Blobular Eclipse – SHORT STORY

     IT CAME FROM outer space, and it was hungry! Really hungry! Nobody could have predicted it. Of course every prophet on earth said they’d had visions, and before you knew it parents were forcing their children to draw pictures of the monster after it’s arrival, as if they too had premonitions of such an event. Even staring obliteration in its non-existent face, people still wanted to be famous.

Before long the greats of the world – sometimes, just the rich – collaborated and planned how to negotiate with the Blob, devourer of planets. Philosophers, Nobel Prize winners, expert diplomats and the greatest minds of the 21st century were considered. Donald Trump was the obvious choice, and immediately sat down to watch Independence Day to give himself an idea of how to defend mother earth, summoning Will Smith, until someone pointed out there might not be 2hr 25min to spare. Trump had them shot, but agreed, and through NASA he managed to communicate to outer space. “Listen! We’ll give you $500,000 to leave this planet alone. Final offer!” in pulses of light.

Space Blob floated, just outside earth’s orbit, with indistinct eyes on either side of its galactic mouth, which was three times wider than Earth. Space Blob had never seen a place like it, with junk floating around it, and a space station shouting at him through the medium of light. So he took his time. And what were dollars?

In the darkness of the unprecedented Blobular Eclipse, earthlings panicked and sensing the end, participated in immeasurable quantities of sex, indoors and out, privately and publicly, an event termed The Last Great Rut by news anchors, if they themselves weren’t too busy getting busy live on air.

Eventually somebody reasonable locked Donald in his room, and more sensible issues were discussed, such as whether to launch a nuclear warhead. Whether the Blob could be negotiated with wasn’t clear, as idiots couldn’t decide on whether the Blob represented terrorism, thereby ‘we do not negotiate with terrorists’ came into effect. More seasoned minds urged caution. Poking it with a nuclear device, should it fail to end it, might provoke hostile action.

Boffins worked frenetically with NASA and the Russian and American ISS crew members, relaying ideas, strategies and worst case scenarios. Scientific equipment on earth, and in orbit, was used to try to figure out what the Blob was made of, its intelligence levels, where it had come from, did it have a family? – and other gravely serious matters, like, was it god? Religious groups denounced the idea without hesitation. No god of theirs would look like that! In fact nobody knew quite what the Blob looked like. Even using all of the planets high-powered telescopes, between astrophysicists, scientists and amateur star gazers combined, they could not build up a panorama that would contain the thing in one image. The best they could do was a picture of pure black with a thin line running horizontally across, that instantly became an online meme when released, comparing it alongside a minimalist piece of artwork with the caption: One of these is the end of the world. One of the few acceptable excuses/ reasons that could explain anyone being present online, was sex, videos of.

Space Blob floated, slightly puzzled by the presence of an atmosphere, and grew increasingly irritated by incessant flashes of light. Carefully, he dipped a small part of his mouth into the fluffy white clouds, curious as to what the blue stuff was. With incredible dexterity, part of the bottom lip morphed into a tubular mini-Blob, and gently touched the surface of the Atlantic, withdrawing quickly, unknowingly starting a tsunami. Salty! Blob didn’t like it, or the heat he felt on the way down and up.

An innocent taste of the ocean by the Blob was documented by people not having sex, its action leading to fingers dangerously close to depressing buttons that launched nuclear weapons. A clear demonstration of hostile intent! shouted some. But it didn’t kill anyone! reasoned others. In a time of desperate need of a non-comic book action hero, all those in positions of power bickered amongst themselves in…The War of Words. Not many of them died, but those who did fell prey to logic or worse, far worse: moronicxenophobiakneejerkitis, and tragically it was contagious. Ad-hoc empirical studies discovered that anyone logical was in imminent danger if they were outnumbered by stupid, by a ratio of 3:1 (with 2:1 used as a rule to be on the safe side). Although dozens of logical people died to prove the theory, it served a purpose for the good of man kind, like Laika, that the Blob had already swallowed some time ago.

While planet earth descended – no – continued, to be insane, the Blob was beginning to feel pangs of hunger, and the lingering taste of salt was quite pleasant after all. Before earth could wipe itself out, the Blob was a saviour in some ways, an intergalactic space cowboy of no moral standing, prepared to do whatever it took to get the job done, which wasn’t difficult, he just felt a bit peckish, a little empty.

Mystically, Space Blob believed, in alignment with primitive earthly practices, that he grew stronger and gained the power of the things he ate. It gnawed away at him, that he could never eat the sun, so he had to contend with gobbling up the surrounding planets, content with the awesome fact he could go right up to a wormhole and nothing would happen to him. Stretching his gargantuan lips apart, revealing only darkness inside, Blob enveloped Earth in seconds, swallowing it whole. Space reacted without fanfare. Aliens failed to materialise with congratulatory banners. The Blob however…slowly but surely, he felt: he felt?: less intelligent.

 (Failed to find a home in a mag. On reflection I can see why.)