Paradise or Death II - My Story
(or How Stanley Kubrick Died)
© 2018 - @rubencress - www.rubencress.nl
-What the hell.
That was my first thought after a huge, shiny, white light came from my window. I was scared, I didn't know what to expect now, and my minnow fellows just got disconnected from the satelital internet service, and after a few minutes, I was disconnected too. It took around 15 minutes for the lights to shut down, and even then I wasn't quite sure about what was happening. Then, the shockwave came, and it destroyed almost entirely my house. I was lucky enough to hide in my basement before it happened.
I was completely alone in the country -I flew away from Venezuela around 10 years ago- and I didn't know what to do nor where to go. My old laptop computer got completely vaporized, and with that, almost all the electronic devices I had. Only a small radio managed to not be vaporized, until a second light -this time a bit darker, I can tell- vaporized it. This light was a bit more far away, and took only about 5 minutes to disappear: there was no more shockwave than just a small, ill wind.
The sky turned completely red, and the sun was melting the snow that remained around my house. I got out and walked towards the city, and after a few hours, it was completely empty. I kept finding nothing but corpses and vapor, and a few crazy people that was just screaming. I kept walking, not knowing what to expect... until I got to the graveyard.
There was zombies. A fuckload of them. But, they weren't those movie-kind of zombies that just go out there, crawling and screaming for brains. They were smart. Much more smarter than the people they used to be before dying. And, well, people who died through the explosions didn't come back to life, apparently, as there was lots of dead bodies laying through the streets still. I don't know if this was a part of Larimer's plan, but it did happen.
I talked to one of them, and he appeared to be really smart. He was looking at the sky, confused, and walking in circles while talking to me. He tried to explain to me that we needed to escape as soon as possible, but I didn't understand. Then I asked him for his name... and I got the biggest surprise ever: Sir Isaac Newton.
-Are you... Newton!? Like, the real one!? -I asked.
-Yeah, sure. We need to get the hell outta here, this planet won't last too much -he replied, while still looking around and analyzing the landscape.
-Escape... where?
-Anywhere. Jupiter might be a nice choice, as I see Europa could work -he looked into my eyes-. Let's do this together.
And so, we started walking through the next couple weeks, gathering materials for building our spaceship, looking for more people to help us -although we didn't find anybody who would believe he was Isaac newton-, eating canned foods that we took from supermarkets, and evading that mean people that started killing for the sake of themselves. Eventually we met with Carl Sagan, David Bowie and Stanley Kubrick, all of them zombified and much more magnificent than ever, and between Sagan and Newton started the building of a new spaceship to take us away.
In the meantime, Bowie and Kubrick started talking about a new feature film: "The Meaning of Life", a satirical-musical movie. I told them that it was already a Monty Python movie, and they stopped talking to me for about two days: "Who the fuck cares about Monty Python nowadays!" they screamed at me when I told them to do so. Eventually, those monsters that Sagan and Newton had become, managed to build the spaceship using just wood, radioactive residues from the bombs, rocks, an old spaceship that we found and a rubber band.
And so, within the first month of our sailing, we tried to escape. Sagan said that the earth was only a year from completely dying, and that the more time we passed exposed to the poisonous environment that we were in, we'd suffer more the consecuences of it, even for them, the sombies (acronym for Smart zOMBIES). The same day we had planned to escape, Thom Yorke sneaked into our house, took Bowie's guitar, wrote a medley about an ill earth, started singing an old song of his, and when we found him, he was crying.
-Dude, do you want to go with us? We're trying to scape this shit -I told him-. Calm down, we'll be just alright, yeah?
-Yeah dude, whatever. We're fucked up, so, I guess I'll go with you -he answered.
And so the time came, and it was a liftoff. We got far away, until the mesosphere, and then we heard Kubrick one last time.
-You fucker! -he pointed at me, and everybody was like "what the hell?"-. Monty Python doesn't exist anymore. In fact, the whole world is fucking done. And so are you!
Kubrick took a knife and charged at me. However, he didn't quite got me. Instead, let's say he stabbed Bowie... and then crashed against the ship's control panel. We lost all the control we had over the ship, and it crashed in the caribbean, I believe we were on Venezuela. We all survived, except for Bowie, whose stabbing hit him in the heart directly, and Kubrick, who knowing what he has done, decided to stab himself as well. After all, they weren't that helpful with the plan escape, were they? So we didn't care that much about their dying.
-So, we need to start all over again, right? -I asked Sagan and Newton-. You're the superminds behind all of this, what's the new plan?
-Well, we need to build another spaceship. So, you're right -Sagan replied.
-In case I didn't have enough from this stupid planet -Yorke lamented-. God, I want to die now.
Then we heard a sound, and it was Kubrick trying to get up while screaming. I looked at him.
-You're dead now, dude! Keep being dead! -I hit him with a rock in the face, smashing it.
-Look, Bowie's alive too! -Yorke said, while Kubrick tried to take the rock outta his face.
-Apparently sombies can't die. Well, let's assume they're dead anyways.
-I'M NOT DEAD! -Bowie screamed-. I STILL CAN... -I threw a rock into his face, smashing it as well.
-HEY GUYS -Newton screamed, capting all of ours attention at once-. I JUST... LOOK AT THIS!
It was a Venezuelan Calculus book.
-NOW I KNOW HOW TO ESCAPE THIS PLANET. ALL WE NEED IS... A TURNIP. AND A SHOVEL.
Newton was euphorically laughing... while we didn't understand. Who would say at that point that he indeed was right, and all he needed was turnips for fuel, and we'd get to Jupiter in about seven months from that day? I wouldn't believe that if you told me back then.
As before: it was so much fun thinking and writing this, I enjoyed doing so and I hope you did enjoy reading me as well. I can't wait for round three now!
Had me laughing to the point of tears, well played.
That was the point! Thank you :D
its good story but please make the spelling correct. It's escape, not scape.
My bad, sorry! Corrected, english is not my mother tongue, so sometimes I can make mistakes like that :p