Galactispeak is a dialect of Ancient Varadne.
There is no Modern Varadne. All life on Varadne was exterminated in a planetary civil war many centuries ago.
The species may be gone, but archaeologists and xenoanthropologists pieced together the culture as best they could.
Their language was revealed to be amazingly flexible, descriptive, and efficient.
It is also incredibly easy to learn and master in a short amount of time.
So easy, Varadne spread like a virus across the galaxy, replacing almost all other languages.
We call it Galactispeak.
And we shout it as we fight each other to the death.
Tag: tragedy
Fighting
I heard a scream through the wall.
My apartment neighbors are fighting again.
I put on my headphones.
As loud as the music is, I still hear the screams.
Should I go over there to see what they’re doing?
Nah.
Instead, I call the pizzeria down the street and order a pizza for them.
Yeah, this won’t help the situation at all.
Good.
The sooner they kill each other, the quicker I can get my friend to move in next door.
It’s a thousand bucks for a referral.
Maybe I shouldn’t do this…
I call again.
Ten pizzas.
That’ll work!
Chili
Jenny thought that God would save her from Jimmy, but the harder she prayed for a miracle, the worse Jimmy beat her.
So, one day, she put rat poison in the chili she cooked for dinner.
Jimmy came home from work, and without saying hello or anything, began to eat.
Jenny watched him, waiting for Jimmy to clutch his throat and die.
“Quit starin at me,” said Jimmy, and he took a knife and stabbed her with it.
Up in Heaven, Jenny asked God what the fuck happened.
“I did send a miracle,” said God. “I neutralized the rat poison.”
The Awful Search
When a cat goes missing, you put up posters and call shelters
And then you wait.
The waiting is the worst. The not knowing.
Every cat cry, every sound makes you think they’re back.
They’re not.
I walked around until my knee felt full of broken glass.
And walked around some more.
You look everywhere you’ve found them before, but they’re never there.
They’re everywhere but where you look.
So you keep looking.
I saw something. On the sidewalk.
No. It’s just a shirt someone had dropped on their way back from the laundry room.
And walked around some more.
The Event
The catastrophic event happened faster than we could respond.
We tried to reduce pressure in the tank, but it exploded, killing 22 workers.
We are budgeted for 60 casualties in a cycle.
The plant manager congratulated us, and gave us a bonus.
However, more workers died as a result of radiation sickness.
The casualty count increased rapidly.
Soon, we had surpassed our budget, and our bonus was revoked.
We received a reprimand.
However, we were not terminated, as the plant manager had died.
Not that this matters much to us, as we vomit blood and await our own horrible deaths.
Certificates
I’m the county clerk.
I handle all the certificates.
Births
Weddings
Deaths
Every one of them has to go on official certificate paper, lined up just right.
It’s a pain in the ass.
You can’t just print these out in a color laser printer. That’s not good enough for people getting married or having kids.
The dead don’t give a shit, but their relatives care… only right up until the will’s been read, though.
I got bored one day and left a death certificate for John Coward on the copier.
Ran a thousand of them off and proved Shakespeare right.
Myst needs a kitten
Myst has never been alone until now.
She was born into a big litter at a friend’s trailer park.
We were going to take her and her brother, but old Nardo already had his paws full with Bruwyn. Another new kitten was pushing it, so two probably would have killed him.
When Nardo died, she still had Bruwyn, and they cleaned each others ears every day. And they went out hunting and playing in the grass.
Now that Bruwyn is gone, Myst is all alone. She really needs a kitten-friend.
Because I’m sick of cleaning her ears. They taste disgusting.
Laundry Helper
Whenever my wife does laundry, she stacks the folded clean clothes on the bed.
And then, Nardo the orange cat would jump on the bed and roll around on the clean clothes.
Orange cat hair all over everything.
He taught Bruwyn to roll around on the clean laundry, and both of them would shed all over the clothes.
When Nardo was gone, Bruwyn had the laundry duty all to himself.
Now that Bruwyn’s gone, there’s no more laundry assistants.
Myst prefers to roll around in the dirt outside.
Maybe if I tossed all the clean clothes into the dirt…
Nah.
The Canyon
I don’t travel much anymore.
Instead, I like use Google Maps to look at famous places a lot.
People link photos to those sites, and I imagine walking through the streets of Berlin… riding a camel past the Pyramids… leaning on the rail of a paddlewheel boat on the Mississippi…
The Grand Canyon’s walls are a smeary blur in Google Maps.
The satellite photos don’t do it justice. And the tourists can’t quite cover all its greatness.
I want to go there and see it for myself.
And for the first time since I broke my neck, I feel self-pity.
The Loss Of Hope
Bruwyn didn’t come home Monday night.
We made posters, and we sent his photo to all the shelters and the city pound.
LOST CAT
DOMESTIC SHORTHAIR
BLACK MALE
CHECKERED COLLAR
ANSWERS TO “BOO”
And my phone number.
A neighbor just called me.
He’d finally seen the poster, and he recognized the collar.
He’d seen him by the side of the road.
Dead.
He’d gone back there to get him, but the city had picked up his body.
Closure, they call it.
But even though I know that Bruwyn is dead, I still look in the bushes and around every corner.