The Unexpected Arrival

The unexpected arrival of an Alien is something I often dreamt about but never in a toilet let alone a disabled one and yet, a few years ago an Alien did just that...

I decided to give Pete’s Diary a rest and treat you to a two-part short story, a sneak preview from my second book anthology yet to be published.

The Spark Plug Odyssey And Other Stories——a quirky title for a few quirky tales.

This is Woody’s account of the first time he met Pete with a few extras thrown in.

Woody’s Memoirs -Part One of Two

While valiantly trying to hold onto my sanity over a Frappuccino, Pete, a robot made of Lycra, appeared setting off the hand drier in the disabled toilet of an Edinburgh cafe.

At the time, I was sitting in Beryl’s Big Coffee Shop mulling over the idea of writing and getting nowhere fast. The cafe was busy and after thrusting a misshaped flapjack my way the assistant manager charged off to sort out a crisis in the ‘Gents’.

A toddler had burst in on an elderly gent who with an American “I am in the John!” stopped the toddler with the sort of door slam that had her screaming like she had lost her fingers. The howl filled the cafe causing the mother to look up from her mobile and race like there was a fire up her preverbial.

“Have you not heard of a lock?” She shouted at the door, scooping the toddler into her arms.

The assistant manager intervened.

The lock was broken and the elderly gent with a prostrate problem and dodgy hip had tried the leg against the door approach——— until he discovered the lack of toilet paper. Who to blame was not easy so the assistant manager chose the mother.

Beryl’s Big Coffee Shop is in the middle of Edinburgh——-near the castle. A hike from the train station especially during the Edinburgh Festival but the owner, a friend of my mothers needed extra help and I was desperate for anything that paid———well almost anything.

I was unemployed, and a great disappointment to my mother and I was looking for a chance to make her eat her words; a feat as easy as holding a loo door shut with a gammy leg. My mother had neglected to tell the owner I was a dwarf. The owner took one look at me, the coffee machine, and the sink, then with a “he’ll never reach that” sigh told the waiter to “give the boy a free whatever” and left for a free book reading from an unknown rom-com author.

“I wouldn’t worry,” said the assistant manager “That woman is as tight as a sphincter. She off now to a free….” He looked at the waiter frothing milk.

“…reading,” said the waiter with a crisp click of the level “Apparently the author has the audience wet with laughter.”

I didn’t say a thing, I am used to being looked at and being patted on the head is as common to me as being called a boy. Instead, I pulled out my Nokia and searched for anything free at the festival. I had this brilliant plan for a novel…. a sort of Terry Pratchett, come Hitch Hiker’s Guide, with just a hint of Robot Cop and Harry Potter thrown in. I had already been to a couple of workshops about writing, and was not the least deterred even though they maintained sci-fi comedy is as dead as a “mullet haircut”.

When you’re not like everyone else you see the world differently, and when you're small like me, folk forget you’re there. I’ve seen things. I live in Glasgow, that place is full of weirdos. I live with one, but the other night I saw something different, something that had my dreadlocks standing on edge.

It was late at night and I, caught short was, well, using the bus shelter when she appeared, out of the blue, teleported like something out of Star Trek. I nearly skidded on my pee. There she was in the sort of leather outfit that screamed “I charge for sex——alien sex and in double figures” and before I could ask how much she’d pulled out a whip. I swear it was alive. I know I’d had a few but still, I know an alive whip when I see one and this thing moved like a snake; sniffing about me like I’d just fallen off a dump truck, and before I could brush it away, it zipped up my fly ———then lifted me into the air…

My flatmate laughed his head off when I told him, told me to lay off the pills... and write porn.

The toddler was inconsolable, milking the attention of her mother and the assistant manager.

“I told her to fix that lock but would she listen” said the assistant manager handing a flapjack to the toddler.

The toddler hurled the flapjack across the room, her eyes were on the chocolate jar inches out of her reach.

“What’s wrong with the flapjack,” said the assistant manager choking out a “luvvie.”

The toddler's chubby fingers pointed to the jar of chocolate.

The assistant manager talked of natural ingredients, “coconut…butter,” ———like anyone cared then stopped as the elderly man staggered from the loo mid-shirt tucking.

His wife threw him a dark look, “Can you not do that in the John?”

“What?” he said with a robust fly zip.

“No one wants to see you zip up your fly.”

“They have seen every-friggin-thing else” he hobbled to the table. Then gestured to the empty cafe apart from a couple who looked like they had been together long enough to argue over the TV remote, and a “visually impaired” woman by the counter who thought she was in the library.

“Who the frig is looking.”

The toddler screamed, just as the owner appeared.

“What the hell is going on? I disappear for five minutes and…” she spying the gents door open stopped. “I told you to put a sign up”.

The assistant manager blushed.

The waiter shrugged “I did say.”

The owner tried to placate, and when that didn’t work she went for blame, and when that didn’t work she shoved a voucher at the mother “Have a free Columbian on me.”

The mother threw her a sour look.

“And any cake, they’re all home baked…made with natural ingredients”.

Neurvoid- Eris Goode & Kris Ruhler

The thrilling conclusion to the Project Juniper series.

To save the world they may have to give up their loved ones.

Until next time happy reading…