I Don't Seem So Bright in a Well-Lit Room

Chapter Twenty-Eight

People will often say "I have a vague idea what I'm looking for," or "I have a vague idea what it looks like," because more often than not ideas are vague and they help out when one is not quite sure what one is looking for. Sometimes, however, this can get one lost. "I have a vague idea where she lives" often results in many trips around various blocks and blocks, looking for a specific house in a neighbourhood where all houses look the same, and all have the same blue minivan.

Potto had never seen or heard of the Garax, and didn't even possess a vague idea of what they looked like. The Garax who stood before him was temporarily invisible to him.

Aye had never seen or heard of the Garax either, but he had a vague idea that the very odd ship they were on would have occupants. He had an idea that they would look very clean and sterile. Their ship, which only existed as an idea of the Garax themselves (an idea from an idea), was very clean and sterile looking, so it only made sense that these creatures would match. 

Which, to Aye, they did. Hairless and shiny, with spotless white jumpsuits and clean white leather cowboy boots.

"Hello friend," said Nux Garax to his new shipmates. He checked himself out. "Oh, I like this look! And I'm male this time! What a novelty!"

"Uh...hi?" Aye was hesitant. He didn't trust anyone this clean, but then again he had trusted the dusty old Veroseraliens, so perhaps cleanliness didn't need to be a factor when deciding who to trust. 

"Oh! Who said that?" Potto asked, spinning on one foot. He trusted them sight unseen.

"You don't see them?" asked Aye, still drunk. "You must be drunk."

"That is odd. Do you have any idea who you are talking to?" Nux added.

When a question of this nature is asked, it is usually meant to sound threatening or overconfident. In that usual context, "Do you have any idea who you are talking to?" means "You should not talk to me in the manner in which you are, because I am really important or dangerous and have the capacity to ruin and/or hurt you for doing so. I am better than you. Piss off." However, when the Garax used "Do you have any idea who you are talking to?" they actually (and harmlessly) meant just that. They were indeed asking "You may have just realized that you are talking with someone. Do you know what that's all about?"

"No," said Aye.

"Well you must have some idea, if you can see us."

"You look like a bunch of clean dudes."

"Go on..."

"Shiny bald heads, spotless crisp white jumpsuits...really cool cowboy boots..."

"Oh! I see them now!" exclaimed Potto. It seemed his ideas just needed a little kick start. "Yeah, those boots are dynamite!"

"Interesting. Do you have no ideas of your own, my friend?" Nux asked Potto.

"I don't know, you'll have to ask my friend," smiled Potto. He liked being called friend, and calling others friend. He liked a lot of things.

"You are adorable!" Nux laughed. "We are the Garax. We are intangible ethereal beings. We are ideas. We lack any material substance until you have an idea that we have material substance. We can make some things material using our own ideas. But not ourselves. We're not that vain. Plus it's fun to see what folk come up with!"

"Weeeeeeird!" Potto chuckled, while Aye tried to decide whether he could trust his own ideas. He was also quite surprised that he had had such clean ideas.

The Garax ship flew through space quickly. It zipped past many of the Jorge Jorge Jorge clone's stolen ships. This made Aye quite nervous.

"Hey! Those are like the ships that Teeg wanted to escape at the fuel station!" Potto cheered.