by James Moran
It was hard to locate the scent of our exact meeting spot against the barometric pressure fluctuations.
Clouds wandered overhead. The landscape was desert as far as the eye could see. Terrain such as this were common enough for our showdowns. No perceptive species around to witness the flashes, smell the ozone, detect the plasma.
Straight out of the thin air Jiff stepped onto the sand, her armor scuffed, a small purple beast on a chain perched on her shoulder.
Kraz arrived next, his armor shimmering with an electric charge that he was plainly eager to show off to Jiff and me.
“What have you found?” Kraz asked me.
“In the time allotted I searched three times my usual number of worlds for an unheard-of weapon that might win me this round. I found none. I forfeit my chance to win this round.”
“Forfeit?” Jiff asked. “You’re empty-handed?” The purple creature on her shoulder shivered. “The rules we swore to uphold state that you must arrive with a weapon. Anything less is not possible.”
“Then the impossible has come to be, Jiff,” I said. “I surrender before you both.”
“How can we continue?” Kraz shouted. “We cannot move forward like this!”
“Well, for how to move forward, let’s look to Jiff. Since she claims to be the most proficient in abiding by the rules, perhaps she can guide us as to our next moves.”
Jiff gaped as if I’d said the sky was on fire.
“What?” exclaimed Kranz. “Jiff, the best at the rules? Are you feeling okay?”
Jiff turned to Kraz. “Hey, I know the rules well enough. Watch yourself.”
“That a threat?”
“If I meant to threaten you, you’d already be gone.”
“What, by that purple pet on your shoulder?”
Jiff twirled her tiny purple companion by its chain. Releasing the chain, she swung him high into the air.
Kraz clapped, causing a bristling wave of light to course up his body and out his hands, incinerating Jiff in an instant.
“Kraz!” I yelled.
He looked at me. That was all the delay it needed.
“Look out!” I said, but it was too late. The little purple beast was already upon him, gnawing through his body in a downward spiral. Momentarily its purple hue flashed at the break in his armor above his hips as he toppled over.
I waited for them to reconstitute before I brandished the new tally I had carved on my wrist.
“Well, at least we know who knows the rules the least,” Kraz said.
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“Not only did you not win, you forfeited and messed up the whole round. I know the rules the best, and even I don’t know what to make of that round.”
“Oh, please,” scoffed Jiff.
“I didn’t search three times the planets. I searched one planet. This one. The master creatures here call it ‘Earth.’ They call themselves ‘humans.’ I didn’t have to search anywhere else. By observing humans, I found a weapon I’d never even imagined. It’s not just a weapon, it’s a whole new form of warfare. It’s based on a practice called ‘lying,’ which means I’m saying something to you, but that which I’m saying is not…real. Like when I said I searched three times my average number of planets. That wasn’t what happened. It was a ‘lie.’ With this weapon I didn’t even need to carry anything with me.”
They both pondered this.
“I’m impressed,” admitted Kraz.
Jiff thought some more and said, “I don’t like it. What if you ‘lie’ about the rules? The rules are the rules.”
“Here you go again thinking you know everything.”
“I feel it’s not good,” said Jiff.
Looking between them and recalling the joy we accessed together in committing to spend our eons in camaraderie by perpetually competing to annihilate each other, I regretted the distress I had brought upon them.
I said, “I won’t use it anymore.”
“Yes, but how do we know you aren’t ‘lying?’” asked Jiff.
“We can all agree to never use this weapon.”
“But then one of us could be ‘lying’ in this agreement,” Kraz pointed out.
“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“This isn’t so fun anymore,” said Jiff.
Kraz looked at me.
“What?”
“You won,” he said, “but…”
“But what?”
“I feel like we all lost.”
We sat for some time in silence, drawing in the sand with our fingertips.
“Well, what next?” I asked. “How are we going to spend eternity?”
Jiff shrugged.
“We’re still friends, right?” I asked.
Kraz looked at me. “Yes.”
“Yes, of course,” Jiff said.
Their tone was low, but something in their answers felt like the opposite of a “lie.”
James Moran is a professional astrologer and author who regularly publishes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His published work can be found at https://jamesmoran.org/the-creation-playpen and he can be found on instagram @astrologyjames.