Taking Life Seriously

-13-

See Rajesh run. 

Run, Rajesh, run.

'Bloody RUN!' screamed Martin. 

'I am running as fast as I can, man!' screamed Rajesh.

'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, we are going to die!' screamed Martin.

'Yes, yes, run, man!'

Two of the things were behind them shooting. A laser beam hit the middle aged bald man they found at Total Sports and he dropped to the floor. Rajesh leaped over him and kept running. 

'Jesus!' screamed Martin.

'Yes, yes, shut up already!'

They were seven now. They found the teenage girls hiding inside the All That Glitters, then they found an older couple at the chocolate shop, and then that poor bald dead guy at Total Sports. And then the two things showed up at the shop and started shooting at them and now they were running for the Savemore.

'We can't stay out in the open,' Rajesh yelled, 'we're too easy to hit.'

A flash of laser went off just over his left shoulder and Rajesh could smell burning hair.

'Where then?' yelled Martin.

'Can you smell that?' Rajesh asked. 'Wait a minute, Oh my God, did that thing mess up my beard?' asked Rajesh.

'Are you serious right now?' asked Martin.

'Yes, of course I'm serious is my beard ok?'

'Well I can't see it, it's on the other side of you, innit?'

'So get to the other side of me and look!'

'Jesus Christ, we're running for our lives you crazy moron, I...'

'JUST GET AROUND ME NOW!'

'Jesus, all right, maneuver 23. Ready? Go!'

Rajesh and Martin changed directions and bolted in a complex figure eight. Now Martin was on Rajesh's left. Both still running in the direction of the Savemore.

'Well?' said Rajesh.

'It's not that bad,' said Martin.

'Not that bad?' asked Rajesh and narrowed his eyes.

'Well, it's kind of... sort of... like that time you...'

'Oh my god! tell me I don't look like Tom Seleck right now!'

Martin said nothing.  

'Oh, there will be a reckoning. you mark my words, Martin. There will be a reckoning!'

'Old friend,' said Martin, 'I think that one day soon you may have to seriously reevaluate your priorities'

They ran.

Taking Life Seriously

-12-

The break up was painful, and as expected, intensely cruel in its banality. 

They were talking over a coffee at The Hub for the first time in two weeks. It was her idea of course, talking was always her idea, and she was just sick of being mad at him. She had made up her mind to listen and let him do all the talking. So she drank her espresso and listened. He didn't say sorry, he said: 'I guess some people are just not meant to care about each other.' 

He said: 'Haha, I'm too stoned to be having this conversation with you right now, it's so heavy.'

He said: 'Yes, it bugged me and everything, but I guess I just don't care enough.'

And she sat there not understanding and livid at the waste that was the two years of them living together and at the nonchalant dismissal and at the utter bastard that he'd turned out to be. And she wished that she had never met him, and then that he would get gonorrhea and his dick would drop off, and then she wished he would just drop dead. She felt the fury building up inside her like a napalm bomb.

And just as she was about to tell him what she thought, just as she was about to outline every aspect of what an utter bastard he really was, he died, just fucking died. Shot down with a ridiculous looking laser gun by what was clearly a man dressed in a god awful costume from It Came From Outer Space,  (she knew he was dead because she kicked him in the face three times to make sure). 

She looked up from the corpse of her ex boyfriend and into the face of the man that shot him and screamed in rage. 

Aileen Anders ran straight at the man who was now aiming a gun at her face and dived to the floor. She rolled forward, picked up a shard of glass off the floor, came up with her left hand in a smooth arch and stabbed the man in the throat. The shard of glass tore trough the man's neck and exited above his first vertebrae. She heard a satisfying crunch. The man's eyes glassed over and he collapsed. She kicked him in the stomach and screamed: 'Get gonorrhea and die!'

There was a polite, 'Ahem,' behind her. Aileen turned around. 

'Feeling better?' said Anita.

'Yes, much, thank you,' said Aileen.

'Good. Good,' said Anita. 'Can we get out of here now?'

Aileen looked down at the body of the man she had just killed. It was bleeding. 'His blood is green,' she said, 'why is his blood green?'

'Probably because it's an alien,' said Anita.

'What like from France?'

'I don't think so.'

'Oh,' said Aileen.

Aileen looked around. Terrified people were crouching behind tables and chairs and lying on the floor of The Hub with their hands on their heads. 'Oh,' she said. Then she fainted.