FUTURAMA Torn Between Two Losers

FUTURAMA

TORN BETWEEN TWO LOSERS

CHAPTER ONE

There’s only one eye in ‘Fry’

            Leela had spent a leisurely afternoon visiting with her parents, Morris and Munda, in their home in the mutant world that exists below the streets of New New York.  She had just left their home and was heading down a dark, damp street toward one of the ladders that led up to a manhole cover at the street level of the surface world.  Just before arriving at the ladder, she had spotted a familiar figure.  Even though the man was standing half in the shadows, Leela could tell by his red hair and jacket and blue pants that is was her good friend, Fry.  She was very surprised to see him though.  Fry never came down to the mutant world alone.  He must have been looking for her, she thought.  She was glad.  She liked Fry and she knew he liked her.  She knew Fry would like to have had a more serious relationship with her but something always stopped her from letting it happen, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.  Still, Fry was a good friend, maybe the best friend she had in the whole world.  Leela was always sad to leave her parents and spending part of the trip back to the surface with a good friend would be just what she needed to help cheer her up.  She called out to him.

            “Fry!”  The man turned around.  It was nice to see his face, his wave of red hair, his happy smile, his big, sparkling eye, and his … slimy, pink tentacle!  As he stepped out of the shadows, it became obvious that this man was indeed a mutant.  However, to Leela, he looked amazingly like Fry except that he had a tentacle where one arm should be, just like her mom, and one, and only one, large eye in the center of his face, just like her.  Though he was a stranger, he was so familiar looking to her that Leela felt very comfortable around him so when he approached she did not immediately feel like roundhouse kicking the mutant square in the chest.

            “Were you talking to me?” he asked.  “And how did you know my name?”

            “His name is Fry too?” she thought.  What were the odds of that?  As the man approached, Leela noticed that this Fry even walked with the same slouch and with his hands in his pockets just like her Fry.  It was like the two Frys were separated at birth and one of them ended up a mutant living below the surface and one above the surface.  Leela knew that was impossible.  She knew her Fry was cryogenically frozen back in 1999, making him over 1000 years older than this Fry.  Still, the similarities were uncanny.

            “I’m sorry,” she explained, “I thought you were a friend of mine.  You look just like him.  His name is Fry too.”

            “I’d be sorry too, lady,”  Fry responded, “if I had a friend who looked like me.”  He laughed.  Same bad jokes as Fry too, Leela thought, but she smiled at it anyway.  “And what a coincidence,” he continued, “that my name is Fry and his name is Fry 2.”  He laughed again.  This time Leela wasn’t sure if he was kidding or truly thought her friend’s name was Fry 2.  She thought about clarifying that her friend’s name wasn’t Fry 2 but Fry also, but decided it was better not to start another round of confusion.  Still, he was nice enough.  What was not to like?  He was essentially just like Fry except … Leela’s thought paused a moment … except that he was a mutant too.  Maybe this is what her Fry was missing for her.  Maybe what she has been searching for all her life was a mutant.  She felt that she would like to get to know this Fry a little better.

            “My name is Leela,” she said, holding out her hand, “Turanga Leela,” she corrected.  Fry took her hand in his tentacle and shook it.  It wasn’t slimy at all.  It was warm, and it felt nice, like her mom’s tentacle, and she squeezed it a little when she shook it.  She smiled a little, in spite of herself.