by Chris McGinty
Glorpedd hated having to leave the domicile on a Glorpday night. Yes, his parental ancestors named him after the tenth day of the week, which he loved now but hated during his formative years between his 78th year and 524th year. He wondered what it would be like to live on a planet like Earth where the yearly rotation took six times longer than his home planet of Zlimnop.
Speaking of Earth, this was why he had to leave the domicile when the weekend was just starting. There was something wrong with the Egyptian pyramids and he had to find out what. He checked to make sure he had enough Flaluvian crystals.
They still laughed millennium later about the time that Ra forgot to fill his tank. Haha. He had to pose as a god for a number of Earth years to not be killed. Of course, intergalactic communication was much better now. He could just get parsec side assistance to get him a refill. He mused about how misnamed parsec side assistance was given that it was the distance not the abstract pathway they traveled.
His trip to Earth was mostly uneventful. He had to go around a nebula that had moved quicker through one galaxy than the Galactic Positioning System originally expected. He accidentally drove through a standoff between Glibian belt factions. That was a bit tense, but both commanders agreed to let him through the battlefield since they were still negotiating disarmament of the torpedo bays on their ships before their mutually assured destruction began. From there, it was just the slog of twenty-two minutes to travel through the whole Milky Way galaxy.
Finally, he landed at the pyramids. It was this one in particular. He pushed one of the stones back in place and called his wife.
“Hey, my little cloopek. Is your show coming in clearer now?”
“Yes, it’s perfect. Hurry back. I’m making Ploriking squid for dinner.”
It was his favourite. She was a good mate. He would really hate having to devour her during the consumption phase of their union. But that was hundreds of years off. Well, more like 45 in Earth years.
Chris McGinty is a flash fiction writer who has never been into Ploriking squid or any other Phlibian seafood, for that matter.