Monday, August 19, 2002
The shuttlecraft revolved slowly, like the wheels on a bus, going round and round. Mike Harder hardly noticed anymore. He had been in space six months and everything we find fascinating about space travel was monotonous and boring by this time, as it will soon seem to you.

“Sunfart One, this is Moon Unit Zappa. Come in,” he demanded of the radio. But it was strangely quiet, strange since it otherwise would be answering. Where was the American base?

“How’s things?” said charming Mike Duncan, climbing up through the space hole in the floor on his ladder. Mike was a hefty, muscular man who you would surely sneak a glance at if you were showering together, say, after a game, and it wouldn’t make you gay, just curious. “It’s getting tight in the rear there.”

“Oh? The ship must be compensating for its loss in capsule pressure by increasing section in the back part,” Mike Harder said scientifically. “I’m also noticing we haven’t heard from the Earth base in almost two hours, meaning they’ve missed their two-hour check-in schedule.”

“That’s right, the schedule,” said Mike Duncan, rubbing his chin erotically. “You think something happened to the Earth?”

“I didn’t,” said Mike Harder ominously, “but now I worry it might have.”

“Poo on this baloney!” said Mike Duncan happily, smacking Mike Harder sensuously on the back. “Let me buy you a tube of beer at the cabinet.” Though, actually, the beer tubes were free, provided by the Earth base outfitting department.

“Alright,” said Mike Harder. “Though, actually, the beers are free—“

A shrill dinging interrupted him.

“Holy piazza!” shouted sexy Mike Duncan. “That’s the Earth base emergency distress signal!”

“They wouldn’t be using that unless something was terribly wrong, or they were just joking,” said Mike Harder. “You think we should swing back and see if the Earth has been invaded by aliens and destroyed… or worse?”

Mike Duncan thought thoughtfully for a moment, resting a firm hand on his hip and staring off into space through the portal, his unerect penis lying potently against his left leg.

“No,” said Mike Duncan. “We’ve sworn ourselves to a mission. Our mission must take precedence over all else.”

“Dammit, Mike!” snapped Mike Harder. “We can’t just turn our backs on the entire Earth! We may be the last persons alive in the entire universe, at least the last free unenslaved people. We have to turn back.”

“To hell with that!” snapped Mike Duncan, grabbing Mike Harder by the lapels of his blue jumpsuit with his luscious hands. “Don’t you realize our sworn duty is to carry out our mission regardless what? I’m starting to think you have no sense of duty.”

“How dare you!” snapped Mike Harder. “I care just as much about planting those sunflower seeds in Saturn’s soil and monitoring their growth, as well as the secondary mission of testing the new vacuum solid waste removal system. Don’t tell me I don’t have a sense of duty! But my duty is to the Earth.”

Mike Duncan let him go, slowly drawing out the silence. “Then I guess we’ll just have to find a way to do both. Hey! What do you know? We’re at Saturn already.”

For more of this great story, buy Alfred Radbelly’s novel
1997: The Conquest of Saturn Soil Dr. Niceguy and Mr. Dribbles
“Is Dr. Niceguy ill, or acting in such a strange manner as to suggest a physiological split personality brought on by the horrible side-effects of an experimental elixir designed to stave off the sniffles?” Butterbaum queried.

The Bitcher in the City
But since I’m writing anyway, I might as well tell you what happened to me when I left Truffaut Bible College in northern New York state. I had to leave, they were all a bunch of useless tools up there. I’m directionless, that what my parents and my guidance counselors say. But you know what I say? They’re tools.

The House Won't Let You Out
“This is Kemp DuhFarge of the State Police. I found a dead man without a head a mile down the road and came to see if anyone here saw anything or might have been involved in some fashion. It made a lot of sense, but now I feel a bit awkward seeing as how I don’t even know who lives here and have yet to hear a response.”

French Prick
I smoked a thin cigarette quickly in one puff. It was what I do. I’m currently unemployed.