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audiobook, commentary on man's desire to change everything, decorating, DIY, sci-fi, scifi, short story, story, Writing
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here. I’ve been very taken over by real life as of late and the time I have had has been dedicated to my larger works (namely ‘that novel’ and a second ‘that novel,’) so I’ve not had a great deal of time or ideas for small posts. This came about and I’m not tremendously satisfied, but I enjoyed the idea so much that I wanted to make something of it. I’ve recorded an audiobook style thing as well – unfortunately it’s not the greatest quality, I’ve been sick a great deal and my voice hasn’t come out as I’d have liked, but I grew tired of waiting to either get better or die, so I may as well be working on what I love. The audio thing is at the bottom. Hope you enjoy it, please tell me if you do, or you don’t. Thanks!
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Exterior Decorating
by Tyrone Agius
“What do you think of this one?”
The alien’s bony, gaunt finger pointed to a spherical red hologram, hovering in the air where a large curved line passed through it.
“I think it could be blue,” said the other.
A solar flare arced from the hologram to the alien’s finger and he retracted it. The two aliens stood, submerged in a titanic three dimensional projection of a star system, spheres of various colours floated around a large red sun in the centre, all with blue orbit lines pathing their journey across the heavens.
“You don’t like it?” the first alien said, now placing his gaunt fingers upon his elongated chin, blinking his vertically stretched eyes at the other.
“It’s not that,” the other admitted, her voice a little indecisive. “When was the last blue one?”
The alien held his tablet up and tapped the glass surface. “M7-T64230 is the closest blue dwarf system.”
“I remember,” she said, placing a hand on her bluntly angled hip. “That isn’t too far away.”
“We could risk another blue one.”
“I don’t wish it to look over-coloured,” she replied. “But there’s something about this system, I just feel it needs a blue star.”
The male tilted his head sideways, turned to the left, and looked out of the large, gilded framed window in the sandstone coloured bulkhead. From the position of their ship, they could see the entire system; the red star and all it’s planets. He nodded thoughtfully.
“It would work well with the orange surfaces of the first three planetoids,” he said finally.
“Do you think?” she asked, glad to have a second eye to back her up.
“Absolutely. It’s contrast would compliment rather than repulse.”
“That’s what I thought too. Very well, I’ll schedule it to be made blue,” she happily tapped a few times on her glass tablet and then on the holographic red star.
“Excellent. Now, about those orange planets,” the male alien said, pointing to the hologram above him.
The female shifted her weight uneasily. She had a good idea what was coming next and her counterpart had already backed her up on the blue dwarf. She didn’t wish to be awkward but if she felt he was making an error, she would be forced to point it out. He began to circle the hologram, reached up and grabbed the two larger orange planets orbiting the star. He put them on opposite sides of the red flame.
“What if we run them like this, so in their orbits they are always on opposite sides of the sun?”
It wasn’t a bad suggestion.
“We don’t want to encourage too much symmetry, it may become a little stale as the eye spends time upon it. See the fifth and sixth planets. This gas giant up here,” she pointed. “They are almost on opposite orbits already.”
“It could be a recurring theme,” he said. She squinted and twisted her mouth. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that, I just don’t want it to be over-balanced. What would you do about the third orange planet? It would throw your idea off.”
The male alien walked forward, stretched his grey fingers around the tiny orange sphere, enveloping it, and simply tossed it away, where the hologram fizzed upon the floor, it’s orbital line broken.
“We get rid of it.”
She tapped her fingers on the table surface and slowly shook her head. “No, we’d have an odd number of planets. If we’re going to have two opposing orbits, we can’t have an odd number of planets.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted, glancing back at the pathetic dwarf planet at the back of the hologram. “It would look a bit haphazard,” he chuckled.
“Quite,” she agreed, matching his quiet laughter. “We could always blow that one up too?”
“Let’s not go crazy,” he laughed. “No but, in seriousness, I quite like the further planet.”
“The one you had forgotten?” she said, snarkily.
“It completes it. It’s in the background, quiet and dark. Insignificant. There is beauty in insignificance.”
“I agree,” she said. “I’ve got it!” She snapped her thin fingers, producing a reverberating hum. She picked up the holographic planet, which had finally stopped rolling on the floor, and stuck it beside the other orange world. “Why don’t we make the two orange planets opposite orbits, and put the third encircling one as a moon. That way we would have your look of opposing motion and my balanced asymmetry.”
He licked the inside of his cheeks. “It’s too large to be a moon, we’d have to shave the first few dozen miles off the crust.”
She tilted her head sideways, her porous grey smile contorting in what passed for her species as a smirk.
“I love it,” he said, finally. He tapped a few times on the glass and then on the three orange planets hovering above him. His counterpart began to rearrange the planets as she saw fit. He looked out of the window, losing himself in the sea of stars and blackness.
“It’s very black, isn’t it? Space.”
“You don’t like it?” she asked.
“It’s not that. It’s just very foreboding,” he said, with melancholy.
“I never really thought of it like that,” she admitted. “It’s a good canvas to work on. White does hurt the eyes so.”
“Indeed,” he said. “Do you think anyone will appreciate the work we’re doing? Changing things.”
“Those with the technical and cognitive aptitude, no doubt,” she said. “Come, see your new arrangement.” She pulled him back to the hologram, where he was delighted with the projection of the resized third planet, now serving as a moon to the second.
“Wonderful. Now, about this fourth planet? It’s inhabited.”
“Good, let’s see the specimens,” she enthused.
With a swipe of his hand, the massive hologram changed to projections of creatures of varying colours, sizes, breeds and form. Some were gelatinous, finned and gilled tentacles, clearly some type of sea creature. Some were long, elongated cat-like stalkers, with camouflaged fur. Others were large, bulky herbivores with strong spines along their tails. In the corner of the selection, was a small, upright creature with green scales and a feathered neck.
The female pointed her bony finger at the scaled thing.
“What are those?”
The male checked his tablet.
“Survey team reports that, based upon their upright stature and observations the team made, they’re an emerging intelligence.”
She shook her head. “They’re too green. Can we change that?”
“We could introduce a new dominant pigment gene into their makeup.” He scratched his bald head thoughtfully. “But…”
“What is it?”
“The green is their camouflage in their environment. As aesthetically pleasing as it may be to change it to purple-”
“I wasn’t going to make them purple.”
“I just assumed,” he said, back-pedalling a little. “After those flying creatures on the eighth planet in M6-G39283.”
“That was to contrast the yellow and cyan sunset. Those creatures only fly between the hours of the setting sun on that world,” she said, with fantastic recall ability.
He held up his hands. “I’m sorry.”
She tugged her magenta clothing, repositioning a perfectly angled gold brooch.
“Apology accepted,” she said, removing her hand from her hip. “But you are right. Taking their camouflage from them would make them more vulnerable to predators. And I would like to see what type of architecture they are capable of in a few million years.”
They thought for a moment, trying each to satisfy the other’s whims and solve the problem.
The male wagged a single finger in the air, it’s crevices scrunching together like brain matter.
“I have it. What colour are their eyes?”
She cocked her head and smiled, checking the display again. “Survey team recorded occurrences of orange, yellow and green. We’ll give, let’s say a fourth? A fourth of the species purple eyes.”
He tapped a few keys on the tablet. “Scheduled for genetic manipulation. The drones will get around to that tomorrow. After we change the colour of the sun, we might want to leave off meddling with their eyes until then.”
“Quite,” she agreed. “Let’s exterminate this species of fish while we’re at it. It’s hideous,” she said, pointing at a deformed mouth-like blob on her display.
“Oh how ugly,” he said.
“Isn’t it?”
“We’ll get rid of that. And we’ll blow up the fifth planet.”
“What?” she stammered.
“The fifth planet, we’ll blow it up,” he repeated.
“We can’t do that,” she said.
“We may as well, since we’re no longer worried about an odd or even number.”
“It balances that obnoxious gas giant.”
He exhaled quickly in disbelief. “It overshadows that beautifully marbled gas giant,” he corrected.
“How can you call that beautifully marbled?” she sneered. “It looks like a bar of melted soap.”
“It’s like a glittering pebble of different strands.”
She shook her head silently.
“There’s always something, isn’t there?” she said. “Always got to have something. Fine, we’ll blow the damn planet up. But when that asteroid belt proves to be an eyesore, you can schedule your own cleanup crew.”
“That’s fine by me,” he spat. “I think an asteroid belt would complete the ensemble nicely.”
“You would.”
Suddenly the lighting through the window changed, the two aliens were distracted to peer outside for a moment. Slowly, a wash of colour spread over the shifting surface of the orange star, as it shifted into a blue one.
“The drones have completed their operation. That was fast.”
“It’s quite lovely,” she said.
With a wave of her hand she pulled the holographic map out to a large region of space encompassing multiple star systems.
“Now, what do you think of this one?” she said.
The female pointed to another star system with a blue star and with a double tap of her fingertip, the ship zoomed off at an unfathomable speed. The window changing into a tunnel of phosphorescent light beams and fireworks, until they emerged at another star system, with a blue star, matching the holographic map that now engulfed the two aliens.
The male circled the projection, studying all of the pieces and preparing to make his first decision.
His grey finger pointed to the blue dwarf star at the centre.
“I think this could be red.”
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Hopefully you enjoyed that, if not please tell me why not as I want to know. Thanks for taking the time to read it either way, have a great day. Below is the audio thing. Sounds courtesy of the great freesound.org. Check them out.
