Take Her to the Moon for Me, Okay?
“Take her to the moon for me, okay?” Spike asked while slurping cold ramen off chopsticks.
“Man, Spike, why don’t you take her yourself?”
“I would…was going to… but-“
Spike stirred his cold noodles and stared into the chipped bowl. His friend, more accurately, partner in crime stood behind him and scratched at the crotch of his spacesuit waiting for Spike to finish his answer.
“You just couldn’t man up and do it yourself, huh.” said Roscoe.
“Yeah, but…” protested Spike feebly.
“Yeah but, yeah but. Yeahbuts live in the woods man…or at least they used to. Rosco looked out the space station portal down at Earth as if he could see any Yeahbuts hopping through the woods.
“Listen dude, you just don’t know how hard it is, I can’t seem to live with her and heck if I can’t live without her. She’s so messy and never shuts up, something has to change.” Spike threw his chopsticks on the table and lowered his bubble helmet solar visor.
“You know that old commercial slogan, man” Roscoe reminded, ‘JUST DO IT’. “
“Yeah, easy for you to say, you didn’t have to live with her, you don’t have a dog in this fight. So don’t give me that crap.”
“Look man” Roscoe tried to wipe at his nose but his helmet prevented him, “This was your problem to begin with. You were advised by the agency not to bring her along. And besides, my freight weights are checked very closely, one ounce over my limit and I’m dry docked until the next Earth launch. I can’t make any money that way.”
“Ok, ok, Roscoe, I can’t take her constant chatter anymore, I’ll pay you a thousand credits to haul her to the moon this cycle. Just drop her off there, someone else is sure to take her in.”
A small meteor the size of a wheel of Swiss cheese streaked past the space station. The two men didn’t speak for a few minutes, silently weighing their choices. Roscoe craned his neck in a circle and scrunched his lips together, trying not to voice his decision. Spike turned and faced his roguish friend wearing a basset hound expression. Roscoe couldn’t hold his answer any longer.
“Man, you beat all. You DO remember I was the one that brought you two together, right?” Spike nodded his head and tried to wipe his eyes, but the bubble helmet prevented him and a tear dropped deep down into the cavity of his spacesuit.
“Ok Spike, you’re definitely going to owe me man. Bring her to the dock in an hour and I’ll hide her in cargo. And if I get audited at the moon base, I’m rattin’ you out man. Believe it!”
“Sure, no problem Roscoe. We’ll be there in an hour. Thanks, thanks a lot buddy.”
“Dang straight you will, man.”
The two spacemen went their separate ways in the station’s gravity tunnels. A small coronal ejection from the sun spit at the slowly twirling spaceport. An hour later Spike entered the cargo hold of Rosco’s ship.
“Now remember, she likes crackers and if along the way you could maybe talk with her a little, softly, you know, give her some love?”
Roscoe grabbed the covered cage out of his friends hand.
“Gimme that dang parrot man.”
“Her name is Lucille.” Spike admonished.
“Just gimme that yakking bird, man.”
#flashfiction #sci-fi #humor #spacemen #spacestation #williamcalkins