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Nick's Story

by Francisgrace

I woke up suddenly. I had to blink twice and strain my eyes to focus in the dark of the room. I wasn’t really sure where I was or how long I had been asleep. In fact, my memories seemed strangely foggy . I reached to the table beside the bed and wrapped my fingers around a smooth, familiar shape.

Ahhh, a bottle of warm rum.

I gulped down what was left in the bottle in just three swigs. I felt better already.

You know, a man’s mind can really play tricks on him in the first few minutes of waking. I had this crazy feeling that I had just missed out on something really big that had something to do with a cock-eyed monkey, and a sword that shone like moonlight. The feeling was quickly replaced by the familiar tingle of the rum as it settled in my stomach and whatever it was that I was trying to remember, was all but forgotten.

Now, I could only think of food. I was really hungry. No, I was ravenously starving and I would need to be satisfied! The rumblings in my stomach assured me that this was not something I could postpone. I stood up in the darkened room and made my way down the hall to the galley to find something to eat.

The galley was lit brightly but empty. The vessel had been granted temporary off duty status and many of the crew had returned home. I actually preferred the quiet, emptiness of the large vessel. I thought I was alone, so I was even more surprised (and disgusted) to find that the one other Naval officer to remain aboard was a troll. Nigel Amaxaroo was a smelly, tiny, unkempt man. I hated to even look at him and remembered our first meeting.

“’I’m not a troll. I’m a dwarf.. I would most greatly appreciate it if ye would get it right.”, he had said to me. I made it a point to call him a troll whenever I saw him.

“Morning, Officer Troll,” I said. He looked at me with age old sadness in his eyes, but did not speak.. He knew better than to talk back to the Captain and had long ago realized that correcting me was all in vanity. I pinched my nose and waved my hand in front of my face as if I couldn’t stand his smell. I loved to torture the little midget.

I scrambled through the rations that remained in the food chamber and settled on a bag of strained barbecued chicken wing paste when the troll made a noise that startled me. It was a gurgling noise, a deep sound from the depths of his throat. I turned to look at him and saw his eyes, that were unusually large. He stared at me without blinking.

Then he simply closed his eyes and fell motionless on the floor like a disregarded doll.

Strange.

I reached for his arm, to feel for vitals. None. He was dead.

I felt sad. I mean, I never liked the guy, and I was never nice to him, I knew almost nothing about him except that he was devoted to the Navy and he smelled bad, but there was a certain sadness to an inexplicable sudden death, even if he was a smelly midget.

The back of my head ached even more. I thought I should do something, fill out paperwork, call someone, try and decide what happened to him? Well, I knew one thing. I was still hungry and I wouldn’t be able to eat with a smelly, dead midget around so I left the vessel and headed to the “Bacchus and Stars”, a bar on the bustling calliope space port where we had settled.

This bar was never quiet or empty. There was a large rhinoceros-looking man, holding a briefcase sitting with a pair of conjoined twin female Drastionites (Women from Drastiona were famous for their gigantic breasts). Several long men were surrounding a card table where a tiny, yellow frog seemed to be winning their gold. A beautiful cocoa-skinned women sat across from an older gentleman, petting a small brightly colored creature that sort of reminded me of a cock-eyed monkey. She was lovely.

Something seemed familiar. The fogginess of this morning seemed to be drowning in a complete whiteout.

“Do you want something?”, a voice broke. The bartender was a female saffir, with medium-length dun fur and large yellow eyes.

“Uh….a.. a r-rrum, pplease”, I stammered. I really wanted some food but I knew another bottle of rum might be just what I needed to clear my aching head. She put a glass in front of me.

I heard singing and had to grin. There was only person with a rotten Irish voice like that.

“That can’t be Mulligan McInvrnesshireling. Who would let that scalawag in any respectable place!”, I chortled loudly so that I was sure he could hear. Then I saw him, looking around confused until he spied me back and a giant grin fell over his face.

“If they let you in here, Nicholas, that it mustn’t be respectable at all!” Mll and I had a history together as former crew mates of the same pirate ships back in the days. We had shared adventure, gallons of rum, and even a woman or two in our lives. I never had a brother, or even a really good friend but If I had to make mention of anyone in this world that I would not want to see die, I would have to say that it would be him. I went to his table.

“He cheats like a three headed hadigar” I announced to the table and Mull stood up and gave me a pat on the shoulders.

“Good to see ye, Nick. Mull sat down.

He was playing Spades. I love spades. The Ace was a brilliant card. It beat everything. When you held that card in your hand, it was a feeling of power, entirely unbeatable. Mull played like a champion and in no time, he was grabbing a stack of gold from the table. Mull grabbed my ear and whispered, “Let’s see if we can get a game against that guy over there, he’s a lousy player.” I could see he was motioning to a green alien. “I won a fortune from him last night, couldn’t lose!”, he grinned.

I sat down at the table where the green alien was shuffling a deck of cards. He sneered at me then he almost smiled at Mull. In fact, I think he might have been laughing at him.

“Ready to lose more t’ me, Delinvar “,Mull quipped.

“It is you that will lose, human. In fact you have already lost”. The alien swished his tail and flexed the muscles in his green skin.

I matched his large stack of gold on the table and he dealt the cards. Mull gave me a look, one that I was familiar with and I made my bid. You see, Mull and I were champions at spades not because of skill, but for a devised a series of looks and gestures that would likely go unnoticed but communicated clearly our hands, strong cards, and weak. We knew when to bet high and when to sandbag our opponents. His look told me that he held enough high cards to cover a nil and I needn’t worry. We made our bid easily and the green alien was raging by the end of the turn.

The game continued for several rounds. We were simply unbeatable. I spied the gold with anticipation. It would be mine soon, and then I would buy a good steak with mushroom gravy. I was still so hungry. The game was almost over. We were a cinch to win. Every hand was perfect. Every bid was predictable.

I noticed the cocoa-skinned girl in the corner of the room staring at me. She wanted me, I was sure of it.

The cards were dealt. We stopped them from making their bid. Delinvar, the green alien, spat on the floor. He really wasn’t a great player. Mull sang his little irish song. He knew we were about to win. The cocoa-skinned girl was coming over holding a rainbow colored cock-eyed monkey looking creature. I knew she wanted me.

It was the last hand and as long as we made our bid, we would take the gold as ours. Mull stretched his neck to the right and sniffled a little. That meant he had high spades but not the ace. I had the ace. We would easily win. Play by play, we won what we needed and gave up what we didn’t until all that was left was the play of my ace and we would win.

But then Mull gurgled and stopped moving. The he just looked at me, with great big pained, staring eyes. His grin was gone. He said nothing then collapsed to the table. I was speechless. I knew he was dead. He looked just like that troll had looked. I felt my whole body stiffen.

“For Nir’kin, savage!” said Delinvar and then he stared at me. He raised his hand towards my face but right at that moment, the cocoa-skinned girl threw a ball of some kind and it hit the alien in the head, knocking him out. Then she grabbed my hand.

“Come with me! NOW!”. It wasn’t a request.

I was still stunned but managed to stand up. I grabbed the stack of gold. The invisible girl looked at me with sadness. I handed her a coin. It seemed like a good thing to do. I looked one more time at my only friend, dead on the spades table, then turned to follow the cocoa-skinned girl. I never caught a breath as I chased her all the way to a brightly colored ship that I boarded to follow her.

“Nicholas”, she said once we were aboard (and how did she know my name?), “You may call me Afya and this is the former future leader of the known universe, Tamar.” It was the older gentleman that had been in the bar talking to her in the back.

“And this…”, she said while ruffling the fur of the monkey-creature, “is Quinzee, an amazingly brilliant scientist from the future and the rest I have to tell you will likely be hard to believe…”

You know, a man’s mind can really play tricks on him in the first few minutes after witnessing the death of a good friend. This beautiful woman, whom I had only moments ago believed to be my next affair, went on to spin a tale of murdered spades opponents of Delinvar. It seems that anyone who would be unlucky enough to win, would get a touch from his tentacles and the slow working poison would take its effect within 24 hours causing a debilitating pain-induced paralysis on its victims just before they dropped dead.

My thoughts went to the dwarf.. and to Mull.

“It is not those that have died that worry us”, she said as if reading my thoughts. “It is those that will die. There is a long and complicated chain of events that will be set in motion on this very day which will eventually lead to a bloody war in the future, causing the death of innocent people and a corrupt government to be installed that would end life as we know it, and that all of these things will happen if Delinvar loses the very next spades game he plays. He’s an assassin and thief, and a terrible poor sport with a deep hatred for humans. His next victim will be murdered in the same way that you were about to be, until I stopped him.”

I just realized that she’d saved my life. God, she was beautiful.

“Thanks to Quinzee here, Tamar and I have been given the task of righting the wrongs of the world by correcting them before they happen. You see, Tamar is supposed to be the leader of the universe but this chain of events has usurped his power and toppled his regime. He has been floundering through time and space ever since. We have tried everything to stop this twist in time including killing Delinvar, but even that leads to a butterfly effect with an interesting ending involving a great race of hippos…please don’t ask. “

“We have decided that somehow if Del were to WIN a spades game, by a strange twist of his religious beliefs, he would owe a debt to a human and would be able to cancel a death, and he would do so by not killing his very next opponent.”

“This is where you come in”, she smiled. She held up a sword that was the exact color of the reflection of moonlight in a darkened sky.

“This is a weapon of mine, but it doesn’t do any damage. It simply sends you back in time, about one day. That is enough time to get to the spades game and play, but this time play to lose. LET Delinvar win”.. She held out the weapon.

I puzzled for a moment. “That’s it?”, I asked. “I just go lose a spades game and I will save the whole universe?”.

Afya nodded. She tossed her dark braids over her shoulders and looked at me with her deep eyes.

I wondered if she would sleep with me if I saved the universe.

“Ok, I guess.. “. I was still hungry but figured I should just get this over with, and then I could take her out to dinner when I meet her again tomorrow for the first time.

“The only thing you have to remember, “she said, “is that you CANNOT have even a sip of alcohol. A recent time-traveler has to adjust to present time. It takes a moment for memories to catch up and if you drink any alcohol at all you won’t remember what you are doing, where you are, or worse, this whole conversation. Please be careful not to drink even a sip.”.

“Got it.. No rum.. “, I said as I thought about the naked body shots her and I would be doing later, once she was so indebted to me for saving the universe.

“Ready? This will hurt just a little… “. As she said that, the whole room went suddenly dark as the moonlight sword came down on my head.

I woke up suddenly. I had to blink twice and strain my eyes to focus in the dark of the room. I wasn’t really sure where I was or how long I had been asleep. In fact, my memories seemed strangely foggy. I reached to the table beside the bed and wrapped my fingers around a smooth, familiar shape.

Ahhh,

A bottle of warm rum.