“Galactic greetings, Mindel. I see you are back from your very first assignment as galactic investigator. Now,” said Quark, shuffling papers, “oh, yes, looks like you’ve been out in the Milky Way researching the evolution of HD 893741, otherwise known as Earth. Based on their radio waves we’ve intercepted, a decidedly primitive people. Are you ready to give your report and detail your brief sojourn as an Earthling?”
Mindel held up a celery stalk like a trophy and took another crunchy bite. “The inhabitants of Earth have excellent produce, Quark.”
Quark was quick to anger. “I don’t need instruction on exotic foods, Mindel. Against my better judgement, I gave you this plum assignment. I shouldn’t have to remind you that you were the worst student in our galactic investigator school. The very worst. I hope you did not disappoint me!”
“No, sir.”
“And just what are those “things” you are wearing and that small rectangular device you keep eyeballing?” asked Quark.
“Well, sir. This is called a Yankees baseball hat, sir. Form-fitted, size 13 and 7/8ths. Its purpose is to shade the head from sunlight, and the brim shades the eyes from glare. Quite ingenious.”
“Then why are you wearing it backwards, if the brim shades the sun?”
“Well, sir, on Earth, it’s “cool” to wear one’s hat that way, sir.”
“How about that gadget you keep checking out?”
“This,” he said, holding up the device, “is what they call an iPhone. It’s a portable computer and communicator. Powered by a minute lithium battery. I’ve been watching a video on something called TikTok,” said Mindel, excitement growing to a crescendo. “And, sir, you must see this,” he said, grinning with delight.
For an instant, Quark seemed quite amused by what he saw, then caught himself and scowled.
“It’s a cat, sir,” said Mindel. “It’s dancing, or it’s made to look like it’s dancing.” Quark got up and fetched the trash can. Mindel’s excitement faded.
“In the trash. The hat, too, and the rest of the celery.”
“But, sir, I have all my Earth contacts on the phone, and I am getting plenty of Likes on Facebook for my posts….” Mindel surrendered the objects into the can without another word.
Quark cleared his throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Mindel slowly slipped the large, chain-linked, gold cable from around his neck and deposited it into the basket with a heavy thud!
Quark shook his head. “I told your mother this was not a good idea, but I owed her after she covered me when I lost that bet on the Galaxy Bowl. Who’d have thought Ambartsumian’s Knot would come back against the Large Magellanic Cloud like that! Quark sighed wearily. “Where were we?”
“Earth, sir. The elemental composition of the planet is dominated by magnesium, oxygen, iron, and silicon, and they have an abundance of water. Silicon is the binding fabric for most of their rocks and mountains. The Earthlings themselves,” said Mindel, “are a very fun, pleasure-seeking people, uncle Quark. Unfortunately, when they are not actively seeking pleasure, they do have a…” Mindel searched for the right word, “a thirst, sir, a…. a blood lust, if you will, for conflict and slaughter, often on a mass scale. But,” he added, with optimism, “at the same time, when someone is in need, they may give you the shirt off their back without asking any questions! When they are in their pleasure-seeking mode, say, partying to Shakira or Jelly Roll, they can be quite content and reasonable. They are a very contradictory people, sir.”
“I see,” said Quark. “How about their government?”
“In the United States, the people elect representatives who make decisions for the whole. There are two political parties, and they are constantly at odds with one another. The politicians are expert at using the media to parrot their opinions, and the media uses the politicians to justify the carefully crafted slant on their news stories. It’s quite awful, sir. They work together in a destructive symbiotic dance, like the matings of the Black Widow Spider. Both the politicians and the media operate in tandem with the goal of keeping the people at odds with each other. The people have yet to realize that the stories on the news aren’t the product, that they, the viewers, are the product, being molded by the news in a specific fashion to keep them watching over and over again, with conflict building to a crescendo, much to the delight of the politicians. It’s a circular effect much like cellular respiration in the Krebs Cycle.”
“1.5 on the intergalactic primitivity index,” said Quark, shaking his head. “Only the paramecium grades lower.”
“Yes, I had them there too, sir. 1.5. Right on the button!” Mindel was pleased with himself.
Quark nodded. “How about that special assignment I gave you?”
“Steely Dan, sir? No, I couldn’t make any headway into explaining any of their lyrics. The Earthlings don’t know either. They remain a mystery, sir.”
“Drat! The formation of the universe is easier to unravel. I’ve had our so-called top linguists working on those lyrics for decades now. I would banish them to the center of the Crab Nebula if it were up to me!”
Mindel ignored the outburst and tried to focus on his report. “The Earthlings place a strong emphasis on business, sir. But this is also a big part of their problem. Protecting global business interests is a major cause of war. In addition, the waste from industry is poisoning the planet. Their lives revolve around something called The Market, which resides on a street called Wall. Stocks are driven by profit. And profit drives industry. Each quarter, profits must be bigger, fueling more industry and triggering more consumption, which creates more waste spilling into their oceans and rivers. On Earth, the sun is not the center of the Solar System. It’s the dollar bill, sir.”
“We should never have sent that Monolith down there 50,000 years ago,” mumbled Quark. “That damn liberal intergalactic council. I was against it from the beginning!”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Nothing, Mindel, nothing.” Quark quickly changed the subject. “How about healthcare? What’s going on there?”
“The situation is bad, sir. Like a shopping cart with only three working wheels. Patients have too many restrictions on their treatment and doctors have become the pawns of hospitals, private equity, and insurance companies. What’s worse, they are now called providers. In fact, they’re calling themselves providers!”
“Outrageous,” replied Quark, banging the desk with his fist. “My father was a physician. And don’t get me started with insurance companies, Mindel. Do you realize how much it’s costing us to insure our galaxy? When Romulus 2 burned up last year and became a horrific, char-broiled mess, our carrier, Cosmic Insurance LTD, blamed it on a solar flame. They said solar flares were covered but solar flames were NOT. The crooks! Next time I’m sure they’ll say the exact opposite. They are the original parasites of the Universe. Formed right after the Big Bang, from the detritus of the cosmic dust!”
Quark let his anger go for the moment. “How about our Androids. We ultimately lost contact with them.”
Mindel looked heart broken. He had assumed he was the first to break ground on Earth. “Sir?”
“I guess you were never informed, Mindel. I apologize. We sent two androids down to Earth. The first was called George Herman “Babe” Ruth, a rather jocular, rotund fellow, programmed to be a star athlete.”
“Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees was an android?”
“Of course! Who else but an android could have eaten all those hot dogs before a game, smothered with toppings, and still hit home runs like that. Those Earthlings are so gullible. The other was wired as a singer, Barry Gibb. No true Earthling could have come close to hitting those high notes without someone actively squeezing his genitals. Come on, let’s be real.”
“Holy Andromeda Strain, uncle, the Earthlings had no clue!”
“Did you have any physical ailments in Earth’s atmosphere, Mindel?”
“Minor, when I first arrived. I had some traveler’s diarrhea, forcing me to seek medical attention. I was having a hard time fitting in, too, what with my big head and all, not to mention the pineal gland sticking out of my forehead. The doctor gave me Adderall and Sertraline. He said just about everyone on Earth was on them and that I was lucky, they had just gone generic. Afterwards, I fit right in. Sir, If I could just show you my list of followers, you would be amazed. Truth be told, I kind of miss the Earthlings.”
Quark ignored him. “What happened with the Make-a-Wish Program, Mindel?”
“I told them, uncle, just like I was instructed, that I could give them one wish, anything in the world.”
“And?”
“Well, for example, I told them I could arrange to eliminate global warming, cure cancer, reverse the knowledge it took to design the atom bomb….”
“Excellent. Now we’re getting somewhere. And what did they choose?”
“Well, it was close, sir. Very close. I suspect you may not like this…but …in the end, they chose to have LeBron James, he’s a famous basketball player, take a running jump, while dribbling a basketball mind you, and leap through the space/time continuum, through our wormhole, and come out onto the other side, still in the air from Earth, and dunk the basketball -- backwards!” Mindel was excited. “Sir, I can hardly wait! Vegas is giving 5:1 odds it can’t be done, but, that number is dropping, I hear. If I can just check my phone sir, I can tell you the exact odds….” He rose but Quark's stare stopped him cold.
Quark took a long moment to flush out his thoughts before speaking again. Krakatoa, the atom bomb, the birth control pill, earthquakes, tsunami’s….we’ve tried everything to achieve a natural end, but nothing will knock these Earthlings back into oblivion. They’re like cockroaches! Damn that Monolith. We even tried our ace in the hole, Taylor Swift, as a last resort. But she had to hit it out of the park with Love Song. Now even I’m a Swifty. He heard the jingle starting to form in his head against his will.
(“Romeo, take me somewhere we can go,
Somewhere we can be alone,
I’ll be waiting, all there’s left to do is run….”)
Great, he thought, now that ditty will be stuck in my head again! He tapped his fingers on the floating desk and came to a decision for the good of the Universe. He summoned a pen out of mid-air and began to write and talk at the same time. “Mindel, I want you to return to Earth, tout suite, and erase their memory of your visit. Do you remember passing through the Kuiper Belt before getting to Earth? If you go straight, you hit Pluto and the Solar System, but take a hard left, and you run right smack into the Kuiper Belt. And do you also remember when you used to play with that laser-slingshot I bought you, the one we used to smack those empty exoplanets around like billiard balls?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“I’d like you to dust that laser-sling off, I think it’s still in the attic, aim it at the Kuiper Belt, and send one of those asteroids hurtling towards Earth. A little wake up call. And make sure it’s at least 10 kilometers in diameter, ok?”
Mindel looked sunken but knew it was useless to argue. He was also confused. “Uncle, there must be something more that you’re not telling me.” Mindel held Quark’s gaze.
“Very perceptive, Mindel. Ok, you’ve earned it. You see, our planet has….certain holdings on something called the Interstellar Stock Exchange. And, through various unfortunate incidents and discoveries, some of our investments have gone awry. For instance, we had a large stake in a dwarf planet that was going to be a vacationer’s dream. It had two moons, lush flora,... a very romantic setting. A great deal of money was expended into the project until we realized the planet was caught in the gravitational pull of a nearby black hole that went undetected by our surveyors. The planet was being drawn inexorably closer to its star, Vega 1, as a result. Over the eons the temperature slowly became inhospitable until all the water on the planet slowly boiled off. It’s now a huge, dry salt bed. Hardly a place for honeymooners. Then, we bought an interest in a group of asteroids in the Whirlpool Galaxy that were supposed to have a large amount of Molybdenum, but they didn’t. Turns out we got bad advice. It was mostly derivatives of lead. Which turns us now back to the Earth. In the early 20th century, a clever human named Clarence Birdseye developed a method of freeze-drying vegetables, which our R and D team felt sure would spread throughout the rest of the universe. We got in at the beginning, buying an enormous number of shares in the company. Unfortunately, it turns out that the carrots quickly lost their flavor on unfreezing and the peas turned to mush. Now these packages are most often used as a cold source applied to sprained ankles. We’re still hemorrhaging money from that holding! So, there it is, full disclosure. We plan to make a short move on the Birds Eye stock and try to get back some of our money.
“Just one more question, uncle. Why 10 kilometers? For the asteroid.”
“Just trust me on that one, Mindel,” he said, turning away and smiling.
(“That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles
And my daddy said, “Stay away from Juliet….”)
