Some days, it doesn't pay to chew through the restraints...
Ha!
Ha...
Ha?
Well, it was funny the first time I heard it.
Anyways, I need something to do while I am lying here in this medbed, looking like a mutated octopus with tubes and wires sticking out of nearly every part of my anatomy. I can't drink, I can't smoke, I can't play with myself, I don't even get to taste my own food. And I hate those virtual reality tv shows that run between the infomercials twenty four seven! And now that the nurse has learned to keep her bottom out of my reach, what else is there for me to do?!
"Why don't you start a diary?" she says.
"A diary? What am I, some little teenybopper school girl full of imaginary teenage angst?" I says.
I pitched my voice up a scratchy octave. "Dear Diary, today Billy asked me to the senior ZeroGee Dance and Wiggle! I just don't know what to wear!"
Ok, Bad idea! Trying to talk that high makes me cough, and coughing with seven broken ribs and tubes up your... Well, bad idea.
"Well then, what about writing down your adventures? After all, no one ends up in a cellular reconstruction unit, looking like you do, without a story to go along with it. " Nurse Nice Bottom says.
If she would only come a little closer...
"My adventures!?" I stopped grasping at her just out of reach posterior.
"Well, I do have some stories I could tell. Some of 'em are even true..."
Nurse Swishy Hips carefully pulled the data recorder around in front of me so I could reach it.
"There now, do something constructive with those hands of yours." she says as she jumps lightly to the side.
Damn, almost had her that time!
With one last wiggle (she did that one on purpose!) and a sly smile, she left the room.
"Hmm..." I said thoughtfully. "Ya know, there might just be someone or sometwo out there who might like to know my story..." I thought about it for a bit, trying to think of where to start.
Naw, ain't no one gonna be interested in hearing about me growin' up. I was bigger than the other kids my age, and was working the fields as soon as I could walk. Didn't have many friends or much schoolin' either for that matter. I learned enough to read and write, but more than that was considered useless on a mutanana farm. But then one day my pa came out while I was working in the field. He had a funny look on his face, and was carrying an envelope...
"What's up pa?" I asked.
What? Oh... Umm... Nothing son, nothing..." Pa sat down in the dirt.
"Pa! You all right?" I asked, 'cause it wasn't normal for pa to go around sittin' in the dirt for no reason...
Hunh? Wa...? Ya son ya, I'm all right." Pa looked at the envelope in his hands.
"So what's in the envelope there pa?" I asked.
"I won son... I entered that there silly contest and won..." Pa stared at that envelope as if it might suddenly try to bite him.
"What contest pa? What did you win?"
"On the back of that Mutogen Cereal box... I never really thought I would win... Never thought about what would happen if I did..." He trailed off.
"So what did you win pop? A hover-car? Some money? We could sure use some money right now, that south forty field needs fertilizin' bad, and we..." He cut me off.
"A space ship..." His eyes found mine and looked confused.
"A space ship!?! What the... What kind of space ship? What kind of cereal company gives away a space ship? What are you gonna do with a...? I babbled.
"They're needin' people out there in space." He said. "What with them thargonoids, or whatever they're called, attacking people, and them space pirates and stuff. They need good people out there to deliver cargo, and hunt down pirates, and kill them thargonoid thingies. So them people, what makes the Mutogen cereal, is givin' away a free spaceship and 100 credits to get started, and I won..."
I just stared at him for a full thirty seconds, my jaw slack, as I tried to process the information. "So now what pa? You gonna go into space?" I finally managed to ask.
"I never thought I would win son. I just sittin' there readin' the box at breakfast one day, and just sort of filled out the form. Hell, I don't even remember sendin' it in... But I won... Hell boy, I got a farm to run, I can't go runnin' off to no outer space now. And I'm 68 years old son. Too old to be flyin' no space ship!" He paused and looked at me again. "But you're not..."
"Aw hell pa! You're not that old, why you can still out fight and out wor..." I stopped.
"What do you mean, I'm not?"
Pa's face had changed. Somehow he looked both a little sad and yet peaceful at the same time.
"Just what I said son. I understand now, this here is an opportunity for you, and maybe me both."
I furrowed my brows and opened my mouth, but pa never gave me the chance to argue.
"I'm too old to go flying spaceships and fighting them space aliens, but you... Hell son, you're smart as a whip, and strong as a bull, like your old man. This here farm is a dead end for you boy, but in space... A man can do most anything!"
"But... but.." I stammered.
"And think boy! If you do it smart, and keep your head down, you could make a few credits! And if you was to send some of those extra credits to your old man once in a while, well then I could fix up this here farm right proper!"
"But... but.." I tried again.
This time he didn't say anything, just sat there looking at me with a bit of a grin on his whiskery old weathered face. I couldn't think of anything to say.
I was gonna fly a space ship.
Damn his ass!
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