In December 2020 Mairi set us the start of a story which was to be continued. The start was
The day had started badly for Martin; he had remembered to set the alarm on his iPhone but somehow his phone had gone into silent mode so the 7 clock wakeup call was missed. When he did surface at 8, a particularly satisfying dream, had left him with a warm, comfortable feeling that was slow to leave him. He languidly glanced at his watch-swore-jumped out of bed-too late seeing the cat spread-eagled on his slippers and had to do a quick turnabout to avoid squashing it. He landed on his back. Painfully.
It took Martin a full half hour to manoeuvre his body enough to be able to stand up, slightly lilting to the left as he did so. Thank God for walk in showers and hot soothing water. It was another 30 minutes before emerged, skin pickled but back feeling easier.
Three paracetamols and 2 pots of tea later he eased his way upstairs to begin or rather finish his chapter. His publisher (bastard) wanted it by 4 so no more distractions pleaded Martin silently to himself. He had reached a conundrum which had to be solved today. Sam (his protagonist, mild, bespeckled and brave – much like himself) -had a cleaner who came in twice a week to take care of his well-appointed flat. Mrs. Kingsman was very good at her work. She was also as nosy and as unscrupulous as a cat. Sam had returned from an overnight stay in the Cotswold’s to find that madam had been rummaging in his desk and had found- well, what Sam did not want found.
He would have to kill her-and therein lay the problem for Martin. Would a mild -mannered guy kill for a bit of gossip? He needed another solution and quick!
Martin looked at his watch_ 3 hours only until the deadline. THINK!
The doorbell rang.
Duncan Gray’s continuation of the story borrowed a character from Douglas Adams:
He wasn’t expecting anything from Amazon or eBay, so Martin had no idea what this could be. He trudged downstairs, composing an inhospitable greeting for whoever it was. Then, pulling the door open with unnecessary brusqueness, he met a sight that stopped him dead in his thoughts.
What Martin faced was alien, and not just alien as in ‘something he’d never encountered’. This was alien as is ‘not of this world’. There was a spaceship parked in the middle of the street and there was already a white van was waiting to pass. A hatch was open on the side of the ship and a ramp led from it to Martins door.
The creature who’d rung his bell was definitely alien. While it did have two arms and two legs, it also had a strangely shaped head and it regarded him through two strangely shaped eyes. Its skin was green, it was twelve feet tall, and it was carrying a clipboard.
As a serious author, Martin considered himself well read. However, his reading list only included books he considered worthy. It didn’t include much humour and certainly not any science fiction. In particular, he hadn’t read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and so he didn’t recognise that his visitor was Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.
The Wowbagger story is a sad one. A tragic laboratory accident, aeons ago in a far distant solar system, rendered him immortal. He faced a friendless, pointless, infinite future until eventually he came up with a project to pass the time. Wowbagger’s purpose in life, his life that’s going to go on forever, is to deliver a personal insult to every creature in the galaxy. He’s compiled a list and he’s working his way through it relentlessly.
Illogical as it seems, he’s going through the list in alphabetical order. In consequence he has vast distances of interstellar space to cross between almost every insult he delivers. He fills those long, long journeys by reading books. This was one insult he was looking forward to delivering.
“Are you Martin Bayworth?” Wowbagger asked, through his strangely shaped mouth.
Martin nodded.
“Martin Bayworth, the author of ‘Five Days in a Laundry’, ‘The Lost September’ and ‘The Student of Mosaics’?
Martin usually loved being recognised, but today he was terrified. He managed to say “Yes, that’s me”.
The alien stared down on him from above and said “Your books are crap. They’re just about the worst things I’ve read and, believe me, I’ve read a lot. You’re a waste of space in the library of the universe.”
Insult delivered, Wowbagger marked a satisfied tick on his clipboard. The ramp retracted, carrying him back into his ship and the hatch closed silently behind him. Within ten seconds the ship had risen quietly off the ground and disappeared up through the clouds.
After a while, Martin managed to close his mouth and he retreated back into his house. Not a word did he manage to write for the rest of the day.
Campsie Writers Group 