Congratulations on the successful completion of your Evolutionary Earlybird Special®!
Stand by for a recorded message by Ernie, founder and owner of Ernie’s Evolutions. Ernie sends their apologies for not being present on this great day, but they are dealing with an embarrassing case of “Evolutionary Overcooking” with another client some light-eons away and are attempting to reconstruct the client species from DNA contained within the cloud of radioactive ash circling the planet.
Dear Clients,
Welcome to your fully evolved selves! It hardly seems like any time at all since we visited your world and met you for the first time. How over-brimming you were with scathing impatience at the speed of your evolution. Not that you said as much, of course—language was a distant dream for you, then. But this is our profession, and we are adept at interpreting and anticipating potential clients’ wishes.
Your frustration was understandable, and common enough in species just about bright enough to know there was more, but not blessed with patience. And, once we explained—through clever pictographs and mime—that in our experience, species such as yourselves take, on average, a billion years (give or take ten-percent) to evolve to full potential, you were positively shaking with eagerness.
So, we offered rather generous terms on our popular Earlybird Special®, a six-million-year evolutionary roller-coaster that was, we are sure you agree, an absolute thrill ride.
We cannot wait to be done with our temporary problem, which should only take a handful of eons, so we can come and shake you by the proboscis/hand/claw/tendril/whatever limbs you evolved.
Then, we can all take a moment and remember with nostalgia the way you were when we first met: rough, brutish apes, brimming with needless rage and fond of indulging in casual violence. You will laugh, we are sure, when you are reminded that there was once a time when you could not get on even with one another without committing unspeakable cruelties, and even murder. You are likely not even aware, now, that there exist such emotions as “anger,” “lust,” and “envy.” Or that your distant ancestors fouled their surroundings as they pleased, with not a thought to their own environment! Never mind, we have video recordings that you will blush when you see.
We won’t hold you back, now—we have DNA to recombine, and you must be eager to set sail into the welcoming universe in your wormhole ships/dimension-hoppers/generation arks/solar schooner fleets/whatever other new and ingenious method of trans-galactic travel you invented.
In accordance with the official fee-collection process, please vacate the collaterally agreed planet in the next ten rotational cycles, as per your client agreement, so housekeeping can come in and give it a deep clean, to prepare for the next clients, a delightful cyanide-breathing crustacean species with eye-stalks on sublimation in a mere 300 million years.
—MESSAGE ENDS—
David A. Gray is a Scots-born writer and journalist who resides in NYC. His
short stories have been accepted by Abyss and Apex, New Myths, Starship Sofa,
Cosmic Roots and many more. His debut novel, Moonflowers, came out in
2019. His second book, a contemporary fairytale set in his native
Scotland, is in contract. Gray’s next full-length work will be an
extension of a short space opera story that was published recently, and
that won’t stop rattling around inside his head. He would like to be
just well-enough known to be considered reclusive.
They’re now FREE for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment