Meeting Bleet

Kevin ambled around inside what appeared, at the end of the day, to be a large goldfish bowl. He had left the other human goldfish debating the merits or otherwise of being pets. As Kevin bumped unsuspectingly into a transparent wall, he looked up and saw one of Stroob’s cowgirls. Kevin waved through the wall at the girl who smiled shyly and pointed to a door at the end of the bowl. Walking towards the door, Kevin saw an illuminated patch on the wall. He pushed the patch, the door slid open and Kevin walked quickly through.

He was hit immediately by a wall of hot air and the sound of pounding surf. His feet sunk into warm pure white sand. The girl walked towards him, her hair blowing in the sea breeze which also ruffled the tassels on her leather miniskirt.

‘’Ello,’ said Kevin, for once in his life lost for words when talking to a girl. ‘My name’s Kevin.’

‘I know,’ said the girl, smiling gently and lowering her eye.

‘Oh… er… wha’s yours?’ he added, looking around in amazement as a palm tree strolled by.

‘Bleet,’ replied the lithe girl, tossing her hair in the wind.

‘What an… um… lovely name,’ said Kevin, knowing that he sounded pathetic but at the same time desperately wanting to avoid saying anything that could be identified with any animals, be they sheep, cows or, Heaven forbid, Rabophantts.

Bleet smiled, nodded, but said nothing.

‘I… er… dunno quite what to say,’ stuttered Kevin, finding that even someone with his conversational aptitude, as far as the fairer sex was concerned, could discover himself lost for words from time to time. ‘I mean, this is all… well… so… um… odd. A few seconds ago we were in… in… in… wherever we were… and now we’re ’ere on some sort of desert island with bloody palm trees wanderin’ about. To be honest, I don’t fink I know where I am or what I’m doin’.’ I mean it’s enuff to give a bloke the screamin’ ab dabs,’ he added, surprised that he sounded so emotional.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Bleet softly. ‘It’s quite natural for you to feel a little disorientated. It is only to be expected when you have just travelled ten light years to a galaxy further away from your planet Earth than you ever believed existed and when your previous experience of foreign travel was limited to a one-week break in Torremolinos. Why don’t you just sit down here and take a rest?’ she said, settling down on the sand and beckoning to the tree to come over and give them some shade.

The tree shuffled over. ‘Will this do for your cosy little chat?’ it asked, spreading its branches and sounding peeved at having to stand still and actually look treelike.

‘Very nicely, thank you. Please remain here until I dismiss you,’ replied Bleet sternly in the direction of the tree, which rustled its fronds in annoyance. ‘And could you please turn the sea down to conversational level.’

‘What did your last slave die of?’ hissed the tree.

‘Now,’ said Bleet sweetly, turning towards Kevin, ‘tell me how I can help you.’

‘Well,’ said Kevin, looking around nervously as the sound of the sea subsided from pounding to a gentle swishing and the tree lent over them trying to catch what they were saying. ‘It’s difficult to know where to start. Er, at the beginnin’, I suppose,’ he added quickly before the annoying tree could beat him to it.

‘You see, part of the problem is that, although Frumm has explained bits ’n pieces as well as ’e can, I don’t fink any of us ’as got the faintest idea wot ’e’s rabbitin’ on abaht. You know, I mean where we really are and what this place is…’

Bleet looked confused. ‘I can understand how confused you must be but I must admit, I am not sure I understand what rabbits have to do with the problem…’

‘To be honest, I’m a bit lost too,’ added the tree.

‘It’s an expression,’ said Kevin, glaring at the tree. ‘It means sort of… well… what ’e is talkin’ about, I suppose.’

‘I see,’ said Bleet, smiling. The tree shrugged its leaves. ‘But to be honest, I don’t think many of us understand most of what Thrumm says, and we have had the so-called advantage of working with him for a few thousand years. He’s a bit special.’

‘You can say that again,’ butted in the tree.

‘Ain’t there any way of making this bleedin’ tree shut up?’ Kevin asked, becoming increasingly irritated by its perpetual interruptions.

‘Oh, no,’ said Bleet, shocked. ‘It has a constitutional right to free expression. But don’t worry, it’s only doing it to annoy. Just ignore it and concentrate on me,’ she said sweetly, moving nearer to Kevin. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

Bleet produced two plastic phials, broke the top off each and handed one to Kevin. ‘Cheers,’ she said, as she gulped the contents. Kevin looked in amazement, then quickly followed suit. What followed was like a son et lumière to the finale of the 1812 Overture with added fireworks. Kevin felt his legs crumbling, his ears lighting up and his eyes popping.

‘Christ, wassat?’ he gasped, trying to stop himself exploding.

‘Don’t you like it?’ asked Bleet, looking worried. ‘I know it’s rather low on the orgasmic scale, but I thought it might do as an aperitif. It’s called a “Sunrise”. Chancellor Legs Eleven Stroob has a few every morning to get him going.’

‘It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just… kind of… a bit unusual, that’s all,’ said Kevin, beginning to regain the feeling in his right leg. ‘In fact it was rather good. Let’s ’ave anuvver.’

Kevin couldn’t believe what his mouth was saying, as Bleet snapped the tops off two more Sunrises.

‘Well, Bleet… do you mind if I call you that?’

‘It’s a good start considering it’s her name,’ mumbled the tree.

‘I reckon it might ’elp a bit,’ continued Kevin, giving the tree the cold shoulder, ‘if you could tell me wot Frumm really looks like when ’e ain’t got up as a cow.’ He was relieved at finally being able to ask one of the questions that had been bothering all of them since Thrumm had first appeared before them. ‘And for that matter, wot do any of you really look like when you ain’t looking like wot you are looking like now… like…?’

Bleet put her head on one side as she reran Kevin’s question through her cryptathon. ‘Oh dear, that is going to be a bit difficult to answer without referring to a lot of things which will be completely beyond your Human comprehension at this stage. I suppose the answer is, in simple terms, “Whatever the other person wants”.’

Kevin looked totally confused, and Bleet wondered whether the Sunrises were disagreeing with him.

‘Look at it this way,’ she continued. ‘We are here in this environment because that is where you wanted us to be right now.’

‘You gotta be kiddin’,’ said Kevin, looking cross-eyed.

‘This guy has a wonderful vocabulary for a moron,’ muttered the tree.

Bleet once again looked lost and put her head on one side. ‘I am terribly sorry, but I am really not clear what children or goats have to do with this,’ she said, with a slight edge of irritation showing in her voice.

‘Why don’t we all just give up and go back to what we were doing?’ offered the tree.

‘Shut up!’ snapped Bleet sharply.

‘Oh, beg pardon,’ said Kevin, regaining his senses, ‘nuvver slang expression that your box of tricks ain’t programmed to cope wiv. It means that I mean that I don’t believe wot you are saying. About the seaside ’n all.’

‘I hope you don’t think I have been deliberately misleading you,’ said Bleet, looking both concerned and offended. The tree sniggered.

‘No, no, not at all,’ said Kevin hurriedly, feeling that Bleet could definitely be developing the wrong opinion about him. ‘The problem is that I really don’t understand what any of you are goin’ on abaht when you try ’n explain even simple fings. I mean it just don’t make no sense…’

‘You can fool some of the people all of the time…’ hummed the tree.

Bleet’s cryptathon struggled to cope with Kevin’s double negative. She decided to ignore what he was actually saying and to concentrate instead on the emotional vibrations he was giving off.

‘Tell you what,’ said Kevin, trying to restore a dominant manly approach to the conversation, a task made incredibly difficult when having to do everything stark naked, to say nothing of the after-effects of two Sunrises, ‘why don’t you start by explain’ in simple language where you all come from?’

‘Oh boy!’ groaned the tree.

‘Well, let me try and put it this way,’ said Bleet, smiling softly, tossing her hair and settling back into the sand.

God, what an amazing bird, thought Kevin, as he looked at Bleet’s exquisite body and tried to ignore the fact that she only had one eye located in the middle of her forehead. Kevin felt an unfortunate stirring develop in his middle region. He tried hard to suppress this by thinking hard about the service interval of his Volvo lorry.

‘We are told that we had our origins on Earth,’ continued Bleet, happily oblivious to Kevin’s problem. ‘Many many thousands of years ago, our Earth ancestors finally discovered a method of interplanetary travel that didn’t either take too long or explode at regular intervals – the unfortunate hallmark of previous systems. As a result, they started to set up colonies on nearby planets. In fact, this development was the only way to go since they were beginning to exhaust Earth’s natural resources, while at the same time filling up all the undeveloped areas that were left with garbage produced by developed ones.’

‘How long have you got?’ asked the tree.

‘So it was that the pioneers left Earth to discover new planets to exploit, invest in and ultimately fill up with waste products,’ continued Bleet, glaring at the tree. ‘At the time, the Earth Humans were the most advanced form of development around for a few light years, so they found it quite easy to cope with any local resistance they met from the poor unfortunate things that happened to be living wherever it was the Humans travelled to.’

‘Likely story,’ grumped the tree.

‘Actually, the Humans’ main strength was that, as a result of their exposure to the horribly polluted environment from which they were emigrating, their resistance to infection was immense. Moreover, they had an almost unique ability to infect whoever or whatever it was they came across. So it was that over time, a whole new intergalactic civilisation developed based on an amalgam of Earth culture and the most disease resistant of the other things they encountered. As you might imagine, those “creatures” least likely to succumb to some horrible Earthly infection were those which had the greatest degree of automation and the least degree of… let’s say… animal tissue. So a two-tier society developed, based on those beings which were basically of Human origin and those who weren’t. Us and them.’

Kevin grunted to show that his feeble human brain was keeping up with this extremely simplified version of Mexatode Galaxy’s development, despite the two Sunrises. Bleet continued.

‘The more the life forms developed, the less we could see the use for the basic Human packaging that we had traditionally come in. One fine day, some bright spark discovered how we could reduce our fundamental being to its basic atomic structure and reassemble it at the drop of a hat in whatever shape, size or location we want to. This discovery, as you might imagine, was something of a turning point once people got the hang of it. Everyone atomising and subsequently reappearing all over the place in different forms.’

‘Well, I can see how it was a bit of a shock,’ said Kevin, ‘but why a turning point?’

‘Simple really,’ said Bleet, arching her back on the sand and showing more thigh than was good for Kevin’s blood pressure.

‘Up to that point, everyone had been trying to discover the answer to everything to make life simple. This, however, assumes that there are some basic ground rules that govern the nitty-gritty aspects about how and where we live. Like cows look like cows, trees don’t generally talk and Humans come in the same presentation pack that you are using now. Once this smart guy discovers how to move the atomic structure goal posts, suddenly everyone has a major dilemma – forget worrying about, “Will my space transport start in the morning?” or “Where shall I take the family on holiday?” Oh no, we are into a whole new area of, “In what form shall I manifest myself today to maximise the impact of my presence on those I am trying to impress; animal, vegetable or mineral?” Imagine the problem faced by those people who had previously agonised over whether to wear stripes or dots when they went out in the morning when they had the added responsibility of deciding whether to be a rock, a tree, or a boring old Human.

‘The suicide rate shot up. Or at least we think it did. On the other hand it might just have been the end result of people pushing the wrong mental button and floating off into space as a mixture of disassembled atoms, while trying to materialise as a wholemeal roll in a bid to make a dramatic entrance at a meeting on organic lifestyles.’

‘You mean anyone could be anything?’ asked Kevin, stunned at the thought.

‘Well done,’ muttered the tree.

‘Exactly,’ continued Bleet. ‘Not only that, but also where they wanted to be it. When you went through the cleansing chamber and were reassembled, you were given the basic components to transmit these thoughts. That’s how we ended up on this beach. You wanted it.’

‘Me?’ Kevin blurted out in amazement.

‘Give me strength,’ groaned the tree.

‘Yes,’ continued Bleet patiently. ‘Didn’t Thrumm go into all this?’

‘Obviously not,’ grumbled the tree. ‘But then what is one to expect…’

‘Oh well, let me try and explain as best I can,’ sighed Bleet.

‘When I asked you to meet me just now, you gave off environment rays suggesting the type of location and circumstances in which we were to meet. A quite normal procedure before any meeting can take place. In your case, I edited two suggestions; one of which was completely inappropriate, and another which was disgusting and selected the third which was this – a beach environment. SWOPP provided the picture as it were, and here we are in it. All you have to do is to transmit the basic idea concerning the desired environment and provided the other party or parties agree, SWOPP fills in the gaps. You know, bridges, rivers and dancing girls.’

‘And trees,’ said the tree.

‘Um, I think I see,’ said Kevin, remembering the disgusting thought he had had when seeing Bleet through the glass wall and feeling rather embarrassed that she knew all about it.

‘But there is still an ’ellava lot I don’t understand,’ he continued. ‘For instance, why do you and the other bird… er… girl… ’ang around that horrible Chancellor Legs Eleven Stroob all day long? It don’t seem ’elfy for you to spend your time in the company of an old geezer… er… man… like that.’

‘Leef,’ said Bleet, breaking open another two Sunrises.

Somewhere in the distance Harry Belafonte started to sing. ‘Oh island in the sun…’

‘Sorry, didn’t get that,’ said Kevin, looking around to see where the music was coming from.

‘It was “Oh island in the sun”,’ said the tree helpfully.

‘Her name is Leef,’ said Bleet, glaring at the tree. ‘We often work together. And you really shouldn’t talk about Chancellor Legs Eleven Stroob in that way. He is only a few thousand years old and he has a rather bad temper. He might decide to do something nasty to you.’

‘Do you really fink so?’ asked Kevin. ‘’E didn’t look that bad when we saw ’im.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Bleet, looking serious for once. ‘I have seen him dispose of people just because they didn’t say “thank you”. If he is in a really bad mood you had better watch out.’

Bleet turned towards Kevin as she said this and looked at him with a concerned expression on her face.

The strains of Harry Belafonte continued and the tree started humming and swinging its leaves: ‘All my days I will sing in praise…’

A cool breeze sprang up as the sun started going down. Kevin was amazed at how easy it was to amend the environment when you got the knack.

Sod it, thought Kevin, feeling as though he had had ten gallons of Ruddles and deciding that if Bleet knew what he had been thinking from the outset, he might as well do something about it.

Kevin turned on his most radiant and boyish ‘trust me’ smile, leant over and placed his hand on Bleet’s thigh.

The tree rustled as it leant further over them to avoid missing any of the detail.

‘Well, well, Human Kevin, I don’t think you have been listening to a word I have been saying,’ said Bleet coyly, as she rested her hand on his. ‘However, thank you for the conversation.’ She smiled as she slowly dissolved, leaving Kevin clutching at sand.

‘Well, you screwed that up right royally, didn’t you,’ said the tree.

Kevin didn’t reply. He was a million miles away, dreaming of what might have been. Even this small diversion proved to be short-lived as his dreams were disturbed violently by Brenda’s harsh voice broadcasting across the soft sound of the sea.

‘And wot the ’ell do you think you are playing at, Kevin Jones, trying to get yer ’and up that cowgirl’s skirt!’

Bloody ’ell, thought Kevin, jerking back to reality, surely I can’t ’ave been daft enough to give off environment requesting rays which included Brenda.

As if on cue, Brenda stomped into view, looking like thunder and Kevin felt the urgent need for another Sunrise or three.