Monthly Archives: May 2021

Greetings From Europa – Third Transmission: Egami Doctor Visits

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First Transmission – * – Second Transmission

Greetings from Europa.

It’s that season again, the time of year when all the families in the communities are asked to bring their egami in for routine physicals. What’s an egami? I hear you asking and the simple, though not totally accurate answer is, they’re mineral-based creatures primarily used for family transportation. Seemingly mindless and docile, the egami require very little care and are virtually inexhaustible. Normally, on Earth, creatures like these would have been enslaved and abused, but here, Europans go through an extensive interview process and accept the humble beasts of burden into the family structure to the point where they dine and sleep together.

My family is fortunate in that we live so close to an egami clinic, which means Rocky, our pet (it feels so weird referring to him that way, but I simply don’t have a better word) is always amongst the first to be seen. Yes, I think of our egami as a male, though they are gender non-specific, and yes, I was in charge of choosing the name. I just wish there was someone around to get the joke. Sometimes being the only one of your kind can be a lonely thing.

Naturally, there are those who grumble that lotteries should be drawn each season to rotate the order in which the egamis are seen, but these complaints usually come from the hermits who live on the fringes of the community and they are easily ignored since they generally tend to moan about everything.

The physical is more like a spa day for the egami. After their vital signs are checked, they are basically pampered for the day. Another function of physical season is to offer families the ability to trade in their egamis if they’re unhappy with them, which is extremely rare, but has been known to happen.

My family is quite pleased with Rocky, although sometimes my daughter wonders if he would have been better off living in the wild. The problem with this suggestion is, once you’ve domesticated an egami, very seldom do the wild herds accept them back into the fold, so most wind up dying from what is believed to be either loneliness or lack of affection.

Which is a horrible way to die and who would subject a family member to that?

Until next broadcast, this is Captain Edwards, signing off.

To be continued…

Text and Audio ©2014 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Greetings From Europa – Second Transmission: The Kramdens of Bensonhurst

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First Transmission

Greetings from Europa.

The other day a qik’climajh — translation, translation… uh, I guess they would be considered the Europan version of storytellers — acted out the Tragedy of Nes’Tim, the famous surface whale whose fossilized remains rest at the highest point of Pwyll.

Once the most revered being on Europa, the spiritual prophet Nes’Tim was slain by the heretic tribe, Sel’Tab, during the height of the Glacial Wars. Meis’lo, a relative of my wife, is the only surviving witness to the tragedy. He was a child at the time, and foolishly wedged himself between the heretics and Nes’Tim. He was lucky to escape the confrontation with his life. He bears the scar of the puncture wound over his second heart.

The Sel’Tab, not above slaying a prophet, apparently had qualms about murdering a child. While I wish I could have met Nes’Tim, I’m glad that Meis’lo was not the one killed during that skirmish. Despite his nearly 600 years of age, he is a great history buff and I love talking about Europan history with him.

Back to the qik’climajh, a term that actually covers both the person telling the story and the act of storytelling (it sounds complicated but you can tell the difference when the word is used in a sentence). The ritual of the qik’climajh is that everyone in attendance takes turns telling a story.

I, unfortunately, am not much of a storyteller, so when it came to be my turn, I chose to talk about one of my favorite classic comedy shows, The Honeymooners. I tried to explain the concept of television and quickly abandoned it when I sensed the crowd getting restless.

As I retold a few of the episodes I remembered best, the ones with the chef of the future, Carlos mambo lessons, and rubber marshmallows, I watched their faces knot in confusion. At first I thought it was my fault. As I said, I’m nobody’s first choice for a storyteller, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It was the concept of KramdenRalph, as they referred to Mr. Gleeson’s character, they struggled to understand. In fact, his character was so perplexing to their Europan mindset, it sparked a great debate amongst the elders, who couldn’t find the logic of how and why everyone tolerated the portly bus driver.

After many hours of serious debate, the consensus was that NortonEd and KramdenAlice should have stripped KramdenRalph of all his possessions and exiled him from the village of Bensonhurst, armed with only a Handy Housewife Helper and a can of KraMars Delicious Mystery Appetizer.

Now, I’m actually looking forward to next week’s outing because I can’t wait to get their take on Seinfeld.

Until next broadcast, this is Captain Edwards, signing off.

To be continued…

Text and Audio ©2014 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Greetings From Europa – First Transmission: Brave New World

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Europa

This is Alexander Edwards, former captain of the Intergalactic Space Vessel Expediter.

Greetings from Europa.

I know that sounds hokey, like one of those golden age of radio programs, but I really couldn’t think of a clever opening line. I chose that particular opening because it’s the most accurate. This broadcast is coming to you from the Jupiter moon we were warned to stay away from in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And truth to tell, I don’t know if I can really call this a broadcast. I mean, I was able to salvage this transmitter, but I’m no engineer. The green light blinks but I’m not sure this thing is working. And is a broadcast truly a broadcast if no one hears it?

I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m rambling. My thoughts are all over the place right now. I have so much information to impart and have no idea where to begin. My crew and I were on route to Saturn when our ship, the Expediter, was bombarded by meteorites the size of Fiddle Faddle and we were forced to make an emergency landing here on Europa. It was a catastrophe. But they say any crash you can walk away from is a good one.

The problem is, I’m the only one who can make that statement. The rest of the crew died on impact and I spent the next three days burying them in shallow graves. I know what you must be thinking, why would I waste three days of oxygen burying dead men. The way I see it, if not for their sacrifice, I wouldn’t have had oxygen to begin with, and they were friends who deserved a decent burial, at the very least. I did for them what I hope they’d do for me if the situation was reversed.

Turns out that I used up all their oxygen for nothing. When I had depleted the last of the air supply, I decided that I was going to take my life by removing my helmet and succumbing to the Martian atmosphere. As you can see, I wasn’t successful. Oh, I removed my helmet, all right. I just didn’t die very well. It turns out that an aborted terraforming project that the Intergalactic Council labeled a failure, actually produced a layer of breathable oxygen. It’s thin and took my body some time to adjust to it, but it’s here nonetheless and is pollution free which isn’t a bad trade-off.

I wish I could tell you how long it’s been since I crash landed here, but I honestly have no idea. At the time I wasn’t thinking about tracking the days. The bulk of my concentration was focused on staying alive. I’m sure you understand. So, let’s just say I’ve been here for a while. A long while. Long enough to make contact with the indigenous life forms here, and acclimate myself to the Europan way of life. In fact, I’m married now…with children.

I would elaborate on that, but I’m trying to keep the transmissions short in order to conserve energy since I’m not sure how much juice this generator holds.

Until next broadcast, this is Captain Edwards, signing off.

To be continued…

Text and Audio ©2014 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

All Her Yesterdays

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The immortal bard once wrote that tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And as it was true for we poor mundanes trapped within the confines of this all too real world, so too were the mythical, mystical inhabitants of the Fairytale Realm subjected to the ravages of time, albeit creeping at a pettier pace.

At two hundred and seven years of age, dementia had robbed the old woman of her name and memories but whenever she sat by the window of her woodland cottage, staring past seven small graves that had not been properly tended to in years, she sang a long forgotten song from when her hair was as black as ebony, lips as red as the rose, skin as white as snow and impossibly the birds in the air outside seemed to dance in time with her lovely, lonely melody.

Text and Audio ©2019 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

One To The Dome

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One hot summer night, after one too many tallboys, and bored out of his skull, Lem Planter fetched his cheaper-than-dirt Colt King Cobra .357 Magnum and unloaded his revolver in the air, trying to put a bullet between the eyes of the man on the moon.

As one would imagine, his aim exceeded his reach, but one of those shells actually managed to find a target as it fell back down to Earth, striking Miss Hattie Clements in the top of the head. When word reached Lem, he confessed immediately and was arrested once forensics matched the bullet to his pistol.

The saving grace to this story was even though the bullet was lodged in an area of Hattie’s brain that was deemed too dangerous to be removed, she not only survived but fully recovered from the incident, and when she was released from the hospital, she refused to press charges and even visited Lem in prison to personally thank him. She felt deep in her heart that it was the best thing that ever happened to her, because from the moment she awoke after the accident, she was able to physically see and have direct conversations with God.

Text and Audio ©2019 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

As I Push My Whimsy Forward

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I am of two minds. On the one hand, I want to make a good impression, to reveal glimpses of the parts of myself that will make you think favorably of me. On the other hand, I do not wish to mislead you by pretending to be wholly one thing, when I am an amalgamation of paradoxes that should not be able to function in one body, one personality, let alone society, yet somehow does.

Then you offer me a smile that is polite and mild, and my mind is made up, for I do not wish to hide my light beneath a bushel. It is my desire that you see all of me and I see all of you, because in that act there is such a freedom of either acceptance or rejection, that transcends the simple mediocrity of belonging.

So, as I push my whimsy forward, unfolding politeness and decorum to display the complexities that live and thrive at the very core of my being, I offer you the opportunity to follow suit in order to form an unbreakable bond and temper a love forged in the flames of two pure hearts.

Text and Audio ©2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

 

Dance of the Thaw

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Persephone Phoenix Celinar of the Fourth Olympianic Hutch had been selected to fill the role of Phrenishe Harvestra, Queen of the Thaw, after the passing of the previous monarch. Upon Persephone’s neophyte shoulders fell the responsibility of creating a dance that would bring an end to the long, brutal Winter and usher in a prosperous Spring for her woodland subjects.

Unbeknownst to anyone, the young rabbit’s limbs were as stiff as oak branches. T’was true she lacked the rhythm and coordination to move gracefully, but her mother never raised a quitter in any of her many litters, so Persephone imagined that instead of unyielding branches, her limbs were dangling vines blowing in the wind.

And she danced, like no one was watching, with reckless abandon, ceaselessly tripping the light fantastic, inviting others to join the great dance in order to attract the attention of Mother Nature, asking for the cold and snow to be exiled to the void of seasons past and replaced by Spring, the resuscitator of life.

Text and Audio ©2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Her First Time

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The pocket watch was a pendulum of brilliant gold in the candlelit room. The mechanized ticking reminded Vanessa of raindrops striking a car roof, and all at once she was transported back to her rainy eighteenth birthday, in the back of Jimmy Erler’s old, beat up ’67 Chevy Impala, letting him round all the bases because she foolishly believed he was the one who deserved her much coveted v-card.

For some silly reason, she had recreated the memory of her first time into something clumsy and awkward but romantic and committed herself to the lie so hard and for so long that she actually believed it was true. But under Doc Halley’s hypnosis session, the fairytale facade fell away, and her breathing escalated from jittery pants to an almost animalistic sucking in of air as if she was underwater. Her body was becoming thick and heavy and she heard Jimmy’s sweet nothings whispered in her ears turn into screams for help.

It was then that she realized their heavy petting had been abandoned for her pummelling, clawing, kicking, and biting at her nineteen year old date who had balled up in a fetal position trying to protect himself from her brutal assault. Before the date, Jimmy bragged about his prowess and his ability to bloom her flower. The shame of it was that he didn’t live long enough to see just how right he was.

Text and Audio ©2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys