A free short story for you to read.
It has been said by wiser people than me there is nothing sadder than an old dog wearing young clothes. That may be true, but how many of them have met a sapient alien plant and solved global warming because of a pair of tight Levis? None right?
It happened early one evening as I was getting ready for a night of beer and voddy shots at McBangs, the second-best night spot in Agadir. The best club is Fountaine’s, but you must be under forty-five to get in, or filthy rich, and I was quack-quack-oops on both those counts.
Anyway, I’d just pulled on my kecks and I heard a snigger coming from near the balcony curtains, which I’d thrown wide to let the sea air waft in because it gave me that heady, by-the-sea ambience which brought me to Agadir. In fact, I’d chosen my hotel, the Biltong Founty, because of its proximity to the ocean. That, and the stellar Trip Advisor reviews, one of which describes the Founty as, “A remarkable hotel with a handcrafted entrance fountain evoking the Portuguese origin of the name, and lobby floors in the Amazigh style, representing the commitment to cultural authenticity.”
I’ve no idea what all that means but it was only five hundred bucks for the week, which was Bramha as far as I was concerned, especially given my divorce costs, falling unit sales, and concomitantly parlous commission in the last quarter.
I zipped up my jeans, making sure Big Bill and the Boys were tucked in neatly, and poked my head out. There was no-one there. At least, I THOUGHT there was no-one there. That was when the potted plant near the balcony railing sneezed and said, “Brisc ggratar morenki won?”
I later found out that means, “Bloody Ms Ogny by The House of Francois, can’t you wear something else? And where did you get those jeans? They’re about three sizes too small.”
This was after Prinki, the sapient alien plant, gave me a translator seed pod, which, when placed in my ear, automatically converted any words I heard into English. Apparently, the only exception to this is Welsh, which no-one in the Galactic Conference knows how to translate. They think it might be the core tongue of The Old Ones, a fabled race of ascendant beings who left ancient and arcane tech scattered around the universe waiting for someone to discover how to use it. Yeah, we’re talking about the pyramids, Stonehenge, and Donald’s wig here.
Prinki shook herself and said haltingly, “Put zis int yours ear, iskn’t it?”
I was in shock by now and beginning to wonder about the “E” I’d dropped earlier. Lubricious Ali said it was proper stuff. “It will bring you happiness and when the time comes – bazanga – you’re ready for the passion.”
What he did not say is, “Don’t worry about the hallucinations, Gavin, you’ll get used to talking to plants.”
With shaking hands, I took the proffered pod and hesitantly held it up to my ear, kind of pointing it and raising my eyebrows questioningly.
“Yuss, go-wun it, manz. Donna fruck abart,” she said, waving her spiky fronds.
So, I pushed it lightly into my lughole and it slithered in like a crème brûlée sucked through a straw. Don’t ask. This is the sort of thing that happens at skunk parties.
Next thing I knew, she was talking properly. “You should be able to understand me now, human.”
“Yep,” I said, too weirded out to offer any logical discourse of my own.
“I’m sorry to spring this on you like this,” she said. “My name is Prinki, I’m a delegate of the Galactic Conference and I’ve been tasked with establishing first contact with you guys. Anyway, the portal went wonky and instead of me landing in the lobby of the United Nations in New York, I ended up here in the rump end of nowhere.”
“Don’t let the Moroccans hear you say that,” I cautioned. “They’re touchy about their place in the global community. And rightly so. Since they kicked out the frogs, they’ve come on leaps and bounds. They’re the principal exporters of phosphates, apparently, and without phosphoric acid, the cosmetic industry would be in a proper hole.”
I’m a bastard at Trivial Pursuit, you’ll have realised by now. It’s my sole claim to fame, having fought through to the quarterfinals of the South of England regional Trivialist tournament in 2005. I lost on a question about Trampolining. Who knew a Barani, Rudolph, and Randolph are all techniques in the sport? My opponent. That’s who.
“Ah yes, about that,” said Prinki. “We need to talk about your cosmetics industry. Particularly The House of Francois and more particularly Ms Ogny. You’ve got to stop wearing it. And when I say ‘you’, I mean the entire human race. You’re spoiling it for everyone.”
“I don’t get you.” I seemed to have missed a step here. To me, Ms Ogny was the ultimate in sophisticated men’s eau de colognes. I’d been told it was Lionel Richie’s favourite, and you don’t get a better reference than that. I hummed a few bars of “Hello”, specifically the timeless guitar break recorded by prog rocker and ex-Yes musician, Peter Banks, a man once described as “the architect of progressive rock”, and to my mind right up there with Huey Lewis in the pantheon of contemporary music greats.
“We, meaning the Plu, are quite taken by your planet. In fact, we love it. It’s the number three vacation destination for us. Your Carbon Dioxide is like crack cocaine to us, only better. Only one thing spoils it.”
“Ms Ogny?”
“Yes, exactly,” she said. “We’re allergic to the particular molecular compounds of the scent.”
“So, you want us to stop wearing it?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“That’s a shame. It’s a bloody good aftershave,” I shook my head wearily. Maybe Bol Swet by Fourbange would do as an alternative, I thought. “So, what do we get in return?”
“Us,” she shook her stem triumphantly and stepped out of the plant pot. “We will come here in our millions and drink in your carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen back into your atmosphere, although there is a little carbon product we excrete as well, which may be a problem.”
“Like what?” I asked cautiously. This was all getting a little too Faustian for my liking.
“These,” she said as she pooped out a handful of uncut diamonds.
I picked up the diamonds, and she said, “Ee-ew. You dirty bugger.”
“Can I have the agency for your waste disposal?” I asked. “Exclusive rights, I mean.”
“If you like, although I’ve no idea what you’d want with our old faeces,” she said. “Can you help?”
“Where there’s muck, there’s brass,” I mused. “So, you’re saying, if we stop wearing Ms Ogny, you’ll send millions of your people here, shit diamonds everywhere, and solve our atmospheric carbon dioxide problem?”
“That’s about it,” she replied.
The next few months were a whirlwind. I got a small group of the Plu to plant themselves in my garden in Dorking and mined their diamonds. I was careful not to flood the market and draw the attention of HMRC with my seemingly mysterious income. This gave me the capital to buy The House of Francois, and I closed the Ms Ogny line. I got a proper shouting from the marketing people, but I was insistent, and besides I owned the company.
My ex came sniffing around when I appeared in the business pages of the Times, but by then I was already shacked up with a twenty-year-old Nicaraguan model. But being of a kind nature, I offered her a tip: “Don’t invest in diamond mines.”
Oh yeah, and I bought Fountaine’s, the best nightclub in Agadir. Joe Walsh is playing tonight. His hit song, “Life’s been good to me so far” is one of my favourites. And do you know what? It has.
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