Woke up and had to write this down. Whew.
Exit, Victorious
Neville Rorthvelt fired the the thrusters and turned his ship into the heart of the Sun. But not before he sent out some messages.
“My Dearest Cynthia. You have ignored me for too long. My passion has known no bounds. My devotion to you is infinite. Your wants and needs were my Bible, my Talmud, my Koran, my Holy Book of the Seven K'taha. The poems I have written to your beauty would fill an old-fashioned telephone directory. The flowers I have piled at your feet would restore the ancient forests of the Amazon. The great deeds I have performed in your honor are renowned across our planet. Yet you cannot accept my humble affection. I wait no longer for you to acknowledge me, and now, I perish.”
“Dr. Kerverus. I have worked and slaved for you too long. My dedication has known no bounds. My stewardship of your research has been unimpeachable. Your business needs have been my Bible, my Talmud, et cetera. And furthermore, the pay was awful. Did you really expect me to go on sweeping up your lab forever? Me, a fully-qualified tevatron operator and master pastry chef, made to wash test tubes? Who uses test tubes any more? That was just petty. And also, making me start with the top shelf? Were you trying to say something about my height? Well, I've had enough, and you can find someone else to do your pathetic busywork for you. Hire someone else, and tell him that in no time at all, he'll be head of the department, too...the sucker.”
And one more:
“Mother. You never loved me. And now I'm going to kill myself by flying my spaceship into the Sun. I hope that makes you happy.”
Neville made his final course adjustments, reviewed his messages, and pressed SEND. His Corsair-9000 Deep Navigator pulsed its engines and plunged straight into the fireball that is the center of our planetary system. He was destroyed almost instantly.
Nadine Rorthvelt's rhinestone-encrusted Piu-Piu wristlet communicator pinged while she was having a pedicure. She pressed a stud, listened to the message, and said “Oh, that's just typical, Neville.”
Doctor Simeon Archimedes Kerverus, surrounded by bubbling retorts, uncashed grant checks, and piles of ungraded CHEM 101 worksheets, reviewed his email. A message caught his eye. “What's he done? Oh, thank God,” he said, and then paged the departmental secretary to tell her: “Send me the next one, will you? And make him taller, please.”
Cynthia Melville, her head smacking against the resilient surface of her sleep pod as she screamed in ecstasy in the arms of her lover, Kevin Torque, paused a second to read the message that had bleeped across the face of her personal communicator tab. “Who's Neville Rorthvelt?” she said, and pressed DELETE.
K'thak qFleshwar Zort, in a small but sleek spaceship orbiting the Sun, powered down the racing memorycorders of his Universal Panopticon, marveling at the exquisite textures of the story he had just witnessed. He had been recording experience across the Universe for five thousand years now, hopping from star system to star system, passing through the occasional wormhole (there's so much to cover, one must be excused for taking shortcuts), wondering at the infinitely varied behavior of sapient beings.
Now, at long last, he had recorded his gem, the prize of his collection. His fellow Zevnars would exult Neville Milquetoast Rorthvelt as an exemplar of the first order, would delight in memorizing every last detail of his life and death. They would revel in his triumphs and weep at his defeats. They would glory in the exquisitely refined silkiness of his thoughts, savor the baroque crenelations of his passionate glandular firings. His character exquisite, his actions divine. Here, at last, was a true hero. Here was someone they could all admire.
“Pity he won't be around to enjoy it,” K'thak thought to himself. He punched the HYPERDRIVE button, and headed home.
(C) 2011 Michael Bernstein
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