The tales of the agent - part 6
Or - how I finally became one of the gang
A powerful blast shook the Special Forces regular pub. Quake after quake hit the compound, anti-matter explosions rocking the members inside. Wombat even spilled his drinks.
"What in darnation is going on?!" He bellowed, as the agent entered. "It's him! Battle stations!"
"There is no need to get agitated, my dear wombat", answered the agent. "I come in peace. And anti-matter missiles."
"Isn't that an oximoron?" Inquired black smoke, one of the newer members of the force. He piped down after the agent gave him the look.
"Yes, it is an oximoron. The best kind.
Regardless, I have come to join you. I grow weary of bureaucracy."
"We don't trust you", said the wombat flatly.
"Nor you should. But then again, I do have 50 anti-matter missiles outside. Do you have a choice?"
The group pondered for a while.
"We have decided among ourselves to accept you to our gathering", answered Wombat, and behind him jaws nodded amiably.
"What a shock. Well, this does call for a celebration. And I know just the place. Don't I, Koala?"
The agent was very fond of Koala look of horror for quite a few days.
Harel, Wombat, Jaws and Koala sat on Barad-dur's porch, sipping a lovely drink. Someone was out back with a hawaiin guitar.
Harel: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Wombat: Nothing like a good glass of elfwine, ay Jaws?
Jaws: You're right there Wombat.
Koala: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking elfwine?
Harel: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
Wombat: A cup ' COLD tea.
Koala: Without milk or sugar.
Jaws: OR tea!
Harel: In a filthy, cracked cup.
Koala: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up smart-paper.
Wombat: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp nano-cloth.
Jaws: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
Harel: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."
Koala: He was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the energy dome.
Wombat: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
Jaws: You were lucky to have a ROOM! We used to have to live in a corridor!
Harel: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old starship water tank on a rubbish astroid. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
Koala: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of energy barrier, but it was a house to US.
Wombat: We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a nebula!
Jaws: You were lucky to have a NEBULA! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the intergalatic highway.
Harel: Cardboard box?
Jaws: Aye.
Harel: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale nano-paste, go to work down the fabricator for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Wombat: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the nebula three o'clock in the morning, clean the nebula, eat a handful of hot anti-matter ore, go to work at the fabricator every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
Jaws: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the hyperspace conduit clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold anti-matter, worked twenty-four hours a day at the fabricator for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a vibro-blade.
Koala: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down fabricator, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
Harel: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
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