Post by Radrook Admin on Mar 22, 2020 15:21:58 GMT -5
Watermelon Head: Flash Fiction
by Radrook
March 6, 2018 Short Story: Humor, Science Fiction 4 comments (3 reviews)
It was the year 2525 and interstellar travel had become a reality via a combination of warp drive supplemented by wormhole. To mankind’s joy and wonderment, the Milky Way Galaxy had been found to be swarming with a diverse variety of exotic beings and all had been integrated in one vast, galactic community classified and organized into galactic arms such as the Perseus, Orion, Scutum-Centaurus, and Sagittarian.
Travel within and between these arms had become common, albeit still expensive, and only the wealthy could afford it. One of these wealthy creatures just happened to be characterized by its extremely small head resting firmly on wide massive shoulders. Pinheads, humans affectionately called them, although pinheads referred to themselves in far more favorable terms. The other creature, sitting restlessly alongside, was known by its exceedingly large head impossibly positioned above unusually narrow shoulders. Humans called these Watermelon-Heads. Both these creatures just happened to wind up sitting next to each other in the waiting area of a shuttle station which hovered near a wormhole between the Orion and Perseus Galactic arms.
Since there had been a shuttle delay due to a wormhole irregularity,the Pin-Head humanoid alien, from the Orion Arm, passed the time away by becoming engrossed with a portable holographic image generator.The watermelon headed humanoid alien had been observing its deft antics for the past hour and marveling at how easily it handled the holographic input requirements. Even more to his astonishment, the pin-head was also communicating fluently with the shuttle-port human personnel who accepted it as if it had been natural. In short, the Watermelon-Head, Persean-Arm humanoid was thoroughly astonished at the humanoid Pinhead’s ability to think.
Several times he had very emphatically scratched his bald, purple-striped dome in order to express his astonishment. He had hoped to be asked why he was gesticulating in that flagrant fashion and staring so indiscreetly with his bulbous, crimson eyes. But since he got absolutely no response from the seemingly oblivious pin-head, he decided on a more direct approach.
“Excuse me for asking," he finally said to the Pin-Head alien. Noticing that the Pin-Head ignored him, he continued.
“I said, excuse me for asking, but how is it that you creatures can think?” he blurted out in a deep, resonant, gurgling voice typical of its kind.
“Why shouldn’t we be able to think? We have a brain, don’t we?” the pin-headed alien, who had been totally engrossed in watching a holographic image of a female of his species doing a sensual dance-routine, responded without looking away from the display.
“Yes, yes. Of course you do. That isn’t why I ask.”
“Might the reason you are assuming reasoning inability on our part be because of the small size of our heads in comparison to yours?” the Pinhead inquired rhetorically while turning and blinking its disproportionately large, oblong, blue eyes as if in deep wonder at the melon-sized head of the other alien.
“Well, yes. That is exactly the reason I ask.”
“Shouldn’t it be obvious?” the Pinhead squeaked into its conical-shaped, inter-species translator that dangled from its scrawny neck from a thin, titanium chain as the Watermelon Head wondered what brain waves the device could possibly be interfacing with.
“I’m sorry and no offense intended. But it isn’t obvious to me. You see, I am from the Cygnus Arm of the galaxy and we have no Pin-Head creatures in that vast region who display the type of intellectual prowess that you do. In fact, in my region of the galaxy, my head is considered to be ridiculously small. So yours is-to be blunt-unimaginable. So when I arrived here--”
“Ah! I see. You understandably expected otherwise,” the Pinhead said with a thin-lipped smile barely visible below its bridgeless, minute, piggish nose.
“Exactly. In our Cygnus galactic Arm region, small heads are associated with little or no intelligence at all. No planet inhabited by small-headed creatures has ever progressed beyond simple hand-held tools. All they do is hunt, eat, sleep,and have sex. Not necessarily in that order, of course.” He leered around as if expecting accolades for his wit from an imagined audience and was deeply disappointed that no-one seemed to have taken interest in the exchange.
“Which means that unlike humans and other creatures of my galactic Arm, you must feel rather uncomfortable being around my pinhead kind, correct?” the Pin-head who had been watching him intently while systematically evaluating his intellectual maturity said calmly.
“To be forthright?” the Watermelon Head’s doubled chin folds fluttered above his sunken chest as he paused, “Yes!” he announced in a stentorian voice as if eager to garner a large audience. He had turned up the volume on his translator in order to augment his voice even further but to no avail. Greatly disappointed he continued:
“You see, creatures of your similar kind in our region of the galaxy are, and no offense intended, just pets.” he sneered. “We love them and care for them of course, and they mindlessly reciprocate in similar, albeit mentally rudimentary, simplistic fashion. More instinct than thought actually." he gazed languidly at the Pinhead over his prodigiously large eagle-like nose that took up two-thirds of his porcine face.
“Is that so? Very interesting.” the Pinhead exclaimed while gazing towards the far corner of the shuttle station where his luggage and other pertinences had just arrived. Then it slowly rose to its feet and produced a shrill whistling ultrasonic frequency which the watermelon-Head found irritating. In response there was movement which the Watermelon-Head detected from the corner of his eye. A blur of galloping motion approaching, pink tongue extruded, large bulbous eyes full of infinite joy, a head four times larger than his, and a face baring an uncanny resemblance to his own.
“This is my pet Walala beast! Look familiar?” he heard the Pinhead utter before passing out.
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REVIEWS
Wriskypump says...
An interesting concept driven around Nationality and culture: hinting at the outlook of how each culture/Nation often as a whole deem themself Superior and the other ones as outsiders who lack common sense
Radrook says...
That is the gist of it. That's why some say that reasoning is a servant to emotions.
Wriskypump says...
that saying might be accurate. And if it is... how depressing
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DonateWed Mar 14, 2018 7:23 pmView Likes
lelu wrote a review...
Hilarious! Your species are realistically created and the universe and galactic travel are feasibly made. Excuse me if I sound like Spock, but I don't think you're going to mind, anyway. So this is well done, and I'll focus on grammar and punctuation, because I'm not that good at other aspects of correction. One problem you have is that your sentences tend to be too long and not broken up by commas. Your punctuation is technically okay, but your lack of commas makes it harder to read this whole thing. Also, I think there's only one "G" in Sagittarian. You refer to the different species as a "menagerie," but this implies a zoo and many of your different species are not mere animals but intelligent people. "Albeit still expensive" needs to be flanked by commas. Lastly, there should be a hyphen between "watermelon" and "headed." Hahaha, this story is even funny to review. Thanks for an amusing read!
Radrook says...
Thanks for the review and for appreciating the intended humor. Broad shoulders and small head. Narrow shoulders and Huge head. LOL
About the word "menagerie", yes, I knew it refers only to animals but I like the sound of it so much that I said "What the heck!" I will take your advice on the punctuation. Thanks for the help. Much appreciate it.
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DonateThu Mar 08, 2018 6:50 pmView Likes
fraey wrote a review...
Hello again Radrook!
My first thoughts are that this is interesting and actually kind of funny. I like things with irony if I can manage to detect it, which I’m able to with this story, so thank you. The humor is just subtle enough to really strike the reader if they catch on to the insinuations both characters share.
There is a detached feeling to the way the story commences, since although you include a little bit of personal thoughts from at least the Walala, the narrator sounds like they’re watching the conversation at a short distance. I recommend that you either include more thoughts and feelings, or get rid of the few ones you have entirely. With a little of both, you may end up confusing your reader with who exactly is giving the background of this story.
I’d be interested to see this conversation from only one of the creatures talking, but that’s fine to leave this as it is if you want a more generic outlook on the situation. From here, the background information is helpful and may draw the reader in more if they like stuff such as Star Trek. This definitely made me think of that and Star Wars while reading.
Overall, I liked this story, and I like that you tend to put your stories in different formats or according to different rules. I don’t think you need the addendum, since even if readers don’t know what a flash fiction is, they can at least look the definition of it up, since it’s inclded in the title.
I hope this helped an good luck with future writing!
Radrook says...
Thanks for the review. Very much appreciate it. Will take your suggestions into serious consideration.
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DonateThu Mar 08, 2018 1:30 am
Eve wrote a review...
A very clever story line. I'd like to see more little 'episodes' of this kind. I like how you play around with the subtle humor of the story and don't quite give every character a specific, rigid personality to follow. However, I did not get a chance to connect with the conflict or the characters, much like watching a football game without a care of who will win. If the characters are more engaged in the plot, then the story would be much more enticing. Besides that, you are a talented writer and I'll be checking out your stories periodically
Radrook says...
Thanks for the review. Very much appreciated.