The Binary Biker

I’m hungry. This is a thought Ernie had quite often. It was such a frequent and welcome thought that it had it’s own room reserved right at the front of his brain, near the occipital lobe. Great views there, but everything was upside down. Still, as rooms for thoughts went, it was clearly the penthouse suite of Ernie’s mind. There was a direct line from this thought to the the stomach and to the salivary glands, and the thought wasn’t afraid to use it.

Ernie grabbed his rumbling belly and licked his lips moistly. He needed to eat, and he needed repast that would find Casa Ernie a warm and welcoming abode. To hell with Mexican Chili; a burger and fries were the staples he needed. He put the car he had liberated from the dead drug dealer across the way into reverse and gingerly backed out of the parking spot, pausing only momentarily to wince at the thump under his right tire as he squashed Mrs. Jimenson. Her damned fault for dying behind the car. No way was he going to touch a dead body. It was bad enough that he had been forced to search the pockets of the dead drug dealer. He had to draw the line somewhere. He was perfectly fine squashing dead ladies, he decided.

His new ride was a thing of beauty; a black BMW with fuzzy dice and no back seat as it was taken up by a massive speaker. It was clearly a car for a man of taste and style. There was a button in the center console that, when he pressed it, a lit joint came out of the dashboard. This car rocked. Puffing on his blunt, he dodged cars and ran over dead people in the road as he made his way to BingoBurger.

The drive thru was full, so Ernie parked and went inside. He stood in line for ten minutes before he realized the fry cook and cashier were dead and not having a homosexual affair on the floor. Grunting in annoyance, Ernie crawled over the counter, kicked the dead homos hard, and started the fryers. It’s a good thing I spent college working at BingoBurger, thought Ernie. Well, those two semesters I went to technical school. Unlike his short stint at technical school, Ernie had spent four years at BingoBurger.

“This being the only man alive is not exactly what I thought it would be,” Ernie said to himself as he flipped his burger and poured fries into the hot grease. He realized that he would have to cook every meal for himself from this day forward. Bummer. Depressed at the thought, he spent half an hour making his normal meal of four Five-in-a-row burgers, two large BingoFries, and two Four-Corner Apple pies. Crawling back over the counter, he sat at a table and ate his meal, thinking.

Where should he go? He could hit the freeway and head north. If anyone survived whatever had killed the world it would be the mountain people in Kentucky. They were only half human anyway, from what he had heard. They didn’t even play banjo, like the retards in Tennessee. They just pulled their chest hair taut and strummed. Those guys could survive anything. But did he want to go there? He had heard that they would find him very . . . attractive. While he didn’t mind paying for a prostitute, he had no desire to be buggered by a mountain man.

No, Kentucky was out. What about New York? Albany in particular. Albany was the armpit of America. It stank and had a lot of parasites that could survive a nuclear war. Surely someone in Albany was alive. It snowed in Albany, he thought. Cold was not his friend; this is why he lived in Florida. Albany was out.

Then it hit him; New Mexico. It never snowed, and there were Indians there. Those mean bastards would scalp you and dance on your hair. They would survive, if anyone would. And Ernie’s great, great grandma had been a prostitute who slept with Indians. They were practically family. That’s where he had to go.

Now that he had a plan, Ernie quickly finished his meal and hit the road – and not a few dead bodies.

“Oh.” Not ohm. Oh. Ernie never fancied himself the metaphysical sort. However, he did spend this moment enlightening himself to a few of the inner mysteries of the scene before him. For instance: no one was sleeping, they all happened to be dead. They were dead. Their dogs were dead. The fleas on their dogs were dead. The microscopic beneficial bacteria that infested the fleas’ stomachs were dead.

“Oh,” he said again. Another flash of intuition as the silence of the outside world came suddenly crashing in on him with brutal, ruthless efficiency. “I believe I might be the only one left.”

There was, of course, no one to explain to him that yes, yes you are the only one left alive, probably. That’s because no one, probably, was left alive to explain that simple fact to him.

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do now?” He said to Thelia’s corpse, laid out on the little lawn strip outside their apartment building, today’s paper in her outstretched hands. Thelia, the prostitute that lived next door. Thelia, the corpulent prostitute that lived next door, who would happily divest Ernie of a few hundred dollars every other payday for a sweaty, labored, metaphorical roll in the metaphorical hay. Thelia who—

“Wow, she reads the paper?”

It occurred to him, then, that surely an event of this magnitude would be preceded by some sort of news. A viral outbreak. An alien attack. Something. With extreme care so as not to touch Thelia’s corpse, at all (God knows what viral or bacterial corpses might be piled up on her unwashed body), Ernie dislodged the paper from her grip, wiped it on the grass, and picked it up.

“Barack Obama… Bush… war crimes… Britney Spears’ nipples… Israel… Gaza… Pakist- Wait, Britney Spears’ nipples?!” Flipping back, Ernie discovered, unfortunately, that the story was about some new, named line of baby care products. “Bah. Nothing. Nothing at all to explain… this.”

With a sigh, Ernie looked around and made a decision. “I’m going to have to try and see if I’m maybe the only person left. That means travel. That means—“ He took one look at his beat-up little 1995 Ford Ranger with the cavalcade of Florida Fraternal Order of Police stickers covering the entire back window except for the little space he used to look out of for backing up and nodded resolutely.

“I believe I’ll just use someone else’s car.”

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The world ended while Ernie was on the toilet. Literally ended. Life ceased to exist. All around the world billions of humans, trillions on insects, multitudes of mammals, avian, reptiles and all other forms of life just stopped what they were doing, looked around in mild confusion, and then died.

Ernie had no way of knowing this. A particularly malevolent bowl of Mexican chili eaten only hours before had abruptly decided that Casa Ernie was no longer a viable habitat and decided to move to better housing in the porcelain throne room. Truth be told, Casa Ernie was a sorry sort of domicile for any food, let alone the spicy magnificence of Mexican chili. Standing only five and a half feet, Ernie weighed a hefty two hundred and thirty pounds. His face was marred by the remnants of teen acne and his glasses rested heavily on his pug nose. His curly hair had a perpetual greasy look to it and his thighs rubbed painfully together when he walked.

That was what Ernie saw ever morning when he looked in the mirror. He had, over the course of twenty-five years, actually grown accustomed to his appearance. On the evenings spent with Jack Daniels, he occasionally managed to convince himself that he was handsome in a big-boned sort of way.

Unfortunately, Mexican chili didn’t have the enlightened perspective of Mr. Daniels. It wanted out – and it wanted out now. And so, when the world ended, Ernie was on the toilet paying homage to the superior willpower of Mexican Chili.

Playing a suitable tune on his ass-flute Ernie bade farewell to the chili and decided that it would be a long time in the future before he embraced such repast again. It was always thus, Ernie mused as he pondered which act would be more dangerous: to light a scented candle in the bathroom or to not light a scented candle in the bathroom.

It’s not that I’m unreasonable. Self-pity for himself at this moment caused him to sigh loudly; which was a very bad mistake as in order to sigh a person must first inhale. Eyes watering, Ernie fled the last port of call for Mexican Chili and took his self-pity to the living room.

I’m open to new experiences. I like to shake things up a little bit. Just last week Ernie had, in an unexpected act of societal rebellion, driven all the way to work with his left turn signal on. He rather enjoyed frustrating all of the drivers behind him as they were never quite sure when he was going to turn or switch lanes. All was going fine until an old lady in a beat-up Cadillac had pulled along side him, rolled down her window, brandished a small handgun, and had shot out his left turn signal. In complete shock, Ernie had slowed down and allowed the old bat to pass him by, with her right turn signal flashing in his face all the rest of the way into the office.

Why, then, were new experiences like Mexican Chili out to get him? It was an undeniable truth; fate conspired to keep him from enjoying new experiences. It was almost as if the forces of nature had passed judgment against him and decided that all new things would henceforth be unpleasant to him.

His life seemed destined for mediocrity. His experiences were unremarkable. He was unremarkable, in a big-boned sort of way. His car was unremarkable. Even his goldfish was unremarkable. It was a fish. It was gold. It swam in a bowl.

It could be worse, he supposed. He was struggling to think exactly how it could be worse when a nagging thought began tickling his brain. He hated nagging anything – so he ignored it and continued to ponder his unremarkable plight.

He supposed it might be worse if he had suffered some disfiguring accident. Nope, he decided – having an accident would be remarkable, so he knew he would never suffer from one. An accident would invariably leave a scar and scars are mysterious, remarkable, things. He closed his eyes and wistfully imagined himself with a scar.

His nagging thought was becoming more persistent, demanding attention of some kind. Rude, Ernie thought, to have a thought that wouldn’t wait its turn. He would have to do something about that as soon as he figured out how to properly chastise wayward thoughts. There was nothing for it; he would have to pay attention to his errant brain impulses.

It’s too quiet.

That’s it? Ernie thought impatiently. His bout of self-pity interrupted by such a small insignificant thought? It figures, he accepted it with as much dignity as he could muster; even his interruptions were unremarkable.

What kind of thought was that anyway, Ernie sullenly let the thought speak again, “It’s too quiet.” No answer was forthcoming from the thought itself, apparently. It had delivered it message and was determined to fade away.

Not so fast. Ernie grabbed the thought and held it tight, refusing to let it go away. You don’t just walk into a crowded room, drop a stinky fart, and walk out. No, no – there was a mystery here and he was going to keep this thought, against its will, until he figured it out.

Speaking of noxious flatulence – mayhap Ernie had forgotten to flush Mexican Chili. Maybe that was what the thought was all about. A quick, closed-mouth, held-breath check of the porcelain bowl proved that theory false. All clear there.

Slowly it dawned on Ernie that none of the normal sounds of civilization were creeping in through his paper-thin walls. No honking of horns, screeching of tires, screams of fighting couples. No sound of drug deals being made across the hallway of his apartment. No giggling of the prostitute next door. Nothing.

Curious, Ernie opened the door to his apartment and walked outside. He had to step over a sleeping dog and a two or three sleeping people. Not too uncommon as the local winos often passed out in the building before they were removed by the authorities. What was uncommon was what he saw when he reached the street.

Everyone was asleep. On the street, in their cars, on the sidewalk. Bemused, Ernie scratched his head. Why on earth would everyone decide to sleep at the same time?

When Douglas Adams died I was devastated. He wrote some of the most loved and read science-fictions stories of all time: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.

For a long time I wanted to write a comedic science-fiction story, not to emulate him, but to honor one of my favorite authors. Of course, there’s no way I could write as well as the master – but I wanted to try my hand at comedy sci-fi. I put it off for a long time, writing in fits and starts.

Then, I wrote a few sentences that were kinda good and I saved them. Until this week, when after talking to my new friend Chris, I revived those few sentences, added to them, and began my comedic sci-fi in earnest. I shared with Chris and we decided to do a back-and-forth story similar to what Teri and I (and now Chris) are doing with “Neith: The Legendary Moon of Venus.”

So, here is the story of an idiot named “Fat Ernie” and his adventures after he wakes to find that every living thing on Earth, save himself, had the poor taste to suddenly die. New chapters will be added as we write them.

Please read, enjoy, and COMMENT!

01/27/09 Chapter 1: Mexican Chili Standoff by Ron Sparks
01/27/09 Chapter 2: Britney’s Nipples by Chris Parker
01/28/09 Chapter 3: Bingo Burger by Ron Sparks
02/02/09 Chapter 4: The Great Western Exodus by Chris Parker
02/02/09 Chapter 5: Another Survivor by Ron Sparks
02/05/09 Chapter 6: Ernie Gets Mad by Chris Parker

Author: Chris Parker

God bless modern medical technology, of course.

The EMT, level-headed and a credit to his profession, had defib paddles on Eric’s chest just as soon as the dramatic monotone of the EKG shattered the initial calm of the ambulance’s interior.

All Sarah could do was watch, dully aware that the last conversation they might ever have concerned some stupid moon.

THUMP. Eric’s body lifted into the air under the current of the AED.

“Nothing. Again.”

It’s like a TV show, she thought, detachedly. They do this on House or Grey’s Anatomy.

THUMP. His head flipped into an awkward position and, automatically, she reached out and righted his head while the AED recharged, her cool fingers slipping around the fevered flesh of his neck.

Weird. She felt something. A bump, like an ant bite or something. Before she got the opportunity to investigate, the EMT had the paddles ready and placed on Eric’s chest. She nodded, and pulled away.

THUMP. Apparently, as the saying goes, third time’s the charm. His EKG readings picked up a reasonably regular heartbeat and the EMT gave Sarah a reassuring smile.

“He’ll be fine. We’ll be at the hospital in three.”

Minutes? Seconds? Hours? She hated that. Hated the brevity that seemed to pervade American language. No, she was stressed and nervous and angry and a whole ball of other unfathomable emotions tangled up in the unconscious, shallowly breathing man on the gurney beneath her.

As it turned out, the EMT meant three minutes.

Nerve wracked, coffee drenched hours later, Sarah found herself standing over Eric as he slept. The white bandage over the wound in his chest was unseemly on a man so young. It wasn’t right. She didn’t have much time to reflect on the inadequacies of the human body, as Eric’s surgeon entered the room.

“Girlfriend?”

She nodded, mildly annoyed, as if “girlfriend” wasn’t a good enough reason to be here.

“Alright. Mr. Neith is, as far as we can tell, comatose. We found no reason he ought to have a heart attack, unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

“We found a needle mark in his neck. Some drug overdoses can cause myocardial infarctions… heroin, methamphetamines, cyanide—“

“Oh, good God. You did a drug screen, surely. Look at him. Drug use. I thought that thing on his neck was a bug bite.”

“No. It’s a needle mark, ma’am. And yes, we did do a tox screen. We’re basing our theory on some other evidence.”

Sarah frowned. “Wait a minute, did you say cyanide?”

The doctor, however, wasn’t listening. He’d turned away from her, to the door, nodding at someone unseen. Someone who turned out to be a uniformed police officer.

“Ma’am, you’ll need to come with us.”

Author: Ron Sparks

Sarah looked at the clock impatiently. American Postmodernism Poetry was an interesting class, but there was only so much whiny poet she could handle in a day. All these depressed poets using their poems to confess sins or deep psychological issues; it’s no wonder so many goth chicks like poetry, she mused. This lecture class was filled with wannabe poets. As she looked around she realized that poets were a social class all unto themselves. They had their own style of dress, their own dialect, and their own cliques. She was definitely not one of them; she disdained them. They were here just so they could look the part of the wounded and troubled poet. Not a single one of them could craft a verse in iambic pentameter if they tried, she guessed. They all wanted to be confessional free-verse poets because they think it’s easy. What-ever.

The class couldn’t end quickly enough for Sarah. As the lecture concluded, she edged past all the tattooed and pierced sycophants trying to woo the professor for attention and made her way out of the building. The chill February air bit through the light jacket she was wearing. She hunched her shoulders against the cold and walked across campus towards her next class – Greek and Roman Humanities. She was so intent on getting to class as quickly as possible to get out of the cold that she almost didn’t see the commotion in front of the Science Hall. Two firetrucks and an ambulance were blocking the entrance to the hall. Curious, Sarah slowed down to observe, joining a crowd of about 50 students already looking on.

As she watched, a stretcher was wheeled out with someone on it. Craning her head for a better look, Sarah gasped aloud when she saw that it was Eric. Dropping her books, she pushed her way through the crowd and ran up to the stretcher.

The EMT raised an arm to block her, “You need to step back, ma’am.”

Sarah saw that Eric had an oxygen mask on and his eyes were closed. “That’s Eric Neith,” she said, “He’s my boyfriend!”

The EMT lowered his arm, “You know him?”

“Yes!” Sarah said impatiently, “What happened?”

“Ma’am, we have to get him to the hospital. If you’re his girlfriend you can ride with him since we have no other family members here.” Without giving him a chance to reconsider, Sarah jumped into the back of the ambulance and waited for Eric to get loaded inside.

When Eric was loaded into the ambulance, Sarah grabbed his hand and looked at him. He was pale. Very pale with a bluish tint, and his breath was coming in shallow gasps. The electronic leads the EMT connected to Eric indicated that his blood pressure was dangerously low and his heart rate was severely elevated. She looked up at the EMT and asked again, “Tell me, please, what happened?”

The EMT shook his head, “All we know is that he was found like this on the second floor of the hall. We’re treating this like a heart attack at the moment. His apparent symptoms match a heart attack.”

“A heart attack?” Sarah asked dumbly. “But he’s healthy. He just had a physical exam last month when the semester began. He runs three times a week!”

The EMT shrugged, “I don’t know ma’am. The doctors will make a definitive diagnosis at the hospital. Right now we need to keep him stabilized and get him to the hospital as quickly as possible.”

Sarah nodded and looked out the back window. A heart attack. That just wasn’t possible, or was it? Last year a member of the wrestling team had died from an unexpected heart attack right after practice. These things do happen, she realized. But not to people she knew. Not to Eric.

She looked back at Eric, tears in her eyes, just as his EKG flatlined.

~~end chapter~~

Author: Teri Eaton

Dr. Sais’s outer office was unreasonably warm, but that did little to lessen the cold knot in the pit of Eric’s stomach. You were only ever summoned to see the big boss when you invented something that would make the Corporation millions, or the opposite. Eric had only met the man once, at a fundraiser, but he knew Sais’s reputation. This was not a casual invitation. He tried not to trip over his own feet as the distracted secretary ushered him into the inner sanctum.

The older man positively defined distinguished, sitting behind his mahogany desk with his spectacles slipped half way down his nose as he scribbled notes in his calendar. Eric froze just inside the closed door, wary of interrupting. He could always come back at a more convenient time.

“Please sit, Mr. Neith.” Sais said, without looking up. Eric pulled himself together and ventured into the office and perched on the edge of the chair facing the dark wood alter.

“I have been reading your report.” Sais’s voice was deep and soothing but Eric had been warned not to fall into the ‘Grandfather trap’.

“Which report is that, sir?” he asked, knowing full well there was only one thing worthy of a trip to the top floor.

Sais looked at him over his glasses. Feigning innocence was not going to be a good tactic. The hefty file sat between them on the blotter. “A new moon? Over Venus? How can you explain that?”

“Well, it could be anything from the Death Star, to the Lost Moon of Poosh.” Eric joked nervously.

Sais slipped off his glasses and set them carefully in front of him. “Poosh?”

“Umm…” Oops. Lose the joking. “It’s a Dr. Who reference… the Daleks steal these planets out of time, and the one that starts it is the…. Never mind.”

“Mr. Neith…” Sais leaned forward, all business. “According to your report, you have been doing this research in your free time? With a personal telescope?”

“Mostly, sir. I did a thesis on the atmosphere on Venus. It is kind of a pet project to keep up with my research. But, I did confirm my analysis with the 2meter scopes. The images are all in the file.”

“Have you discussed this with anyone on your team?”

Sarah was technically not on his team, since she was technically on the Jet propulsion team. No sense getting her in hot water. “No sir. I submitted this to Dr. Amstead. I assume he read it and submitted it to you.”

“Your family, then? Do they know what you believe you have found?”

The cold knot in his stomach tightened a notch. This seemed like a trap. “Of course not sir. That would violate my non-disclosure.”

Sais seemed to relax. “Good, good.” He sat back in his chair and considered Eric over his templed fingers. “It is a shame really. You showed such promise. Well, I suppose you have proven that to be true, haven’t you?”

“Sir?” Eric was lost now. Good that he had not told anyone, but he had proven something?

“Well, it is all moot now.” Sais said. “I am really very sorry about all of this.”

“Sorry about what, sir?” Eric never saw the woman with the syringe, but later he would remember how cold it was as it broke his skin.

~~end chapter~~

Author: Ron Sparks

“That’s not supposed to be there,” Eric said as he relinquished control of the eyepiece to Sarah.

She looked through the lens, “What isn’t?”

“You’re looking at Venus. Venus doesn’t have a moon, but if you look right there, on the right, you can clearly see something there.”

“Maybe an asteroid?”

Eric laughed, “No way. Asteroids aren’t that big. I’ve been observing this for a week now, making sure that I wasn’t seeing some background star or object that only appeared to be attached to Venus. This “moon” is showing phases and is moving across the sky in conjunction with Venus.”

Sarah stood up, her face nearly invisible in the darkness, “Planets don’t just suddenly sprout moons, Eric.”

“I know. This is crazy.”

“Besides,” she said, “wouldn’t others have noticed this and reported it by now? You’ve been looking at it for a week.”

He nodded, “They probably think it’s just as ludicrous as I do. I mean, if I reported this and it turned out to be false I’d get laughed right out of the building.”

Sarah dusted off her jeans, “Well I think you should report it. If you’re wrong, you can deal with a little ridicule. But if you’re right . . . ”

“That’s easy for you to say. You won’t be the one who can never show his face in the astronomy department again.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but they can’t deny their eyes. It’s right there, plain as day. Or night. Or whatever. What do you think it means?”

“I dunno,” he said as he packed up his telescope, “my mind is a whirlwind of ideas on how this could happen. Everything from aliens to alternate realities to centuries of poor astronomy. But shit,” he looked up at the sky, “we’ve sent probes there and there never showed anything even remotely like a moon around Venus.”

~~end chapter~~

My good friend Teri over at IrrationalCat and I have been writing together for years. One of the things we like to do is write very short chapters, just a couple of hundred words, and fire it back to the the other. We write back and forth this way – creating a story organically. We don’t think about the plot, the characters, or direction ahead of time. It’s more of a writing exercise just to keep us writing than a true work of literature. Still, Flash Fiction can be a lot of fun.

A few years ago I stumbled on a mythical moon of Venus named Neith. It was seen for centuries by astronomers and ended up being nothing. But what if it were real? That’s the premise for this story. This story will be cross-posted on both sites, this one and Teri’s.

Enjoy!

1/22/09 Chapter 1: Introduction by Ron Sparks

1/22/09 Chapter 2: The Needle by Teri Eaton

1/23/09 Chapter 3: Flatline by Ron Sparks

1/27/09 Chapter 4: Revived! by Chris Parker