The Hipster From Outer Space (The Hipster Trilogy Book 1) (24 page)

Before long he was surrounded by a sea of cosplayers. He began to think that he should’ve put more effort into his costume. Everyone else had evidently spent the last week assembling each item of clothing like it was their purpose in life. Markus felt uneasy. He could’ve sworn a few of the cosplayers were looking at him; lingering looks. Maybe it was his shitty costume. It didn’t matter anyway, he wasn’t there for the fashion. He was there to get his wife back.

The 8-bit-chip-tune music and the lights dimmed and a man walked onto the stage. His bottom half looked normal, smart even — a nice suit — but he had black lines on his face and a fiery orange wig. He walked straight to the centre of the stage, pulled out his phone and took a selfie with the audience behind him. Everybody cheered.
 

“Hey guys,” he shouted down the microphone and everyone replied together with “Hey Samwell!”

“Who the fuck is Samwell?” Markus whispered to himself.
 

“I wanted to thank you for all coming today, guys. I know it was late notice and I know that you probably had other plans, but … if you’re anything like me, nothing would’ve stopped you from making your way here … am I right?”

The crowd cheered.
 

“Not your job.”

They cheered.

“Not your gaming.”

They cheered.

“Not your spouse.”

They cheered. Markus winced.

“So you all got the e-mails about the Sesh and you know what’s going to happen. I trust you all brought your chosen items?”

They cheered and, for the first time, Markus noticed everyone was carrying canvas bags, each one with a red circle painted on it. He didn’t remember reading anything about chosen items. Not in the e-mail or the text. Maybe he missed it? Maybe …
 

“And right now I’d like to introduce you to your new god … Yayatoo!”

Samwell pointed to his right and to someone hidden behind the curtain. A figure slowly stepped onto the stage. Completely shrouded by a cloak. The cosplayers erupted with cheers and applause and quietened down after several minutes as the shrouded figure took to the middle of the stage. Samwell pressed his finger against his lips and everyone hushed each other. With a giddy smile, he tip-toed over to the figure and placed his hands on the hood. Markus’s heartbeat thumped against his chest. Samwell pulled the hood back to reveal the familiar pink and blue hair of Yayatoo, Louise, his wife.
 

Everybody went crazy, jumping and howling, but Markus stood with his feet firmly planted to the floor. She was dressed like the elf queen of the Fantasy Sword Online Kingdom — Evenera. The shroud, the plastic elf ears, the leather boots. She seemed emotionless. She stood there, accepting the craziness like it didn’t mean anything, and the crowd loved it even more. She was a rockstar to them — no, a goddess.

Samwell held his phone to her at all times, recording the whole thing.
 

When the crowd eventually calmed she walked to the microphone. She looked into the audience like she was scanning them, looking for something. Her eyes scanned past his Dragon Boy mask without stopping.

“Welcome humans,” she said, “to the Yayatoo Sesh.”

Aidan Black

White Log Farm, 2002

The pigs were behind their fences, mostly sleeping. A couple of bored piglets wandered around, sniffing the floor, snorting … doing a bit of nothing. The wind whistled against the sides of the walls and the ceiling.
 

“You see JK Rowling has got it made now,” Aidan said. “I know it may sound crazy, but with the box office figures of the film she’s got to be rolling in dough. She’s won it. She’s fucking won it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t see what the fuss is about. A boy with a wand and a scar and a … school.” Sammy’s head was loose to his shoulders. It bobbed and weaved, and as he spoke Aidan got a whiff of his rum-soaked breath.

“Sammy, there’s a secret that I know now, that I wish I knew before Mum and Dad disappeared. The secret to being happy in the world.”

Sammy sat back, resting his head on the wall behind them, his eyes staring straight upwards.

“I just know one thing … that if I keep telling myself that I’ll grow up to be a success, the universe will conspire to make that happen.”

Sammy laughed like he’d shit himself.
 

“That sounds like some of Granddad’s self-help bullshit,” he said. “It can’t be true.”

“It is fucking true. It’s called cosmic ordering.” Aidan slammed his good hand down. “You put your positive thoughts out into the world and you tell it what you want, each and every day, and then the universe and the gods, or whatever, conspire to make it all happen for you.” Aidan’s voice rose with every word. Passion and anger. Alcohol and an empty stomach. “And to make it happen, you read yourself your words, your affirmations, every day and it deepens the message, it strengthens the connection with the universe.”

“Sure,” Sammy said, his eyes rolling. “Sure it does.”

“Whatever dude, just know that one day in the future I’ll be the one bringing home the bacon, and you’ll be the one cleaning up after me.”

Aidan laid back and looked to a hole in the ceiling. Through the hole, he saw the clearest night sky he’d seen in as long as he could remember. It was unbelievable to him how many stars were over him. He wondered which of the lights were stars, which were planets, space stations, satellites, etc. He wondered what might be out there, looking back at him. He wondered if there was some alien pervert staring back with a telescope, touching himself. He shook his head to clear the thoughts as Sammy climbed to his feet and stumbled towards the door. He mumbled the word “Piss” and Aidan ignored him, still focusing on the skies above.
 

Moomamu The Thinker

“So …” Luna said. “Do you, like, come in peace?”
 

She looked over to Moomamu and then looked back to the front of the tiny moving machine. It was incredibly small. He was sitting next to her in some sort of entrapment machine — a single strap of solid fabric tied him down and his feet were tucked beneath the seat in such a way that he couldn’t pull them free. Luna was also enclosed in a similar cage of fabric and inconvenience, but she also had the wheel control in front of her. She moved the wheel left to right, flicked some switches here and there, and the tiny moving machine moved forward, past towering grey boxes of rock and concrete. They’d driven all the way out of the queen’s nest and into the farming lands of the countryside.

“I come in peace,” Moomamu said. “I wouldn’t have the energy to attack any humans right now. My body feels like it’s shutting down, like it did last night. My eye-flaps are getting heavy.”

“Oh right,” Luna said. “You mean you’re tired?”

“No,” Moomamu said. “Thinker’s don’t get tired. They just become … well … they just kind of …” Moomamu’s words words trailed off. His eyes closed.

“Feel free to sleep,” Luna said.

“No!” His eyes were wide open again. “I need to stay alert in case any more broken humans come to attack the cat,” he said. “He’s in no state to protect himself at the minute.”

Gary was in the back. His paw was encased in the hard white clay mixture. The medicine woman had also placed a plastic cone around his head so he couldn’t lick his wounds. He looked ridiculous. Moomamu laughed and pointed at the snoozing feline.

“Why are you laughing?” Luna said. “I thought you were concerned for his well-being?”

“I am concerned,” he said. “I’m a being of space and time and this little creature appears to be the only thing that knows how to get me back to where I belong, and look at him, in his stupid plastic cone.”

“Sure,” Luna smiled and nodded. “So you’re like … Doctor Who?”

“What?” Moomamu said. “I’m neither a medicine man or a who … I am a what,” he said.

“And what is that?” Luna asked as she moved the moving machine to the other side of the road, which was full of other tiny moving machines.

“A Thinker.”

“Right,” Luna said. “A thinker.”

Suddenly the cat groaned. His good paw flicked and batted at nothing. His tail whipped.

Luna looked at the concern on Moomamu’s face and said, “He’s just dreaming.”

“Ah,” Moomamu said and nodded. “Very good.”

“I can’t help you, Susan,” said the cat. He was still asleep, moving and ‘dreaming’, but he was now talking, unaware of the words that were coming out of his mouth. Luna looked at him through a conveniently placed mirror hanging from the roof of the moving machine. “Everybody’s dead … everybody’s dead.”

The cat’s eyes slowly opened and he looked right at Moomamu like he wanted to open the moving machine door and throw Moomamu out of it.

“You’re alive. Good. I believe we are making progress towards the land of Nottingham. This, Luna, has decided to take us the whole way.”

“Yes,” Luna said. “Somehow. I mean, I couldn’t just leave you out here with a sick cat. I’m not a monster. Doesn’t matter anyway, we should be arriving within the next hour, but … where exactly are we going?” Luna said.

“Home,” Moomamu said.

“And where is that?”

“23 Peafield Lane, Mansfield Woodhouse,” Gary said, his eyes barely open now. “We’re going to see a woman and her dog.”

“And will
they
be taking me home?” Moomamu said, irritation in his voice.

“Okay,” the cat said, not hearing the question, closing his eyes again. “Okay.”

“Rude,” Moomamu said, and turned back to the front of the moving machine.

“Don’t worry,” Luna said, with her mouth wide and her teeth showing. “He’s sleepy from the drugs. He’s not being …”

Moomamu couldn’t remember the rest of her words, because he found himself drifting off to sleep too.

He dreamt of stars and planets and fire.

Markus Schmiebler

“I awoke on this planet with a flash of light. I awoke scared, alone, with one thought and one thought alone,” Yayatoo said. Her alabaster face was a marble sculpture in the white lights of the stage. “I wanted to run away. I wanted to go back to my glorious home in the stars.”

Markus shook his head. All he saw up there was his wife. His Louise. He remembered the profile picture from the online dating website.

“I woke next to a fool of a human and … I didn’t like it, so I ran.”

“No,” Markus whispered.
 

“But then … as I ran through the wilderness of the streets full of dying lifeforms, struggling to find love and happiness and unwilling to see the futility in their existence, I saw that I was sent here for a purpose.”

“You okay, dude?” the swordsman cosplayer whispered into his ear and he nodded.
 

“I’m fine,” he said.

“And so I have decided to stay.”

A slow build of applause.

“I have decided to help the human race.”

Now the audience was cheering again.

“I decided to lead you all to your real purpose in life.”

“Yes to Yayatoo!” a random man shouted from the crowd and she nodded with delicate authority. “Yes to Yayatoo!” More people joined in.

“No,” Markus found himself shouting. “No!”

“Yes to Yayatoo! Yes to Yayatoo! Yes to Yayatoo!” The crowd was now chanting.
 

“No, no, no!” He pulled down his mask and pushed himself past a man dressed like an orc and a woman dressed like Spiderman. “Louise, no!” He tried to get to the front of the cosplayers, by the foot of the stage when he realised the chanting had stopped. Louise was looking at him, smiling. So was Samwell from the side of the stage. He turned to see the cosplayers were too. Everyone was staring at him in silence.

“And there he is,” Louise said, pointing to him. “Which means it’s finally time to start the Sesh.”

Suddenly the cosplayers erupted into a roar and charged towards him. He could just make out the odd horn, a bit of face-paint, maybe a tail, before he felt something repeatedly smash into his side and his nose and a bag being pulled over his head. His body was lifted into the air. He felt hundreds of hands pushing upwards, moving him along the top of the crowd until he rolled onto the floor of the stage. He tried to wriggle himself free from the bag but somebody kicked him twice. The first one knocked the wind out of him and he heaved.

As he lay there, trying to get his breath back, a soft hand landed on his shoulder. It felt familiar.
 

“Your Louise has gone,” a voice whispered to him. “Only Yayatoo remains.”

He lay in the dark, crying and wheezing, waiting for the Sesh to begin.
 

Aidan Black

White Log Farm, 2002

Aidan’s eyes began to close when he heard the Pig-House door open.
 

“I’ll be honest,” he said. “The alcohol has gotten to me.” He laughed, but Sammy didn’t join in. “I can tell I’m starting to feel it when the space around me feels like it’s stretching.”

“I normally feel the same thing.”

Aidan sat up, pushing the nearly empty bottle of rum behind his back.
 

“I normally drink that with ice. It doesn’t do it justice straight out of the bottle like that,” Lenny said. He looked tired. He was in his vest top, holes and old paint stains, and his hair was out of its tie, tumbling over his ears. His toolbox still in his hand.

“I’m …”
 

“That’s okay,” he said. “That’s okay. I would’ve done the same.”

He walked over to Aidan, placed the toolbox on the floor, and sat next to him on the straw. Aidan tried to wipe his eyes back to sober, but it wasn’t working. His heartbeat pulsed. He wanted to run away.
 

“You know, I remember when your mother was a little kid, running around, her hair bouncing around as she played with the animals.” He leaned in closer with every word, his voice a low grumble. “I remember her being a little shit too, just like you.” He ran his hand along the Walkman headphones around his neck.

“Mum was good,” Aidan said, now crying, struggling to get each word out. “Mum was a good person.”

“Yeah, no, she was. Maybe. Perhaps I’m the bad guy. I don’t know. But all I know is … all I remember is the day where your grandmother took your mother and left me alone here in this shit-hole. And you know what …” He chuckled. “You know what your bitch of a mother said to me as her grandmother whisked her away?”