Planet Stupiter

Brendan Thicket was preparing the barbeque. The square sun shone down on his square sausages. The cars rolled by bumpily on their square wheels. He bent over to smell the cooking meat and when he stood back up again his hair was on fire.

‘Food’s ready,’ he shouted.

‘Coming,’ his wife replied.

She took a fork, speared in into the sausage, and roasted it for a few seconds above her husband’s burning head. She looked at the figure hanging from the great elm tree at the bottom of the garden.

‘Catch another one?’ she enquired.

‘Sure did,’ he replied.

The face was bloated and bruised, the eyes bulged, and a swarm of flies buzzed all around it.

Mr. Thicket looked on with some pride.

‘I caught him out real good.’

Marjorie chewed thoughtfully. ‘How’d you do that then honey?’

He breathed in the smoky air and for a few seconds savoured the victory.

‘He tried to sell me a new vacuum cleaner at the door, and I said it looked like it sucked.’

‘You tell him honey.’

‘Then I said that looks like the opposite of easy to operate. And he says to me. It’s as simple as two plus two.’

‘He didn’t!’

‘He did! I looks at him and I says. So mister, what does two plus two add up to exactly? And do you know what he says?’

‘I dunno.’

‘He says four!’

‘No!’

‘I just dragged him round the back and strung him up! Him, hollering like a baby, saying, I’m not intelligent, I hate them sorts, and me not saying anything ’cause I’ve heard it all before.’

She chewed some more on the meat, as she watched the corpse spin idly in the wind. There was something about the exchange that didn’t sit right with her. Finally, she had it.

‘But isn’t that intelligent Brendan, in a way, to catch someone out like that?’

Brendan thought about this for sometime before marching down to the elm tree and hanging himself. But the flames from his head burned through the rope and he landed back down on the ground with a thud breaking his ankle.

On Planet Stupiter, the dumber you were, the better things went. Intelligence, once a much-feared affliction, had now become a rare occurrence.

In more than twenty generations, no Thicket had ever been intelligent. Their family coat of arms consisted of a shoe treading on a dog turd and underneath it in Latin: Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.

Brendan’s great grandfather had been crowned village idiot three years running. That was why it was such a shock to Brendan when he’d fathered an intelligent child.

He had looked at his wife as she lay there in the hospital bed, and wondered what she’d been up to. There were rumours that dumb women liked intelligent men. He’d wanted to accuse her of something, some act, but the word had escaped him as he sat by the cot.

The doctor came and took them into a side room. He was so dumb he’d risen to be a consultant. He told Brendan that he wasn’t to worry…and then he said he’d forgotten why he wasn’t to worry…but it might come back to him later.

Brendan felt something as he looked down into the cot…something the opposite of hate, but he hadn’t said anything when the people from the Department of Doltishness came to take his son away.

The postman pushed two letters through the door, freeing Brendan from his reverie, and he hobbled over to get them. He burned the envelopes above his head, and the flaming paper fragments set the hall carpet on fire. He closed over the door and grinned at his wife as he made his way back.

‘Here, I got something to show ya,’ he said, and handed over his bank statement. She read it slowly. ‘£32,000 in the red! Why you old dog you!’

‘I know,’ said a beaming Brendan. ‘Just stick with me baby. This time next year we may well be looking at house repossession.’

He moved onto the next letter and his eyes widened.

‘Marge!’ he screamed excitedly. ‘I’ve been chosen to appear on Leadhead!’

Marjorie fainted, possibly from the news she had just heard, possibly from smoke inhalation.

Leadhead was a popular game show on Stupiter. You took two terminally ill contestants, sat them down in wheelchairs, and gave each a loaded gun. You asked them a question and whoever got it right got the right to shoot. The winner also won a holiday that he would never live long enough to go on.

‘Marge?’

‘Yes, honey.’

‘Why am I appearing on Leadhead? I mean I’m pleased and all, but it’s not as if I’m dying or anything.’

He picked the cat up, sniffed its fur, and then placed it in the washing machine, closing over the door, and turning the dial.

‘Ah,’ said Marjorie. ‘You remember that nice doctor at the hospital who told you not to worry about the baby?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Well, after you left, he remembered why you hadn’t to worry. He said you only had four weeks to live, and that was two weeks ago.’

Brendan watched as the cat’s head spun round through the window.

‘She’s gonna be real clean,’ he said. ‘Did he say what was wrong with me?’

‘He did honey, but it just went out of my head as soon as I left the hospital. All those illnesses kinda sound the same to me.’

‘Yeah,’ said Brendan, as he continued staring at the washing machine. ‘She’s gonna be real clean.’

The big night came and Marjorie watched excitedly from the sofa as she chewed mouthfuls of popcorn. This was the first time anyone she knew had ever been on television.

The music started, the curtain came up, and the host ran down the studio staircase shooting invisible pistols in the air.

He beamed a smile into the camera, and introduced the contestants: ‘Brandon Thicket, and Austin Texarse, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s play Leadhead!’

Some of the audience had brought their own guns, which they fired into the roof, causing masonry and bits of metal to fall down. Brendan saw a woman decapitated in row three when a lighting rig fell on top of her head: her husband hi-fived the people around him before producing his camera.

‘Now, please gentlemen, take your seats.’

Both men held their rifles by their sides tightly. The host produced the first card from his breast pocket. He cleared his throat. ‘Drum roll please maestro,’ he said. A hush fell over the entire studio, and then he looked at both contestants. ‘What is two plus two?’

The 30-second clock began ticking loudly. The cameraman cut to shots of perplexed looking audience members. Brendan tried to get his brain to work. ‘I’m going to have to hurry you,’ said the host.

Suddenly, Brendan’s eyes lit up. ‘Four?’ he answered but a groan went up from the studio audience. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the host, ‘but I’m going to have to offer it to your opponent.’

‘I dunno,’ said Austin.

‘I dunno is the correct answer!’ screamed the host.

The band played the out of tune theme tune, the armed audience shot their weapons into the air, and the host once more ran around the studio firing his imaginary pistols.

Brendan braced himself, as Austin took aim from his wheelchair, and his life flashed before his eyes: he recalled that time he’d said…now, what was it he’d said again, and to whom? There was that day he went to visit…who had he gone to visit and where did they live?

It was on the tip of his tongue, when he heard a loud bang. His head snapped back, before falling forward, and slumping as his chin came to rest against his chest. The top of his skull was gone, revealing a dark empty cavity.

‘Darn,’ said Marjorie, as she chewed on some more popcorn.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. When she opened it, she saw a door-to-door salesman holding a vacuum cleaner. She looked at the implement for a few seconds as she leaned on the doorframe.

‘It looks complicated,’ she said.

‘It’s as easy to operate as two plus two.’

‘What’s two plus two then?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Clever boy,’ she said. ‘You better come in.’