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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