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Impossible Short Story Contest Winner: This contest was supposed to use slapstick comedy (ie, pie in the face) as its main device, which is what made it near impossible. How can you show slapstick in writing? Well, we thought we'd have lots of serious contenders. Humdinger's seen some phenomenal comic writers, but Scott M. Sparling came from his multi-genre writing backgrounds (called a Jack of Genre around here) and blew competition away so soundly that he had no near contender. Congratulations, Scott. As for everyone else, here's the man you clearly have to beat to win our contests!
Fish Slapped By Scott M. Sparling Keith had always been an annoying person. Even as a child he got on my nerves with his absurd practical jokes, thick plastic glasses, and amazingly loud and energy draining guffaw. The teachers in our school didn’t try to hide their exasperation, sometimes even making Keith the butt of our classroom jokes, like explaining how we would all line up in the event of a fire drill and putting Keith in charge of getting the chairs out of the building so we all had someplace to sit. He just got under everyone’s skin with his quips and jests. His funny voices, although quite good and even humorous in the right situation, were always there and in your face. He wouldn’t . . . no, he couldn’t shut up. Though I spent the better part of my youth with Keith, I lost touch on purpose just after junior high and hadn’t spoken to him since. I guess I was his only friend, a fact that always made me sad with its pathetic implications. I couldn’t stand the kid either. I suppose it shouldn’t have been a big surprise that I saw Keith on national television during our world’s most historic moment, a moment that had caught everyone by the nostril and pulled: the address to the governments of Earth by the alien invaders, and our scheduled concession into their control. The aliens made themselves known to our radars and satellites on the morning of They then sent us a short message in our own language. “Surrender, or else!” There wasn’t much debate. The governments of the world had a quick digital conference, but before it was even over we were replying to the aliens with white flags and arms raised. We surrendered like beaten children. The aliens scheduled an appearance at the White House for a televised recitation of our terms of surrender. The nation’s senators, cabinet members and the president himself were to attend. As every television station aired footage of the perambulatory speeches and events, the world waited with bated breath for their first view of the alien visitors, our new masters. An alien ship landed in front of the White House to open the ceremony. The entire staff was on the front lawn on a stepped dais at the center of the cameras, dressed impeccably in their best, with worried looks and wrinkles of concern on their faces. The first alien who stepped out of the ship looked surprisingly human, save for the blue tinted skin and lack of any visible ears. He stood a head taller than most men, and had a regal air about him, as if nobility personified. For some reason people started to clap. I can’t figure out why, because I was watching the television quiet closely that day, and I saw the looks of fear and uncertainty on those gathered human faces, but they clapped. The applause swelled into a roar and the alien ambassador’s face remained impassive, as if he had expected this. He was followed closely by an entourage of regal aliens, each packed full of themselves with noses that hovered in the air, not only because they were positioned a little closer to the aliens’ eyes than humanly possible, but also because they were stuffed full of conceit and superiority that could be seen a mile away. They approached the center stage and the microphones that clustered there. The applause died off fast. Everyone waited with still breath. The alien ambassador spoke. “People of Earth . . .” Now with all the security around the White House, and all those video cameras and military teams as well as the alien scanners and special forces, I can’t fathom how Keith had gotten himself up onto that stage. He stood just behind the alien ambassador, and pulled off his fake beard and eyebrows. As the alien ambassador said these first three words, Keith took one step forward, discarding his beard with one hand and pulled a huge, wet trout out of his inner jacket pocket with the other. The alien ambassador had no time to get any more words out. Keith pulled his arm back fully extended, and brought it forward again, fish whooshing through the air and contacting the alien ambassador’s head with a slick “SMACK!” The alien’s head rocketed forward, and he tried to grab onto the cluster of microphones to keep from falling off the raised platform, but only succeeded in getting tangled in the wires and pulling the whole ensemble on top of himself as he fell off the stage. The other aliens were on Keith in a second, grabbing him from all angles while the audience gasped and stepped back. I was on the edge of my seat with disbelief, telling my wife, “That’s Keith! That’s Keith!” even though she had no clue who Keith was and sat mortified as our world’s chances of negotiation slipped silently away into oblivion. I may have made Keith sound like an idiot earlier, but trust me, the dude was brighter that summer’s day. He twisted in the aliens’ grasp and his clothes, which had been sewn with Velcro to purposefully break away, fell off him and left the aliens with handfuls of cloth while Keith jumped off the front of the stage wearing only white boxers with red hearts patterned all over them. His skin was shining with Vaseline. He hit the grass and dropped those heart boxers for a full view of his ass, which he pointed at the aliens and yelled, “Blow a crater in this moon, you big, giant Smurfs!” He followed this with loud guffaws. While the aliens jumped offstage and tackled Keith to the ground, the audience erupted into uncomfortable laughter. They laughed as the aliens escorted the struggling Keith toward their space ship, slipping and falling and losing their grip as Keith’s well oiled skin slipped about under their fingers. They kept slipping and stumbling, their regal attitudes gone and replaced with deadly scowls. The alien ambassador pushed away the president as he tried to untangle himself from the wires. He frowned and cursed at the giggling crowd in an off-world tongue. He ran for his ship, trailing cords and microphones on his left foot, and rushed in, blushing a deep blue. The door closed, and the spaceship hovered off, still trailing the cords and laughter from all the people below. They made a special news report that night from their spaceship, a camera up close on the alien ambassador’s face while he reprimanded the human race for their rudeness, and Keith in the background, strapped to some sort of torturous looking device, arms and legs splayed out like Jesus on the cross. “You should all feel shame at your ridicule of our negotiation party!” the ambassador said in measured tones. “Your race is obviously inferior to find humor in such a cold welcome.” I should have been paying attention to the alien’s words, I suppose, but my eyes were glued on my old school chum strapped down in the background. I kept shaking my head and murmuring, “Fucking Keith!” over and over with a jealous little smile on my lips. If there was anyone who could annoy off-world visitors from another galaxy, of course it had to be Keith. “We have decided a harsher negotiation is in order!” the ambassador spoke, and as he did, Keith mimicked his every lip movement with uncanny accuracy. “We will have to--” He caught a motion out of the corner of his eye and whipped around to look at Keith. In the split second this turn took, Keith had erased the sarcastic look on his face and was staring at the ceiling with great interest. The alien turned back to the camera. “We will have to use further means of--”, again he whipped around, but not in time to catch Keith’s mockery of his speech. Keith was too fast for that. With the fate of our world in the balance, all I could do was sit on my couch and cry, clutching my stomach and laughing so hard my ribs hurt. My wife was trying to shush me so she could hear, but she was laughing too, gentle tears gracing the corners of her eyes. “We will have to use further means--” he tried to go on, and Keith had his lips pulled tight, rolling his eyes and moving his lips robotically. “Will you stop that!” The alien Ambassador had finally caught Keith in the corner of his eye and was certain something was amiss. “I am giving a speech here!” “What?” Keith asked, hurt. “I wasn’t doing anything!” “Yes you were. I saw you.” “No you didn’t!” “Yes I did!” The alien insisted, finger out and almost touching Keith’s nose. “No you didn’t!” “Yes I did!” and as the alien answered this time, Keith echoed him perfectly speaking the words back at almost the same time. This must have enraged the alien, because he did a strange little hop-skip and threw his arms down angrily. “Stop that!” Again, Keith was right on him, as if he knew exactly what the alien were going to say next. “You will stop now! You will stop right now!” I couldn’t even see the television through my tears. I couldn’t even breathe, but continued to shudder with laughter as the alien reduced himself to making quick noises that weren’t even words, trying to throw Keith off. “Ah!” “Bah!” “Blah!” But Keith was on him and wasn’t going to stop. I managed one short breath, but just couldn’t get my lungs open enough for any real air. I wiped my eyes on the bottom of my t-shirt, trying desperately to see the television. My wife had given up now and was on the floor with me. She was yelling, “No more! No more!” at Keith on the television, then retching as her laughter almost made her puke. The alien had stopped trying to talk now, and put his face up against Keith’s, revealing a dangerous double row of teeth. He snarled at Keith menacingly, obviously just barely able to contain himself. My laughter died in my throat as I realized that Keith didn’t have much time left. They obviously put him on the air for a reason; they were going to make an example of him. As funny as the scenario was, I didn’t want to see my childhood friend being ripped to shreds by some blue alien with an inferiority complex. But Keith was still there for us. He waited for the alien to growl a few more times, then Keith let out with a loud and obnoxious dog bark. It caught the alien so off guard that he fell out of sight, and the camera feed cut out. We broke into another fit of laughter as the screen blanked out, and continued to laugh and hug each other even as the lights went out and the sky darkened. We laughed at those pathetic aliens and our champion Keith as the floor rolled out from under us, and thunder filled our ears. Fire filled the sky. We fought a war against an alien race from another galaxy, with Keith as our only weapon. And we had won. © Copyright, Scott M. Sparling Click here to read Scott Sparling’s Brief Bio.
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