The Hipster From Outer Space (The Hipster Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

“Sorry, I forgot we’re in human public,” Moomamu said as he sipped from the cappuccino. The warm buzz of caffeine ran through his human body, finding its way into his bloodstream, working its way around his body, zapping his muscles and fibres with energy.
 

Gary licked from his small bowl of milk that the young caffeine woman had suggested. She’d said, “Does your pretty kitty want a plate of milk?”

Moomamu had said he wasn’t sure, but “If the human wants to bring one out for him, we’d see”. And she did, and then he did, and then Moomamu learned something new about cats. They liked to drink lactation too. What a weird planet this was, he thought to himself. Everything here was addicted to lactation.
 

“Well, let me tell you, I have to wonder that if I can teleport, I think I might just try to teleport myself back home. I mean, what’s stopping me? Other than the fact that I don’t know how I did it.”

“The Thinker would die if he tried,” Gary whispered, his face still in his plate of lactation. “His human body would suffocate in the vacuum of space. His internal fluids would burst into vapour, swelling his human body to twice its normal size. The watery parts of his body would freeze over, the lower boiling temperature of blood would cause your insides to bubble, and Thinker would be dead within several minutes of Earth time.”

Moomamu looked up from his drink. He looked at his human hands and shook his head.

“This vessel. This damn vessel. What’s the point in it? It’s like a fragile piece of fruit, prone to bruising and rotting and suffocating in space.”

Gary looked up from his plate at Moomamu. His nose was dripping with white until he licked it off. A woman walked past them and they both kept silent.
 

Once she was out of earshot, Moomamu leaned across the table towards Gary.
 

“Every day on this planet, in this body, surrounded by stupid big apes and microbial life, crawling around me, interacting with me, getting in my hair, in my emotions, it all makes me sick. I think it’s making me ill. And Thinkers shouldn’t get ill. We’re not supposed to get involved with all this nonsense, all this drama. We’re just supposed to watch from afar. Let it all play out how it’s supposed to … with death. Because that’s what happens. If I’m honest, there’s one thing I’ve noticed about life — one constant — and that’s death. I’m not supposed to get involved with death. I’m supposed to live forever. I’m immortal, dammit!” Noticing his volume ramping up he adjusted himself and sat back.
 

“Death is what makes life so precious,” Gary whispered from his plate. “Without it, we would all be like you.”

Moomamu felt his face scrunch up into its confused configuration.
 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said, throwing his hands into the air. “You know … I can’t wait to get back to my place in the stars, because then I could be rid of you and your nonsense speak.”

Gary didn’t answer. He was looking across the table, behind Moomamu. When Moomamu turned he saw a smartly-dressed human with blood in his hair.

“May I?” the human said. His suit looked expensive. Other than the red dots of dark blood on his collar, he looked like one of the more intelligent humans. If there was such a thing.

“What?” Moomamu said. “What are you talking about, human?”

The human’s mouth widened and exposed its pale white teeth.
 

“May I join you? May I sit down? I would like to talk to you.”

Moomamu looked over to Gary, who was busy looking like a dumb Earth cat, and turned back to the human.

“There’s like twenty free sitting places,” he said, pointing to the empty tables and chairs. “I don’t see why you want to sit next to me?”

“Fine,” the man said. “I’ll stand.” The man’s head shook like he had an itch under his ear. “I’m not going to rip his tongue …” He coughed and recomposed himself … back to the smile configuration.

Moomamu saw that the human wasn’t normal. Something was wrong with him. He was broken. Gary climbed onto the table and walked over to Moomamu’s side, his fur backing up, sticking out. Moomamu placed his left hand on a plastic eating stick. He placed his right hand on his beard, readying to flick and spit.

“Look,” the man said, noticing Moomamu’s eating stick. “I would like for us to go somewhere for a little chat. Somewhere …” Moomamu saw the blood vessels in the man’s eyes. He saw that he was in pain. With every word his head twitched. He thought he saw a bubble of black fluid burst on the side of his head “Just somewhere quiet. Where we can talk. I want to help you. I want to make you a success.”

Moomamu steeled himself. His stomach churned.
 

“No, I don’t think so,” Moomamu said. “I’m on my way home soon. I don’t have time for conversations with broken humans with leaking heads.”

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said. It was the angry-eyed-female from behind the counter. The one who was staring at Gary. She was carrying a tray of little brown parcels of food. They were steaming with heat. “Can you please get your cat down from the table? We don’t even allow pets normally.”
 

She took a step towards their table. Moomamu gripped the eating stick. The broken man’s head violently shook.
 

“Okay!” the man shouted to the skies and everyone stopped what they were doing. “Okay…”
 

Tears streamed down his cheeks. The humans didn’t know what to do. A couple of them left. The woman with the tray of hot food stopped.
 

“I’ll just fucking get it over with here,” he said. “Fuck me, let’s just fucking do it.”
 

He leapt forward and wrapped both hands around Moomamu’s neck, pushing him backwards into the seat.
 

Markus Schmiebler

Markus opened his eyes and groaned. The sunlight was coming in through the living room window and right into his eye-line like the annoying prick it was. The sun was now the enemy. Life too. Life was also the enemy. Everything was the enemy now. He lifted his heavy hand to his face and wiped the dried saliva from his mouth and the sleep from his eyes and the snot from his nose. He’d fallen asleep crying again. In his other hand he was holding a cold chicken tikka kebab — mayonnaise on his shirt, chilli sauce on his trousers.
 

He was lying on the cold wooden floor of the living room — their living room. The TV was on, but not set to any channel, just a menu page. How did he end up on the floor?

As he pulled himself to his feet he realised his mouth was as dry as his forehead was wet with sweat. He coughed up some phlegm and wiped his head with his shirt sleeve. His shirt was unbuttoned. His naked belly was poking out. His head felt light. His stomach felt heavy.
 

Markus looked to his gaming setup on the other side of the living room. The perfect Aeron chair. The HD Surround headphones. The computer tower he put together himself — 64 gigabytes of RAM, two Solid State Drives — and a GPU to make most gamers weep. On the floor next to it was a small beanbag and the Alienware laptop that Louise used to play on. He hadn’t played Fantasy Swords Online since Louise ran away. He couldn’t bring himself to go on it. He’d probably been kicked out of his guild by now. Ah well.

He saw a can of cider on the coffee table. He gave it a quick shake and drank whatever was left, and then stood. He zombie-walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and downed what was left of the milk. It was a little sour, a little thick, but he didn’t care. He then walked back to the computer, switched it on, and logged onto his Facebook account.

The Find My Louise Facebook group had five new likes and two new messages. A sudden pang of excitement as he opened the first message. Some guy called David Hornby was asking if Markus could support his crowdfunding campaign to make a film.
 

Delete.

The second message. Some woman called Leanne asking if he’d found his wife and that her prayers were with him and Louise.

Delete.

Markus sighed.
 

He logged out of Facebook and checked his e-mails. He scanned through, feeling a little more hopeless than the day before, but then … something …

Is Yayatooism For You?

Yayatoo? The name that Louise had started calling herself. He clicked on the e-mail:

‘Hello there,

I hope you’re well.

Why have you gotten this e-mail? Who are you? Who am I? What the hell is Yayatooism?

If you’ve gotten this far in the e-mail, then you have passed the test. You are cordially invited to the first Yayatoo summit.

Why you? What have you done to deserve such an exclusive invite to not only the coolest, and most exclusive party of the century, but also the first official Yayatoo ritual?

A note on the word “ritual”:

We don’t like it. It sounds far too Trad-Rel. It brings to mind images of bare hands pressed together, wafers in the mouth, people with incense, cross-legged on a mountain, taking long pilgrimage walks and that sort of thing. Yuk! Too much effort! Am I right? Definitely not a Yayatoo sort of thing.

We prefer to call it a Sesh, as in a Session. You know like you might call a gaming session or a gym session. A Sesh. Just popping out for a Sesh. Get it?

So what is the Yayatoo Sesh? I don’t want to give away too many details, but I would like to tell you that it’s going to blow your mind! It’s all going to be live streamed over the internet to millions, but this will definitely be something you want to experience in person. In the same way riding a roller coaster is more fun than watching people ride a roller coaster. You know what I mean?

So, yes, you’re special. Be thankful. The event will be fully catered, with a bar stocked with alcohol. All you need to do to confirm your attendance is reply to this e-mail with the words “Yes To Yayatoo” along with your phone number. From there you’ll receive a text message with the location, time, and date, along with instructions for the required clothing.

Okay, so that’s all we have to say. We know you’ll want to be there.

Looking forward to hearing back from you,

Thanks,

Samwell Lloyd,

High Priest & Creative Director of Yayatoo, Inc.’

Markus hit the reply button straight away. He typed in the words “Yes To Yayatoo” along with his phone number and pressed send. He looked at the living room full of old food, dirty plates and bowls, the smell of sweaty balls and he went to grab a bin bag. He needed to start making the place look liveable again, because, one way or another, he was determined that he was going to bring Louise back home.

Bexley Darlington-Whit

The countryside. Always a breath of fresh air. Rosie could smell the pollen count. Her sinuses flared, readying to go into overdrive … soon the sneezing and the eye-itching would begin.
 

“Pave the world,” she said to Bexley who was staring out of the passenger seat window. “Pave the goddamn world.”

Outside were lush rolling hills of green, divided by stone walls into fields full of sheep and goats and little houses. Oh, how the other half live. Rosie had thought about moving to the countryside a few times. She got about two minutes in before the idyllic daydreams were squashed with reality. She wouldn’t be with her family. She wouldn’t be able to do her job. She’d have a terrible internet connection. And worst of all, she’d be bored as fuck. How many times can you run around in a field of green before you find yourself growing tired? That hunting rifle on the wall would probably look ever more enticing after a few months in the green. She’d maybe find herself playing with the gun on a lazy afternoon, then she’d start tempting herself by placing the gun to her chin, loaded, her finger dancing on the trigger. She’d never considered suicide, but she knew that one way or another, out of boredom or frustration, the countryside would kill her.
 

“What about the algae?” Bexley mumbled.
 

“What?” Rosie said. “The algae?”

“Eighty percent of the oxygen on the planet is produced by the algae in the seas. If you pave the world, therefore the seas, the algae would die, the oxygen would be gone, and the planet would become uninhabitable for human life.” He turned to face her, scratching at the bandages on his hands.

“Yeah well …” she said.

“And the bees? Where would they live?” he said. “And the trees and grass? All essential to maintaining the perfectly balanced ecosystem we currently live in. Paving the world would be like its own space-time inconsistency. It would unbalance everything. We would not survive.” He turned back to the passenger seat window.

“Well, it was just an expression really,” Rosie said under her breath.
 

A sign passed them that read ‘Alvaston’ and they turned onto a smaller road, blocked on each side with piles of stones. They passed an old Victorian pub where an old man in waterproof boots sat on a bench outside with his giant English sheepdog. He had a pint of something brown in his hand. The clock on the dashboard read 11 a.m.
 

They slowed the car down and drove on past a bakery, with a group of builders standing outside, smoking and munching on meat-filled pastries. Further down they passed a corner shop. A handwritten sign in the window read ‘Three children at a time’. They both inspected each building as they passed, looking for something.
 

“Over there,” Bexley said, pointing further up the road at a big white sign. It was old and haggard and due for a fresh coat of paint. In black it read ‘White Log Farm’ and beneath it was a cartoon of a pig’s face, fat and plump, with a human moustache and the words ‘Lenny Says Welcome’ beneath it.
 

They turned and drove up the gravel road, the stones crunching beneath the old Saab’s wheels. They drove past a load of nothing with a few scattered animals.
 

“Well, this isn’t exactly the buzz of animal fun I was expecting,” Rosie said as they passed a large plain of grass with nothing on it but a single horse, walking a perfect circle around the post it was tied to.