Dogs of Orninica (21 page)

“We lost another two members of our group this way, a couple that fell to their dog's loving lick. We're truly sorry if our actions have led to the suffering of any non-human species. It wasn't our intention.”

“There were still some people left standing when the dust was cleared, and they had to be tracked down and culled manually. Those of us that hadn't become biologists and astronauts spent the decade training in military warfare to prepare for this eventuality. Three members were lost during this effort. We agreed not to depart until we had tracked down and cleansed every man, woman and child from the face of the planet. Sadly, this also meant burning a lot of the thick forest that was acting as a refuge for the last few survivors. We hope it grows back rapidly now that we're gone and we can't apologize enough for the damage we did to the fragile forest ecosystem and the innocent creatures living in it.”

“And that's why we're on our way to the sun, or as close to it as we can get before the rocket burns up. We all sit here in a circle, holding hands, filled with love, ready to disperse our energy into the cosmos and finally free earth of the human cancer forever.”

“Remember our sacrifice, and know that we die free.”

Journalist III

The cosmic discovery of the beacon left for us by our human masters has changed our world forever. The ancient message that played out live around the world yesterday, beamed to every connected device on every person, has forever changed the trajectory of our great civilization.

The war against the Nureongi has been called off, all our troops and automated drones recalled home. As we have reported, the clergy miraculously survived the brutal attack against our leaders due to their churches not keeping regular business hours. Their regal pearl-white Braniso limousines were parked and unoccupied at the time of the catastrophe.

As per the constitution, the Grand Bishop of Bahman and the First Vicar of Soupman are now our most senior leaders, and acting heads of state.

Due to the crucial contents of the beacon recording, a powerful historic alliance has been made between the two pastors and their lesser contemporaries, promising to join the flocks of the disparate faiths permanently. This new 'Justness League' creates one world religion comprising of elements from all seven doctrines.

The seven heads of Justness met yesterday for several hours in an all-night session to decide how to proceed in rebuilding society after the unprecedented breakthrough. They came out of the meeting with a conclusive resolution to the new issues facing us, and a road-map towards our future prosperity.

Our leaders have decided that we will follow the humans to the sun. “We have carefully weighed all the options available to us. This is the only path that cultivates a lasting corn to nourish our immortal souls with”, the former First Vicar of Soupman stated earlier today.

As there plainly aren't enough rockets to send the entire population of the Orninican alliance into orbit, giant catapults are being constructed in all our towns and cities as the next closest thing. Members of clergy, assisted by peace-keeper-bots, will oversee the 'catapult to the stars' initiative, and when all ordinary citizens have been launched, our leaders, their aids, and the few remaining prominent dogs of industry will board the five rockets we have, and set out for the sun.

Every citizen will receive notice of their slotted time and the location of the nearest catapult to the stars. Once you arrive at your assigned catapult, you're expected to take a number, stand in line and await further instruction. The high-powered catapults are able to launch a dog of average height and weight as much as 1000 meters into the air. Though unfortunately not enough to reach the sun, you will be pointed at the sun and be able to gaze into it as you're launched.

Any member of the great Canidae erectus species that remains on earth after the launches are completed will be executed by automated drone fire. So there's no point in hiding.

In other news, the execution of convicted pedophile terrorist serial killer, accountant Gerald Barker went ahead yesterday without a hitch. He was given a choice of twenty different corn-based dishes for his last meal, but chose to abstain from eating. His last recorded words were “I didn't do anything.” The nation prays for his soul. Sick, sick little dog.

The autobiography of the late, great actor, Harvey Fidelbrook is back at number one on the best seller list. A re-issue of his most successful movie, “Space Captain 2: Space Invasion Battle”, will feature an altered ending using edited-in footage of the seasoned artiste's thrilling final performance, recorded by everyone in the crowd that gathered around the wreckage of his luxury Braniso in the heart of the city's financial district. His death is trending higher on social media platforms than anything in history.

Die-hard Harvey fan Bernadette Gar had this to say, “Harvey was the sweetest, most caring guy. It's such a tragedy what happened to him. Just think of all the great Harvey movies that'll never get made because of this huge tragedy. I'm really glad they're re-editing Space Invasion Battle, but I hope they also add his new death scene to his other great works, like 'Undercover Chef', 'Zombie Hamsters' and 'Spy With a Plan'. It would really mean a lot to his fans all over the world if we could see new versions of all these blockbuster movies before we leave in the catapults.”

The fan is also planning a petition to have Fidelbrook's ten most popular movies sealed in a titanium vault to preserve them for all time. Embedded below is a scene from Harvey's second most successful movie, 'Space Captain 4: The Journey Home Begins', where the cosmic captain saves the sentient meteorite baby from its collision course with the moon, by singing a lullaby to guide the adorable little meteorite to safety.

A new study commissioned by the Orninican Snack Food, Infant Food and Soft Drink Manufacturers Association has proven that the so-called Orninican 'obesity epidemic' is a lot of hot air. A scientific team has shown that carrying extra layers of fat can be life-saving in numerous pressing situations, such as in the recent case of the miners trapped underground for six weeks. "If those miners had been more obese, they could have survived the ordeal and still be here to tell us about it", a representative of the association stated in a press release yesterday.

Rising young actress Seyge Grine looked the part of a true starlet yesterday as she attended the premiere of the much vaunted biopic of late billionaire Reub Yaute; the beloved genius Orninican entrepreneur, marketer, designer and inventor of the original iYglass 1.0 and all the other cherished designer Rubella Corp products that are such a big part of our everyday lives, dating all the way back to the Rubella Personal Computing Workstation A100, which was released more than forty years ago.

The stunning youthful beauty sported a form-fitting sleeveless magenta frock with a plunging neckline and wide skirt, tailored perfectly for her by her favored fashion house; Oreolo. Clinging steadfastly to her petite frame, Seyge's summery dress was garnished with a low-hanging custom-made Penderitaan Itu diamond and pearl necklace that accentuated her ample chest. 

The twenty-eight year old's sparkling red Chilblain stiletto heels, bright orange lamb-skin Edguar Leduin handbag, Splurgeco Thulian-pink lipstick and exclusive horn-rimmed iYglass Sunglasses completed her brilliant ensemble as she walked the red carpet accompanied by her gorgeous heir/musician boyfriend, forty-three year old Garth Herne-Pongri; who wore a tailor-made Brey Gegregerre double-breasted damson evening suit with vintage white ivory buttons. A special exclusive pre-release of the new iYwatch Pre3 that has only been sent to a few hundred highly-influential dogs proudly adorned his wrist. 

Fashionista Seyge can next be seen in the side-splitting hilarious wedding comedy, 'Brenda's Big Day', where she plays a beautiful, independent, but cynical wedding planner that had given up on ever finding love, until the moment Mr. Teddy Right walked into her office, with his mean and controlling bride-to-be in tow.

The Public Safety & Protection Agency has been decommissioned, and its terror-threat level system has been officially discontinued by the Justness League of Orninica. Take care, Orninicans.

Student II

Every time I try to eat this swill, I have to clench up to make sure it doesn't come running right back out again. It's so bad. They won't even tell us what's in it exactly, but it doesn't look like any food I've ever seen. It's mostly brown sludge, with some sticky green chunks and these wiry white fibers. They just call it a 'nutri-meal', whatever that means. Honestly, I'd almost rather eat dirt than finish this plate off.

They ship them here in these little foil packages with no labels on them, and somehow they're already heated when we open them, right out of the box. Must be some kind of new invention that keeps food steaming hot for weeks at a time. Too bad it doesn't inject some fucking flavor into them as well, that would be a much more useful invention.

The others are better at getting used to eating this stuff, they're munching away like it's a nice big plate of vanilla pudding or something. There's even a few daring chubsters that are asking for seconds. I guess some guys will get used to anything. Maybe I can trade the rest of mine to one of them for a pocket knife or a lighter or something. I bet both those things would be more nutritious than a nutri-meal.

So the good news is they're ending the dental camp early. They made us all help them set up one of those catapults outside, and we're all going to get launched out of it in the morning as soon as the bots arrive to operate it. They're afraid that some of us might have too soft a landing though, since there's nothing but meadowland out here, so they're aiming the catapult at a brick wall just to make sure no one walks away from the throw.

The wall's only a few steps away from the catapult, so we're not even going to get airborne for more than a moment really. It's such a bummer. At least I'll finally be done with this shitty fucking camp, though. It's really driving me nuts. They act like dentistry is the most important thing ever invented. It's like a creepy cult or something. Just like a cult. Yeah, I'll probably be better off splattered on that wall than staying here for another two weeks. At least I won't have to learn about fucking dentistry any more.

All the camp activities are tooth-related. They've got these big rocks painted white and arranged like teeth, and we have to brush them with a giant toothbrush to demonstrate the correct brushing method. Even the rare fun stuff is dental-oriented, like the canoes are made to look like big toothpaste tubes and we have to answer dental trivia while we row them. There's even a water slide that works like like a giant water pick, but they hardly ever let us near it. It's so mental. Makes me want to pull out all my teeth one by one and throw them in the lake.

A couple of times I sabotaged the dumb dental activities so they had to let us do something else. The other day, I hid all the stupid rock brushes, and they had to just let us play ball and swim in the lake instead. But then later they saw we were all drinking from the lake, so they made us stop what we were doing and had us pour tons of barrels of aluminium fluoride into the water. Those barrels were heavy as fuck. Didn't really want to drink that water after seeing that nasty stuff pouring out of the barrels. Man, dentists are screwy.

It wouldn't be so bad here if they just left us alone, you know? If we didn't have all this dumb dentist shit to do, we could have a really great time. But every time we start to have a bit of fun, the counselors all rush in and try to ruin it with more tedious dentistry bullshit. It's almost enough to make a guy want to burn the whole place down, but I guess there's no point now, since we're all gonna die tomorrow. What really sucks is I only came here because my dad promised to get me a car, and now I'll never even see the damn thing. What a gyp. I wonder if he bought it yet, and it's waiting in the driveway back home all shiny and new. Shame it'll never get driven by me even once.

I mean, if I had gotten the car when it was all over with, then at least it would have been kind of worth it. My summer would have still been a total fucking waste, but I would have been sacrificing it for something at least. It wouldn't have just been a total miserable waste of time and effort.

Now everyone's gonna die and my whole last summer was a total bore-fest. You know, there aren't even any girls here? It's such a shitty situation. They could at least bring in some girls from another camp or something for our last night on earth. Let us have a couple of hours of fun before they launch us off into that brick wall. Well, most of the junior dentists here are total bore-holes anyway, so they wouldn't know what to do with a proper horny girl. But actually, that would just leave more honey for me, so it would work out, I guess.

They pretty much shut down the net completely now. Whenever I turn on my iYglass and try to go online, it just plays the same stupid video of the preachy Justness League clerics talking about following the humans on the 'ultimate quest of enlightenment'. They play an animation of a giant catapult launching hundreds of dogs into the sun, while rockets follow in the background, and then when they reach the sun, the dogs turn into these shiny light beings or something, all smiling and pleased, and Bahman and Soupman and the rest of the humans are all there on the sun, and the dogs and the masters all join hands and sing and spiral around in twirly circles, and then they turn into this big blue flame that gets sucked into the sun. It's really fucking lame, if you ask me.

If Bahman is such a bad-ass messiah of justice, then why does he need to wear a mask? Seems like kind of a weird thing for a holy savior to need to hide his identity from everyone like that. There's a lot about religion that doesn't make much sense come to think of it, but it's like there's this mental block in my mind that cuts me off whenever I start to analyze it too deeply, you know? I don't know if I'm really going to go to the cave in the sky and meet Bahman and Soupman when I choke, but I guess it would be better than just suddenly ceasing to exist forever.