.”

“Well at least take a bottle of whiskey with you,” replies Ewan as he extends the bottle towards Bridge to offer it to him.

“Yes, okay, I’ll take the rocket fuel with me.  Our scientists will want to study it and see if it has any useful properties.  Thank-you for this,” says Bridge as he accepts the bottle.

“That’s the spirit!  Do you guys have replicators?”

“Yes, we have replicators.”

“Well good.  Take that bottle back with you, throw it in the replicator a couple times, invite some friends over, pass it around and see what happens.  It’ll be good times.”

“Thank-you, I will.  I must go now.”  Bridge pulls out his iPhone, presses a few buttons, and again is enveloped in glowing light before disappearing with it.

“That was pretty cool,” Ewan remarks to himself about the teleportation.  “Oh look, Jon Stewart is making a sandwich, but he’s out of peanut butter!  Hilarious!”

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