Tevun-Krus #22 - Best of 2015

(Comic SF) Alone in a Godless Universe, and Out of Shake 'n Vac - @AngusEcrivain

There's more than one way to skin a cat. That's how the saying goes, right? But let's be honest; when you really get down to the nitty gritty, when you delve deep into the murky depths and curl the wrinkled tips of your grubby little fingers around what you really, really hope isn't the chicken tikka masala from that dodgy Indian at the end of the street, it all boils down to one thing... Whichever way you look at it, if you're not removing the skin then you're doing it wrong.

Of course, you try telling that to the Cat Skinners of Eck'hi Poot and they'll be like, "yeah whatever, dude," but to be perfectly candid the Cat Skinners of Eck'hi Poot can do one and besides, you'd actually have to find Eck'hi Poot first and given the fact that the world mentioned thrice in a paragraph probably too small to get away with such a thing orbits an incredibly tiny red dwarf star in one of only three inhabited star systems in a two-galaxy Micro-Universe contained within one of the many freckles upon the face of a fair-skinned, red haired bonnie lass who lives on a houseboat just outside Milton Keynes, the chances of anyone actually finding Eck'hi Poot or, indeed, stumbling across the Cat Skinners who reside upon the aforementioned planet are, to be fair, rather slim indeed.

In fact the only reason anyone, ever, in the history of everything, had heard of the planet mentioned several times in the above paragraph is due to the fact that Philip, No Last Name, an intern working towards a degree in Leisure and Tourism at the Eck'hi Poot Tourist Information Centre, sent an incredibly eloquent, well written email to the Department of Obscure Planets, Planetoids and Lost Moons, and that email failed to end up in the spam folder of one Esmerelda Hopkins, a medical student who refused to work as a stripper to pay her way through college and instead worked every hour she could and got paid peanuts for the privilege as a receptionist.

The funny thing is, although Esmerelda Hopkins rarely saw the funny side, is that she had absolutely no intention whatsoever of working in any conceivable medical profession. As far as she was concerned, she was putting herself through seven years of hell for one reason and one reason only. The fact that she was not earning gazillions working as a stripper annoyed both of her mothers beyond belief.

"So getting your clobber off and dancing all sexy like to some dirty filthy tunes is beneath you, is it?"

"It's good enough for me and your other mother. We raised you right, so we did, but what with you refusing to work in the family business, we can hardly show our faces in public."

"Neither of you have issue showing everything else in public though, eh?"

Mother #1 and Mother #2 were interchangeable, as far as Esmerelda was concerned. The only thing she had ever wanted from them was their blessing that she do something else, anything else, with her life. But no, that was too much to ask, apparently. Regardless to say, neither Mother will be mentioned within the confines of this tale again.

Sometimes, the Universe, as in the Universe that governed all other universes, gets it right. This is one of those occasions for the email directly beneath the one from Philip, No Last Name, an intern working towards a degree in Leisure and Tourism at the Eck'hi Poot Tourist Information Centre, was a communique addressed to her personally.

That in itself was odd considering the firewall should block such communications and return to sender complete with a fifteen second warning of self-destruction.

The email in question did not consist of much at all, however, 'Esmerelda, get to the roof,' was plenty enough to whet her whistle and with a shrug followed by a quick glance around the room, a vast cavern of a space filled with identical cubicles occupied by individuals all trawling through the monotony of life as they unenthusiastically sought something more, she clicked her heels together three times and walked the room at a considerable pace.