Dancing All The Way down to the Graveyard

By Bruce Hanna

21 quirky tales from the wacky side of laughter and love in the worldwide lunatic asylum. Here, the poor and loveless find solace in crime and the blurry territory of loyalty and optimism. People are so similar and so different, every one of us in our own fashion dancing all the way down to the graveyard.

Bombs go off and life goes on, for some. Happiness is everywhere, relishing in delusions of self-importance, love runs amok or sneaks up on us when almost too late, a woman invents men, space travellers bring culture to Earth. Everyone in these stories is born equal, except for poor folk. The luckiest learn to treasure the liberty to laugh whilst elsewhere others cry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bruce Hanna
• Release date: Nov 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005067762

Bruce Hanna

“I’m no writer. I actually don’t write. The stuff just comes out, like the insides of an insect clinging to the windscreen of a speeding vehicle.” – Bruce HannaAfter growing up among construction sites and factories of western Sydney, Australia, Bruce Hanna became a homeless outlaw, hunted by Federal, State and Army police due to his refusal to collaborate in the USA-led war against Vietnam. He was later granted amnesty under the Whitlam-Barnard Labor government.Hanna’s writing and cartoons appeared on fringes of the Australian press, including The Bulletin, Nation Review, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Tribune and the underground tabloid Paper TV. They may also be found in obscure collections of his poetry, along with Suicide Circus, an illustrated homage to the self-devastation of the human race, along with his PsychoJunk recordings beginning with Mad Dog on Crazy Street (1999).Hanna’s first novel Fatal Moments (published by A&R in 1987) caused Peter Bowler in Canberra Times to remark on a “delicious thread of dry humour running through the high drama” and “the sheer outrageous fecundity of Hanna’s imaginativeness.” Hanna reveals the World in spurts of liquid insight, and outrage etched into his writing by acidic humour, as reflected in Sentimental Traveller (2020) a compassion-fuelled narrative of cross-century travels. Some years ago, his e-books (Babu, Comedy of Turmoil and Scrapheap of Dreams) with Sentimental Traveller were made available free of charge, for educational purposes.

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DANCING ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE GRAVEYARD

Short stories by Bruce Hanna

Copyright 2022 Bruce Hanna

Distributed by Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends.

This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

About the author

Other books by Bruce Hanna

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. JOLLY HOUSEMATES

2. A WORLD ELSEWHERE

3. BROTHER OF THE DEVIL

4. THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

5. PSYCHO PETE AND THE MAGISTRATE’S DAUGHTER

6. WHAT NOBODY KNOWS HURTS NO ONE

7. COCO KOHLER IN DAYS OF COVID

8. I NEED YOU, SHE WEPT

9. RECONCILIATION AVENUE

10. HAPPY ANZAC DAY

11. NEW YORK CITY GUNBATTLE

12. LOYAL SERVANT

13. WARM HEARTED COLD POWER

14. MAD SHIT LOOKING NORMAL

15. THE CRUEL AND HATEFUL CHILD

16. INVISIBLE FILM MAKER, HARVEY LEE

17. GREAT IMPERSONATIONS

18. BDSM SUPERSIZED

19. A TIDY ENDING

20. OPTIMISTIC EPILOGUE

21. SELFIES ON THE ROAD TO PHLEGMATIC FLAMBOYANCY

JOLLY HOUSEMATES

It doesn’t mean a lot, what’s real and what’s not. Everybody is crazy. Aretha accepted the fact. Life eats mouse-holes in your mind. The Kroll brothers were no different. Aretha accepted them into her life, as she accepted others before them, because she felt hollow and empty.

Bad-breath Nick Dixon moved in with Aretha, long before the Krolls. Nick said he was a retired morgue attendant. She did not like that, nor did she like him. He was a scruffy, uncouth type, but she hated to be alone. It was a temporary arrangement at first. Then even more so, after Nick breathed on her face, with an alluring smile.

I’d like it better if you call me Nicky, he oozed.

Soon after Nick Dixon moved in, a guy named Henry moved in too. Aretha hoped the extra face round the place would reduce the risk of Mr Dixon getting big ideas. Henry was a clean-cut Christian Scientist working as postal deliveryman, always smoking cigarettes and reading his 20th Century American Bible in Aretha’s kitchenette.

Certain sections of the Gospels confirmed Henry’s belief the fate of humanity was doomed by false values and fake science. He became fired with a passion to bear forth the evangelical sword of salvation.

The problem was Henry and Nicky were nuts. They made each other worse. Henry was fired from his postal job. He said unemployment was a Godsend. It gave him time to study and reflect. Henry was the one with big ideas, not Nick. Henry’s brainwave was to overthrow the ‘ungodly’ elected Government. Nicky sympathised with Henry’s delusions. The idea of unleashing an armed uprising gave Nick a sense of purpose.

To cut a long story short, the former-postman and retired corpse-cleaner sat upat night in the spare bedroom or the kitchenette, compiling a list of two hundred names categorised by suburb and occupation. This was their imaginary army of followers, petty criminals, rapists, murderers and perpetrators of domestic violence. The names, if not the troops, were recruited by scouring news reports of court cases. Henry was convinced such sinners could be healed by Heavenly resolve. Aretha worried where this madness might lead.

More upsetting, were Henry’s complaints about Aretha’s housekeeping, while he sat round smoking like a chimney.

This place is a disgusting mess, he said. Why don’t you do something about it?

If you don’t like it, you do something about it, she defended herself, but she felt it unfair she needed to. I didn’t do homework when I went to school, and I don’t do it now.

Who did Henry think he was? Anxiety added to Aretha’s heart problems. So much so, her doctor increased her medication. Pigheaded Henry and Nicky were totally kidding themselves. In reality, as far as Aretha knew, they had not even one acquaintance other than herself, much less a single follower. They sat round the table drawing up strategies and composing manifestos, calling each other by their underground aliases, Mr President and My Man. Then, one day the cops came and dragged them away. By that time, Aretha had grown tired of them and their make-believe insurrection. An admirable idea perhaps, but totally impractical.

At first, she was fascinated by Henry and Nicky. She found their enthusiasm appealing. But it was the same thing day after day, highly inflamed speechifying and table-thumping. Aretha could not be sure for certain it was not she who alerted the authorities, just to be rid of the lunatics. Her memory was not reliable and she had mental problems that required medication, on top of her heart tablets, plus a daily menu for migraines, diabetes, cholesterol, and iron and calcium deficiencies and what else she did not remember what.

Thankfully, Henry and Nicky were dragged screaming from the house by cops and incarcerated. She never heard from them again.

Then came the Krolls. They were a strange pair, almost identical twins apart from a huge difference in ages. Aretha felt sorry for the ninety-five years old brother, Jacko the Wacko Kroll. He almost never left the couch she purchased for his comfort. She was even more sympathetic to his young brother Sunny Buoy confined to the wheelchair which she also purchased out of the kindness of her heart, rather than have him crawl round the floor, as he originally did.

The Kroll brothers were jolly company. Good listeners and easy to please. They made not the slightest mess, and even better, they did not complain about hers. In fact, they were no trouble at all. At least, they were not conspiring in her kitchenette to start a civil war. And better still, they never ceased to amuse Aretha, unlike her former housemates, the scheming terrorist Henry and his dull-witted disciple Nicky, now serving prison sentences for conspiracy.

The Kroll brothers asked Aretha, Which of us do you like best?

She replied, Neither of you, actually.

She had grown fond of the Krolls, but platonically. The brothers glanced at each other, and turned their eyes back on her. Jacko stared unblinking in his normal crazy fashion. The brothers’ sad faces tugged at Aretha’s heartstrings.

Oh, I guess you are both sort of okay, in a way, she said.

Is that good or bad? Sunny Buoy asked.

Not so bad, shrugged Aretha. But sometimes not so good.

What’s that supposed to mean? Wacko Jacko grumbled.

Neither of you is as bad as my father. He was in the police, a Detective Inspector, but he wound up in gaol for shameful behaviour I refuse to talk about, said Aretha. A typical man. I don’t like to think of him. But not all men are bad. My grandfather, for one was a thorough gentleman. Great fun. And kind-hearted unlike his father, so my grandmother told me. I never met my great grandfather though, he was dead before I was born, my great grandfather. He was actually a rich landowner, back in colonial times, apparently much hated by the blackfellows. But the poor old great granddad was shot dead in a pistol duel. He was not one of the duellists. My great grandfather was the referee. He stood too close to the line of fire and a wild shot took the throat out of his neck. He bled to death on the spot. It was a huge scandal at the time, in the courts and all. Of course, duels were illegal. The argument was said to be over a woman. But that was just an excuse. Men are absolute suckers when it comes to matters of pride and greed. Neither duellist was harmed. It was impossible to determine if the fatal slug came from one duellist or the other. The wound was a gory mess, it was possible both duellists shot him. In the end everyone blamed my great grandfather for the accident. They said he should never have gotten involved, or at least stood out of the way.

Life is like that, isn’t it? said Jacko the Wacko.

You took the words out of my mouth, Aretha agreed.

Then Jacko laughed, The defenceless victim always takes the blame. Like in old days, when King Charles the third visited Barbados and apologised for the slave trade that made his family rich. But he never gave back even one bag of gold or money. He kept the Royal Family’s old-time slavery profits hidden away at home in Buckingham Palace.

What the Hell are you talking about? Sunny asked. What is a Barbie-doss?

Jacko shook his head patronisingly, and he muttered, Don’t worry, little brother. Ignorance is bliss.

For once, Aretha did not let the matter slide.

He means Barbie Dolls, she said, referring to late night TV advertisements for life size robot-ladies appealing to lonely men.

Aretha wondered why manufacturers failed to realise the potential market among women for similar male-form devices. She would certainly order one. They could be programmed with conversation. Perhaps not so opiniated as gasbag Jacko. And with less of his bombastic tone.

Uncannily, Aretha often agreed with what Jacko said. But she found it hard to tell which of his pronouncements were entirely accurate, or partly so, or not at all. They all sounded the same, with his habit of expert commentary, about wars and famine and every speck of bad news made by man, all the way down from the dunghill of Greed to the sewage pit of hungry-gutted Need, dwelling on every carnage wrought by endless struggles between self-proclaimed Promised Lands versus every crackpot version of God’s Own Country.

Jacko enjoyed harping tirelessly about the history of Faith Slaves slaughtering each other in the hallowed name of equal lies. And he always did so in surprising good humour, as if whatever he said didn’t matter two hoots. After all, the entire course of human history was sure to remain unaltered by the grumbling of an old invalid on a plastic couch. Aretha admired that about Jacko. He kept an upbeat spirit, even when describing a bloodbath and cruelty enough to make her skin crawl.

Jacko upheld the tradition of people in every era, wonderfully adept at looking on the bright side of things. True battlers, such as the Kroll brothers and Aretha herself remained optimistic, regardless of personal misfortune and the parlous state of World affairs.

In the recent election, for instance, the Kroll brothers each put his money on a different party. Jacko won the bet, though in the larger scheme of things, both men lost. Such is the way of all things. The fact is, Governments do not run the country, and never did. An esoteric detail Jacko often mentioned but overlooked at election time.

Now thankfully, there was nothing to argue about, till next election. The election was over. Same old same. The life-battered Kroll brothers sat, chatting with their shared benefactor Aretha, while the live-stream Internet screen on the wall glowed and spat out a stream of horselaughs, blab and background music. There they sat, ninety-five years old Jacko on his yellow-skinned plastic couch, young Sunny in his shiny new wheelchair, and Aretha on her recliner, like three unwise monkeys, seeing evil, hearing evil, and speaking shit. From time to time, Aretha absented herself, to allow the brothers privacy.

There was seventy years difference in the age of the brothers. Jacko The Wacko had been born by old fashion IVF, with an egg harvested from his mother’s insides. Whereas his brother Sunny was decades later similarly sprouted from a frozen embryo fertilised by a stranger’s sperm. Aretha dreamed the embryo was implanted in her as a surrogate, though she could not recall how Sunny came into being after that. Therefore, she harboured a strangely vicarious feeling of motherhood for the pair, Jacko by adoption and Sunny by virtual gestation.

Apart from their scientifically-assisted conception, both men were entirely normal, by modern standards. Technically speaking, they were in fact the same man. Aretha said each was a figment of the other’s imagination. Therefore, she thought of them as she did her whole life, as co-inhabitants in a dream, never knowing precisely who was who and what was what.

Though, she remained confused about where lay the border between the real World and her imagination, Aretha accepted without question everything the Krolls told her. They said, in former years, they were professional fighters. She believed their bragging, that during short fight careers they had been fierce and fearless professional boxers.

Unfortunately, neither Jacko nor Sunny was much good in the ring, although Sunny almost qualified for the Paralympics in the welterweight division of wheelchair boxing. On the other hand, his older brother Wacko Jacko, at the end of a lacklustre career faced a punch-drunk kick-boxer in his final bout. Jacko was the 20-to-one outsider in the betting market.

Jacko was socked on the jaw, and as he fell, his opponent could not resist delivering a vicious knee to Jacko’s defenceless head. To widespread astonishment, Jacko was declared the unexpected winner in the second round on account of a foul. Then someone realised Jacko had died mid-ring. When the backslappers and hangers-on stepped back from where Jacko lay, he was motionless on the blood-spattered canvas. They revived him several times and rushed him to hospital, undergoing CPR all the way. Coming out of a week-long coma, Jacko was declared almost good as new. On release from hospital (Jacko pronounced hospital so it sounded like whore spittle) he was told he would never walk again.

He proved them wrong. But it gave him no pleasure.

I’ve already been anywhere I ever wanted to go, he groaned. I’m almost a hundred years old, you know.

After all, he need do nothing for himself. Sunny and sweet-hearted Aretha attended to Jacko’s every need. Shopping and so on was a breeze. Jacko required neither food nor drink, new clothes nor hygiene requirements. There was nothing young brother Sunny would not do for old Jacko. Sunny was a marvel on wheels, propelling himself about the house faster than Aretha in her leotard with long legs and fabulous thighs. Of course, Jacko needed to get himself to the toilet several times a day, but apart from that he had no need for ambulation.

Why Jacko went to the toilet mystified Aretha, he showed no interest in food. In fact, neither brother ever ate a thing. How they survived at all puzzled her. She returned to the living room, after eavesdropping in hiding and she sat on her reclining chair.

If people were born without legs and eyelids, the World would be entirely different, Jacko said. And people in wheelchairs would be same as everyone else.

"Who said we’re not? said Sunny.

You know what I mean.

For fifty years, Jacko practised the art of never blinking his eyes. He adopted an appearance of perpetual amazement. He even experimented, trying to sleep with his eyes open.

What are you afraid of? Aretha asked.

I’m not afraid, he said. I just don’t want to miss anything.

Ever since his short-lived death in the ring, Jacko suffered from a morbid dread of blinking. It reminded him of dying. He lived in a vague haze of partial derivative dementia, midway between wakefulness and sleep.

I have not the slightest respect for people who do things. I prefer to consider myself a geometrical anomaly, he avowed. The human body is a mere collection of shapes and avenues.

Jacko preferred to spend his time complaining about the nature of Life, 24 hours a day in the comfort of his yellow couch. He was barely able to walk in old age, from lack of practice and lack of motivation. His entire locus and focus lay in the plasma screen on the wall, which he monitored assiduously with the loyal assistance of his brother.

What’s that thing? Sunny Buoy cried when a quaint contraption appeared on TV.

That’s an automobile, chuckled Jacko, answering Sunny’s question with a thrill of nostalgia for the antiquated conveyance roaring cross-screen. In the old days they were everywhere. We called them motor cars.

Automated Personnel Transferors these days ran on artificial intelligence and the indispensable conglomerate interface. Jacko had no time for such futuristic fandango. Alas, though motor cars were redundant, fond memories survived.

Those old automobiles had more intelligence than the brainless fools who drove them. No computers, no AI, no nothing. Just everybody smashing each other to bits with big metal engines full of powerful little explosions inside a cage-like plastic module speeding round the place on wheels.

Wheels? Sunny gasped. Everybody on wheels. You’re kidding me.

Yep. The entire transport system was a giant boxing ring on wheels, said Jacko. I loved it. It was great fun, playing assassins in personalised road rage.

What’s road rage? Sunny asked. For that matter, what are roads?

Jacko drifted off in a transport of delight, Oh, how I long for those happy days, so long ago.

Aretha said, If you can’t have what you want you can at least try to want what you have.

She strode from the room in manly fashion, with splendid thighs swelling her tight leotard. She slid out of sight, eavesdropping behind the door. The Kroll brothers never had any idea that she listened to every word they said.

Sunny was captivated by Jacko enthusing about old-time automobiles. He breathed so heavily Aretha could hear his wheezing from the next room.

You mean everybody rode round in wheelchairs?

Sort of, Jacko recalled the old days before Sunny was born. At least out on the open road. Big internal-combustion wheelchairs, totally enclosed and all. Man, those were the days. Nothing new is any good anymore. We are trapped in a time warp between Day-Zero and Zero-Day. I think the whole world needs to rethink itself.

Why don’t we start with you, shouted Aretha from her hiding place.

As if her voice came from the TV, Jacko shouted back at the plasma screen, I’m fine. It’s the World need rechanging. Things are too complicated. You only need three things in life to be happy: reliable TV reception, a decent lawyer and a cheap oncologist.

What about a good drug dealer? Sunny suggested.

That’s my definition of the best oncologist, a good drug dealer.

Aretha came back into the room, as dramatic theme music proclaimed the commencement of a news bulletin.

Oh no, not this political bullshit again, Sunny Buoy cried.

Turn it up, I like it, Jacko laughed.

Sunny grabbed the remote control and stabbed buttons with his thumb. As usual the buttons were slow to respond.

Why do we need to have elections all the time, anyway? The worst idiots always win.

Please don’t get Jacko started, or we’ll never hear the end of it, Aretha warned Sunny. I would cut off my ears, rather than hear him go on again about the dunghill of Greed and the sewage farm of Evil.

It's the voice of experience Baby, Jacko said. When you’re my age you’ll be as smart as me.

Aretha snorted, while Sunny tried to kill the sound and a vision of Mr Gu Fi, the country’s newly-elected leader. Grinning like a Cao-Cao mask wearing a baseball cap, Mr Gu was shown on replay, claiming victory in a Heaven-sent landslide.

The Lord has granted us the miracle we all prayed for…

Not all miracles are good ones, Sunny growled, pumping at the unresponsive remote, This fucking idiot’s worshipping his own Self-Important Madness, that’s all.

They all do, said Aretha. That’s all they do. Can we please change the subject?

There’s worse things to be than a fucking idiot, said, Jacko a firm believer in voting for the worst party because they always win.

Praise the Lor… cried Mr Gu onscreen, as Sunny finally got the unit switched to one of 25 sports channels.

Holy fuckity-fuck! Jacko cried. Look at those bastards.

He shook his finger in the direction of the wall-mounted live-stream Internet screen.

Sunny and Aretha saw the subject of Jacko’s outburst. Two teams of footballers, divested of their former guernseys, once-upon-a-time slathered with advertising logos. These days they now ran out on field wearing sandwich boards.

Times were changing fast, even while you lived in them, it seemed. Jacko roared laughing in disbelief, like he did every time he saw something new. The vulgar and contemptible modern times for him were a pure soul-crushing fascist farce. With his greasy lips, surgical scars, brown gunky teeth and bad gums, Aretha thought Jacko’s mouth literally looked like a meat-pie torn in half when he laughed. And ever since his operation he made a loud wheezing sound more than normal laughter. She began to leave the room in disgust.

Come back here and look at this.

Look at it yourself, she yelled from behind the door. I’m busy.

Billy and Sunny shook their heads in disbelief, watching sandwich boards on players running round the field of grass emblazoned with a painted portrait of the face of Mr Gu Fi. At last, the World had come to this. Total economically-exaggerated anarchy. When Jacko saw a beautiful young girl onscreen in the next ad-break, he was shocked to see an ice-cream advertisement tattooed on her face. It was not the first time he had seen an individual prostituting the very flesh of their person for paltry-paid marketing purposes. The money was soon gone, but the mutilation remained until they died. It was common. But such an attractive young woman surely had other options. The tattoo advertised a popular brand of ice cream.

Jacko said, I’d lick it off her face if I had the chance.

Me too, Sunny giggled.

Keep your filthy mouth off the screen, Aretha shouted from behind the door.

Her face pressed hard against the wall, in order to spy on the semi-clad flab of Jacko sprawled on the couch. As she mollified an inner-yearning, with her sight straining through the narrow gap between door and jamb, she ignored a millipede crawling by, on the architrave so close to her eye, it was almost the size of a train on legs instead of wheels. Back in the TV room, the sports broadcast recommenced, only to be interrupted with a newsflash reminding viewers of Mr Gu’s electoral win, and the latest military outrage somewhere with vision of many dead bodies strewn across a barren waste once the outskirts of a city. A series of insurance, real estate and fast-food advertisements followed.

Sunny had enough of all that. More political bullshit. He used the remote, and the screen instantly dyed black.

Turn it back on, for fuck’s sake, Jacko whimpered. Life is boring in the dark.

And in this way, across the suburban Badlands, Life passes at the speed of a dream. Wacko Jacko Kroll alone of the three could remember the good old days when it snowed on the North Pole, and further back than that when Mick Jagger played drums with The Beatles and the Amazon River ran through a rainforest. They were the days. He didn’t have a driving licence in them days but he had a motor car, back when transportation guzzled fossil fuels instead of nuclear-powered electricity.

He said, If I had a license back then, the ratbag-chasers would have snatched it off me for sure, I used to drive like Granma Duck with a firecracker up her clacker.

That just shows your contempt for the rules of society, Aretha, said readjusting her leotard and entering the room.

Yeah, Jacko giggled proudly. You’re not wrong about that, Baby.

And stop calling me Baby, she cried. For Heaven’s sake, I’m 70 years old. My tush is ready for the old age pension.

Well, it’s a nice tush anyway, said Jacko, causing Aretha to blush. You know, I’m going to miss you when I die.

Don’t be ridiculous.

It’s not ridiculous. It’s true. I miss you already, every time I blink my eyes and lose sight of you for a moment.

Don’t be crazy, Jacko. You’re embarrassing the poor girl, Sunny tried to join the conversation.

Mind your own business, Jacko scolded his brother. It’s true. I do. And I am. Love is crazy. I always been crazy about your smile, Baby. And your big tush in them tight leotards, and your lovely whopping thighs when you sit there with your legs crossed. And knowing you all this time has made it worse. Any excitement I’ve ever had in the past pales in comparison to seeing your sweet little face going red right now.

Oh God no, Aretha gasped.

She’d heard it all before. But this was different, as if his words had stabbed deep into her heart. She collapsed to the floor clutching her breast. Darkness fell long before night came. Time ended inside her mind, and she lay there stone-cold still, totally alone. Perhaps life went on wasting energy all around the World. Perhaps the eyes of the Kroll brothers fed on the sight of her from somewhere unknown. And perhaps nothing at all.

Weeks later there was a knock at the front door. Of course, Aretha heard nothing. The landlord had come enquiring, why had the tenant failed to pay rent in recent weeks? For years she’d been absolutely reliable, a peculiar woman but a landlord’s dream, a good tenant who never caused trouble, and never complained about blocked drains, broken door hinges or rats in the ceiling. He was a patient man, but after knocking repeatedly, and hearing nothing other than the loud sound of a TV inside, the landlord forced entry and was struck immediately by the mix of foul odours from empty cans and cartons and plastic sacks bulging with garbage, and greasy utensils submerged in rancid water trapped in the sink. A small table in the kitchenette was cluttered with rubbish and a multitude of pharmaceutical packaging and medications. An overpowering putrid stench wafted from the adjoining room.

Clasping part of his pullover hard over his nose, the landlord ventured forth to find the body of Aretha sprawled shamelessly dishevelled on the carpet. He vaguely recognised her features, though gruesomely contorted, as the dancing glow from a plasma screen on one wall lit the living room. The immediate vicinity of the tenant’s corpse was fouled, as one would expect in such circumstances.

Oh God, no, the landlord gasped, taking a step back from the horrid sight and the stench.

He briefly surveyed the scene. Apart from the light and sound of the plasma screen, and the cloud of flies attracted to the dead woman at his feet, there was no sign of life in the place. The landlord noticed a ragged reclining chair, with upholstery worn through and a crocheted shawl dangling from the backrest, then a small chrome and glass coffee table nearby and a yellow plastic couch, with little else by way of furniture. What puzzled the landlord was alongside the coffee table a brand-new shiny wheelchair, still with the store-tag attached. Both plastic couch and wheelchair looked pristine, as though freshly delivered. Obviously neither had ever been used.

As far as the Kroll brothers is concerned, there was nothing to indicate their former occupancy, and no indication they had ever been there, or ever actually existed at all.

A WORLD ELSEWHERE

Centuries ago, pioneer explorers travelling from far across the stars survived a perilous lightyears-long journey by ingesting hydrocarbons and drinking cosmic dust. Arriving on Earth, immediate steps were taken by the intergalactic visitors to rapidly civilise the newly discovered planet devoid of seriously intelligent life.

After the discovery of Earth by these outsiders, humans were plagued by a series of deadly viruses and ravenous bacterium. Unknown until future years, the intelligent missionaries from a faraway planet were responsible, as they gained a toehold on Earth, which they called a World Elsewhere.

By means of otherworldly processes of corpus-incorporation, these alien explorers occupied receptive identities among Earth’s world-leaders. The alien missionaries, among other initiatives, encouraged cultivation of chemical pollutants on a massive scale. This they called bringing the universe into balance, in preparation for peaceful colonisation by migrating swarms of the hydrocarbon-ingesting species.

In the beginning, planners from the distant hydro-carbonised galaxy sent oblong-headed, human-looking missionaries to subtly control major organisations coordinating international activities on Earth.

Alien pioneers, such as Welth and Pow-ah, walked undetected among humans. These forerunners of future intergalactic migration concealed their undetectable corpus in the persons of the most powerful Earthlings.

A primary goal of the alien pioneers was to oversee the eradication of unsuitable environmental inconveniences, paving the way for migration.

Many undesirable species of earthly pests required elimination. Including hordes of non-essential humans. That was no great problem in respect of warlike humans, divided and weakened by racial distrust, national pride, caste and superstition. To an extent, the humans could be relied on to cull themselves. Of greater concern were remaining inhospitable vestiges of rampant greenery. Such undesirable forests despoiled potentially attractive voids on the as-yet inadequately-developed planet.

However, popular earthly annals recording the heroic deeds of violent human warriors warned the interplanetary invaders, any attempt to possess the entire Earth by force of arms would be a dangerous enterprise. Of concern at first to the aliens were legends of Muhammad the Warrior Prophet and great magician Jew-Jesus, and in modern times the cinematically-celebrated sagas of invincible earthly heroes such as Schwarzenegger and Stallone.

Therefore, the intergalactic hydrocarbon-pioneers introduced a series of pandemics, partly to accelerate the reduction of human population. The alarming death toll was also designed to distract human attention from the threat of colonisation from outer-space. Ever since the beginning, intergalactic intellects encouraged the earthling habit of blaming each other for every unpleasantness. Therefore, nations and factions became evermore paranoid and hostile, and almost totally-obsessed with mutual obliteration. Between wars, the ignorant human herd was distracted by other competitive obsessions.

Resting briefly in their true identities, Welth and Pow-ah, two of the most successful oblong-headed intergalactic missionaries secretly conversed in their own language on the darkest zoom platform, mocking the greatest pandemic of all, that is human ignorance. The encrypted discussions between alien missionaries were translated into Earth-talk by Refractory Research, which was until-too-late dismissed as fake news by authorities.

According to the Refractory transcript, which described these alien invaders as Plastic Eaters, the alien calling himself Welth spoke in a soft monotone delivered in measured and thoughtful cadence.

I am pleased to report excellent progress in eradicating surfeit lifeforms, down to the lowliest swarms of insect, and the humans are breeding themselves to extinction.

Very good, but are you aware Refractory Researchers have hacked into our communications? Pow-ah asked his compatriot. They discovered our responsibility for the latest little virus, and are trying to turn the native population against us.

Welth replied, "Thankfully, the Governments under our control have dismissed those revelations as lies, although I note Governments on Earth adore telling lies. It is their favourite occupation. I speak particularly in regard to the occupation of their neighbours’ territories."

Ho, the lies humans spread are a more deadly virus than any of ours.

How fortunate, Welth snickered. Little do these primitive inhabitants realise, the defences they develop against our viral seeding will only require us to introduce a more effective variant.

The Refractory transcript refers to Welth’s face in its true form. When he laughed wide, he had the appearance of an over-ripe pomegranate implanted with synthetic teeth.

You know, the human herd is too stupid to defend itself, even when it is able. So many of them violently rebel against simple common-sense hygiene, masks and vaccinations. Many don’t even wash their anus after excretion.

Ha-ha, have you heard them cry in horror that the vaccinations and mask mandates crucify them like Jesus? Pow-ah chuckled.

Ridiculous waffle, Welth guffawed. According to our forensic archaeology, the demented Jew-Jesus was stabbed in his abdominal cavity with the metal sword of an ancient Roman liberator, whereas the cowardly modern humans on the other hand refuse to even permit a nurse to put a tiny pin-prick in their arms.

Yet, I have seen many humans without a second thought vaccinate themselves with morphine for pleasure.

They are totally illogical. They enslave themselves to the most perverted concepts of freedom and justice. They know neither integrity nor mutuality. That is what makes humans so vulnerable.

"Justice? They shall know justice, when we unleash it."

Exactly, Pow-ah concurred. Humans believe justice is merely a commodified form of retribution and vengeance. They prefer this dull and boring substitute, overbearing in its conceit and pride. They obediently bow to the privileged craft of lawyers and judges who trade in legal favours arrogantly, as do the various poets and prophets in literary platitudes and rhetorical artifice.

Judges and lawyers come and go, even in our own plastic-perfect home-world. But you mention these prophets and poets among the humans, they have much enduring power, do they not?

Not much. In fact, we find the many derivations of human custom have no utility value, other than to function as a distraction among the lesser minions. They feel lost, in the absence of subjugation to their gods and flags and fairy tales. Thanks be to the Magnificence of the Mighty Extruder.

Welth bowed his oblong head, and thrice intoned the Esoteric Articulation, Blessed be the ME! Blessed be the ME! Blessed be the ME!

Pow-ah thus likewise, thrice uttered the Imploration sacred to the hydrocarbon-ingestion species.

Have you noticed how the earth-dwellers lust for rituals of extermination, even the mass sacrifice of their own offspring?

Yes. What joy they bring to the several hearts of my soulless corpus. The uncivilised savages on this underdeveloped planet, with their cold-blooded ways of competitive bellicosity shall gift to us their own combined downfall.

We have chosen our agents and associates from among them very wisely.

Any survivors who escape the slaughter and famine and deprivation shall be persecuted until in despair they welcome the era of enlightenment we offer.

Indeed. Or else.

We have wisely recruited to our cause the most easily-induced collaborators. They more-than-readily lead their backward kind toward the fulfilment of our objective.

Yet much remains for our powerful puppets to carry out. They are dutybound to create the overgrown plastic gardens and polyurethane oases we require.

True. One cannot but admire the endeavour of human enterprise to melt their icy poles and warm this chilly blue planet to the temperatures that shall comfortably support our recurring death-cycle.

And, how thoroughly delightful it is to regard the work of oil tanker spillages to cleanse coastlines of living biosphere.

The voices of the notable aliens broke regularly into human-like laughter and horse-like snorts of incredulity. They were overjoyed with the performance of their chosen ones.

Already we see the oceans splendidly awash with micro-plastic swarms. And the seas abound in flocks of floating islands of plastic effluent among the vast oil slicks.

Some of the finest to be found in the cosmos.

I must remark how gratifying it is to breathe from skies increasingly enriched with the flavour of nuclear radiation and stirring with clouds of numerous sweet-chemical gases.

"We can rely on the humans’ industrious exertions to suck the life out of their planet’s core. It is pleasing to monitor their diligent incineration of the fossilised abundance. Such suicidal extravagance is only to be admired. When the global warming is perfected, our leaders shall initiate the great mass migration.

Human survivors of this favourable holocaust will be unable to offer resistance when we take possession of their fruitful ruins and glorious wastage. Ha-ha ha, that is, after their military forces slaughter each other into submission.

The savages do not value what they are, nor what they have. Therefore, we shall gladly take it from them.

It would be a travesty to pity them. They are not even ashamed of themselves.

Humans are self-perfected victims.

We shall enslave the ignorant two-legged maggots. And they will be grateful for the advances we bring them, poor primitive creatures.

"They will gladly serve our cause, and happily sacrifice their former ignorant subservience, for the pleasures of whatever lives we allow them, to the everlasting benefice of our intergalactic Hydrocarbon Empire…"

Just as they now serve the domineering imbeciles of their own kind.

As they have done for centuries. Indeed millennia.

They know nothing else.

The savages have no real culture as we know it.

And obviously they aspire to no other form of being.

But I do not believe what I have seen, even with the eyes of my chosen human host. The way they treat each other. It is almost as though they believe their own lies.

They are so gullible and simple. We will easily train them to worship the Magnificence of the Mighty Extruder.

Welth and Pow-ah simultaneously bowed their oblong heads, and thrice intoned the Esoteric Articulation.

"Blessed be the ME! Blessed be the ME! Blessed