A young boy tugged on the bottom of his father’s shirt. “Daddy, daddy, it’s the Wheedle.”
He was wrong, of course, but Mr. Muxley did indeed look a little bit like the Wheedle. Without knowing the word, he took the comment as a grand compliment, and accepted the title with honor. He smiled at the boy and bowed. His father gave him a fiver.
“What is this?” he asked.
Monty looked at it. “That would be a five dollar bill. You can give that to someone, and they will give you something in return.”
“You mean you have a single set of currency to pay for goods and services?” Mr. Muxley looked confused.
“Well, there are several different kinds of currency. Countries tend to have their own. Much of Europe uses the same one,” Mervin explained. “How do you do it?”
“There is no standard currency,” Mr. Muxley said. “I once paid for a computer with 83 kilograms and 5 miles.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Did I not use kilograms and miles correctly? I looked them up in the land vehicle. I meant that I dragged the vendor’s heavy nephew across town, and in return, he gave me a computer.”
“Oh, well then you used it right.”
There was a screech and a howl behind them. Mr. Muxley went outside to find it. “What is that?”
Monty looked over the railing and watched in horror. “That would be a dinosaur.” A very large and angry dinosaur, possibly a Tyrannosaurus Rex, was barging through the city, knocking over buildings, and stumbling every which way. He acted like he was drunk.
“You just let your pets run around destroying your cities?” Mr. Muxley laughed. “That seems rather irresponsible.”
“He’s not a pet,” Mervin said. “He’s supposed to be extinct. He shouldn’t be here at all.”
Mr. Muxley nodded understandingly. “Ah, I see.” He pulled out a device of some kind. “What time period does he belong to?”
Mervin looked over to Monty who shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, we have no idea. At least tens of millions of years ago.”
Mr. Muxley nodded again, like he was just gathering a few extra and unnecessary facts. “That’s okay. It’ll take a bit longer, but I can scan him and map his origin.”
“You’ll what?”
They watched in amazement as Mr. Muxley pointed his device at the dinosaur. With one more tap, a beam of light shot out of the end and landed on the dinosaur’s chest. He flapped his little arms and tried to knock the light away from him, and roared with delight. What a fun game. After a few moments, the light expanded and overwhelmed him. He disappeared in a flash. “Okay, he’s home.” Mr. Muxley put his device back in his pocket.
The crowd clapped their hands together and cheered. Several tourists came by and patted him on the back. “What the hell are they are doing, making all this noise?”
“It’s an expression of appreciation,” Monty told him.
“You saved the city,” Mervin furthered.
“Oh, only because I was closest,” Mr Muxley scoffed. “Anyone could have done that.”
“Literally no one else on this planet is capable of that.”
“Okay, now I know you’re joking. This planet can’t be that far behind.”
“We are. We can’t travel through time.”
Mr. Muxley looked back and forth between them, waiting for the truth to come out. “Oh, come on.” He continued to wait. “You guys...quit messing with me. How do you go back and fix the past?”
“We don’t ever do that.”
“How do you write history books if you can’t check your facts?”
They shook their heads.
“You don’t go in the future and find out if you’re making the right decisions with your life?”
No.
“So when a tear in the spacetime continuum opens up, you just, what? Ignore it and keep walking? Like a bunch of animals? You’ve never investigated them and tapped into their energy?”
“That’s never happened before.”
Mr. Muxley bit his lower lip. “Let me guess. That thing about not having spaceships wasn’t a joke either.”
Mervin sighed. “Sure wasn’t.”
He seemed to finally be getting the idea. “In that case, I’m sorry it has to come to this.”
Monty looked skeptical and wary. “What does it have to come to?”
“I could try to explain to you the Oliyweth Gridwork; how all life in the universe is connected. I could go on and on about the achievement of enlightenment, and the importance of shedding the meaningless and the nuisances. But it would be a waste of my time. You won’t be around to use this new information anyway.”
“What are you going to do?” Mervin asked.
“I’m afraid that your planet will have to go.”
“You can’t do that!” Mervin cried out.
“It’s for the best. It’s like when you fall asleep in the middle of an eclipse and accidently forget to not grow a third arm. It might take some effort, but you have to cut off that third arm and feed it to the Lilthusned gods. Otherwise, you’ll be dealing with flicker demons for the rest of the month. And nobody wants that. You know what I mean?”
No, we don’t.
“It’ll be quick. One swipe and Earth blinks out of existence. I promise, you won’t feel a thing. Just give me a minute to send an authorization request to the Ateejehid Council.”
Monty pulled an object out of Mr. Muxley’s coat. It was a blowtorch sort of thing that aliens evidently used to light themselves on fire instead of eating, like a normal person. Mr. Muxley saw him do it, but didn’t seem to care one bit. After all, what’s the harm? Monty used the torch to destroy part of the barrier on the viewing platform. He then grabbed Mr. Muxley from behind and pulled him over the edge. Together they began to fall toward the ground. But Mr. Muxley sprouted wings and flew back up to the viewing platform. He watched with disinterest as Monty fell to the pavement and died.
“Did he just try to kill me in order to stop me from destroying your planet?”
“That’s exactly right,” Mervin confirmed. “We don’t want to die. He sacrificed himself for all of us.”
“Oh, you won’t die,” Mr. Muxley clarified. “It’ll be more like you never existed. As I said, this must be done. We cannot attain perfection with cavemen like you. We have to all be at the same level, and it would take far too much effort bringing you apes up to speed.”
Meanwhile, down on the pavement, a tear in the spacetime continuum opened up randomly and drew Monty into it. His body traveled back in time about 5,000 years. Ancient Egyptians recovered it, along with Mr. Muxley’s weird space torch. They reverse engineered the technology and altered history, propelling Earth into becoming the most advanced planet in the entire universe. Monty’s ghost explained to them what had happened in the alternate future. Eventually, Earthling forces traveled to Mr. Muxley’s home planet of Mekajs and destroyed it. Ya know...because it was for the best.
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