Ickle Green Men

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

The interplanetary craft decelerated rapidly as it entered the Earth's upper atmosphere. “Switch on the electromagnetic force field so that the foolish Earthlings cannot detect our approach with their primitive instruments, Eight-one-seven-three,” said the senior Ickle Green Man, who was known as Number One just like the commandants of all Shlagassian spacecraft to the lowly, bottom-feeding, scum-sucking minion at the controls of the saucer. “You're a lowly, bottom-feeding, scum-sucking minion, Number Eight-one-seven-three, and don't bother denying it, it says so in the script so it must be true. I won't be revealing what the script has to say about Number Five-oh-five-nine, who's gone to make the tea and open a packet of Ginger Nuts, but I think it's sufficient to say that his iniquities make you look like an angel. Thank God we don't have any donkeys on board.....”

“It's true, I am a lowly, bottom-feeding, scum-sucking minion,” Eight-one-seven-three replied calmly. “What of it? It's better than being a donkey shagger. Which switch switches on this electromagnetic force field you're getting your alien knickers in a god-awful twist about? There's bleeding hundreds of switches on this control panel, and not a single one is labelled. What's the flipping sense in that?

As you know, boss, us new recruits in the Honourable Shlagassian Invade Earth Army haven't been properly trained – a month ago I was on Employment Support Allowance with gammy knees and that many antidepressants swimming around inside me I was bloody rattling. The bully boys from the Department Of Work And Pensions chloroformed me, shoved me in the boot of an old Fiord Concertina and took me to an enormous complex hidden in a mountain range in the middle of a desert. They'd minced up my wife and kids for animal feed, and the poor fuckers went into the mincer live and tootsies first, they told me as they handed me over to a bunch of crazy government scientists as a guinea pig for a selection of fiendish experiments, and as you can imagine I was well peeved about that.....

Once the scientists had fitted me with some new knees and fed me on happy pills for a few days, though, I felt as right as rain, and I soon forgot all about my minced family. Why can't the clinically depressed of Shlagassia have happy pills on the National Health, that's what I want to know – the tablets my doctor gave me were fucking crap.

The staff in the lab complex had names, not numbers like us scum-bags. Professor Brian Cox, the one who mostly dealt with me was called, and he was a right card, I'm telling you. Brian said that 'cos I was such a nice bloke (if he saw me down the pub he'd buy me a pint and a bag of lion and tulip flavoured crisps, no messing) instead of me being dissected alive for the benefit of medical science I could train to be a pilot-cum-soldier for the forthcoming invasion of the Earth. What does this big red button at the top of the panel do?”

“Don't touch that, whatever you do, you wally. That's the button controlling the bits of fine fishing line that hold the saucer up and hopefully remain invisible to the cameras filming the invasion for a crappy B movie called Plan Ten From Shlagassia as we hover over a papier-mache cityscape with buildings made out of old cornflake boxes and come in to land in a shoddily rendered public park with a pond made out of a make-up mirror surrounded by tiny plastic ducks.”

“But..... But why?”

“Do you know how much it costs to fly a real, full sized spacecraft over millions of light years of space? A bloody fortune, that's what it costs, petrol ain't getting any cheaper, you know. Our home planet is brassic lint, the bankers fucked up the economy, so we have to make do with spaceships made out of old hub caps, colanders, egg boxes, plastic yoghurt cartons, bog roll tubes, bits of masking tape, papier-mache made from The sodding Sun and Araldite if we're lucky, and the whole thing is covered in cooking foil. We, the crew, are cunningly minituarised so that we fit comfortably inside, but when we emerge from the ship we instantly swell to our full four foot six. Aah, the wonders of our fiendish alien science.....”

“Hang on, how does a spaceship made of bits of tat make it across millions of light years of space?”

“Every location is joined to every other location by a web of slightly thicker bits of fishing line, don't ask me to explain why, it's one of God's mysteries. Mission control ties the cords holding the saucer upright to a bent bit of wire like the hook on a coat-hanger, hook it on the appropriate length
of fishing line, give it a bit of a shove and Seven-nine-nine-five's your uncle.”

“Fuck off! How do we avoid asteroid showers and cosmic rays and whatnot?”

“Ooh, that's just luck, Eight-one-seven-three. Look, I'm sick of calling you Eight-one-seven-three, it's a bit long winded, don't you think? I'm sure the twat writing the script is fed up of typing it too, so why don't I just call you Number Two? Funnily enough, in Earth parlance visiting the toilet for a number two is slang for going for a shit, so calling you Number Two is akin to calling you Richard the third while in my mind's eye you're a fresh, steaming turd - it's Cockney rhyming slang, you see - but I promise not to make crude jokes about the unfortunate coincidence.” Number One turned around sharply because he didn't want his minion to see that he couldn't keep a straight face. “Don't start getting ideas that you're second in command or that I fancy you or anything, though, you subordinate little pillock.”

“Sounds good to me, gaffer,” Number Two said as Five-oh-five-nine handed him a mug of criminally weak tea and a plate of ginger biccies. “Thanks, Donk.”

“Piss off, knob-end,” Five-oh-five-nine mumbled. “I've swilled my cheesy cock out in your tea, because I fucking hate you, by the way.”

*************************

“This is a seriously poxy hole,” Number Two whispered to his commandant, who had been beamed down to the planet's surface with him to undertake a short reconnaissance mission. “And it doesn't half reek. What is this, a marketplace? These people eat cabbages and..... and onions? That's disgusting, I had a pet cabbage and onion back home. Why can't they eat cats and dogs and horses like normal people? Oh, they do eat horses on the sly, and some of them eat cats and dogs as well, though generally it's frowned upon. I wonder if they eat papier-mache horses? Naah, I'd better not complicate the situation by asking..... Shit, boss, I thought our planet was a bit of a dive, but this is ridiculous. What's this place called? I know we're on the Earth, but which bit?”

“It's called Birmingham, and it's in the middle of a tiny, extremely silly country with the cheek to call itself Great Britain. Britain used to be a force to be reckoned with and at one point it ruled half of the world, but now it's fuck all. And you're right, it stinks to high heavens.

Shit, it's inhuman the way those poor cabbages and onions are stacked so tightly together in cardboard boxes that they can barely breathe. At least I assume they're cabbages and onions, it's hard to tell seeing as they're made of papier-mache balls crudely painted with poster paints. What a bunch of evil fucks we're dealing with..... You look like a right dirty old slapper, Number Two, by the way. Come to think of it you look disturbingly like Jamie Plum out of that great Shlagassian chiller Silence Of The Hamsters.”

“No I do not! I think I look rather fetching.” Number Two was wearing a tight gold lurex frock over a padded bra, fishnet stockings, red high heels and a snazzy leopard skin hat with a black veil. Over his shoulder hung a luminous pink Versache handbag, and his face was heavily made up. “I look dead sexy in this get up,” he said, checking his make-up in a magnifying pocket mirror. “You wanna fuck me?” he said to his grossly enlarged blood red lips. “I'd fuck me.....”

“You're a pervert, Number Two, a dirty, twisted, socially inadequate pervert.” Number One adjusted the huge ginger false moustache, mutton chop sideburns and matching wig that he was wearing, checking in a mirror that he kept in the pocket of his seventies pinstripe suit to make sure that the greasepaint covering his unearthly green skin hadn't run. He was wearing shoes with internally padded souls to increase his height a little, as Shlagassians are short by Earth standards and he was short by Shlagassian standards, and he didn't want to look out of place.

“I know I'm a perv, boss, me old mum told me hundreds of times. What's that place over there with the sign at the front that says 'The Wanking Pig'?”

“It's a Public House, they sell alcoholic beverages in there. Brewers mix various plant materials with yeast, which they feed on sugar, which is slowly converted into alcohol. The resulting alcohol content can be rather intoxicating, and some of the drinks are distilled, which makes them even more potent.”

“Fucking ace! Our Earth currency counterfeiting machine has provided us with plenty of English cash, so let's go in and have a couple of jars. Purely to study the local lowlifes and their quaint traditions, of course, I'm not suggesting that we get rat-arsed or anything like that.”

“Yeah, all right then, you've talked me into it.”

*************************

“What's that butt-naked bloke doing lying on the sticky, beer stained papier-mache pub carpet under the papier-mache table next to the papier-mache bar behind which stands a barman that I strongly suspect is also made out of papier-mache, though curiously he's perfectly capable of serving drinks?” Number Two said. “And why is there a man wearing nothing but a pair of bright yellow brushed nylon Y fronts and a Kiss-me-quick hat dancing on top of the very same table?”

“I don't know, I assume the one under the table is as pissed as a fart and the one dancing on top is nearly but not quite as far gone as his well wasted buddy.”

“What, you mean the shit they're drinking makes them act completely irresponsibly and eventually renders them unconscious if they drink too much?”

“Basically, yes. What do you want to drink?”

“I'll have a bucket of Stella Artois, please, with a bottle of Drambuie chucked in and half a dozen Gold Label barley wines – the drinky-poohs are one of the few things in this joint that aren't made out of papier-mache. I want one of those poncey papier-mache umbrellas and some glacé cherries and crushed ice like that woman over there's got in her electric blue cocktail. What are you having, boss man?”

“Oh, I'm not really thirsty, and as Number One I have a duty to remain in complete control of my faculties or I'll get into serious trouble with my superiors. I think I'll just have a pint of Guinness. And maybe a two litre Jack Daniels and Smirnoff chaser.....”

“How come, right, the barman and some of the customers are obviously made out of papier-mache and others aren't?”

“I dunno, I guess it's another one of God's confounding mysteries.”

*************************

“Wassamarrer?” Number Two Said a while later as an embarrassed looking papier-mache policeman tried to escape from the kisses he was raining on his cheeks. “Why don't you fancy me, oshifer? What'sh wrong wiv me, have I got BO or somefink? And why am I calling you 'oshifer'?”

“You're calling me oshifer because I'm a member of the local polishe – hic! - force, but actually I'm only a mere stonkable. And it's not that I don't fancy you, Richard – hic! - Richard's a funny name for an attractive bird, innit? It's jusht that I'm on duty for another four hours – shhh! I'm undercover, an' I ain't supposed to pick up women or female impershonators, especially female impershonators..... Hic! Oh, fuck the rules, rules are bloody shilly if you ask me. Do you wanna come back to my place, darlin'?”

“Have you got any booze?”

“Yesh indeedy. And some really good papier-mache Skunk an' a bit of top notch Charlie that's really only baking powder that I confiscated from a dirty little prossie this morning.”

“Yeah, all right then, in a bit because it's Number One's round.”

“Is it bollocks, it's your turn,” Number One grunted. He had put Bad Manners' 'Hoots Mon There's A Moose Loose Aboot This Hoose' on the papier-mache jukebox, and he was dancing very intimately with a huge non-papier-mache woman.

“Oi fink Buster Bloodvessel iz a wunderfull 'uman being,” the woman said, “but don't worry, I like vertically challenged men too, short-arse.”

“Me too, shexshie,” Number One replied, putting his arms around his new love. Well, as far as they would go. “I mean I like Buster Bloodvessel, not vertically challenged men; I'm not a funny feller, I'll 'ave you know. You're a whole lot of woman and you're lovely – hic! - Joanne, you're ash pretty ash a - hic! - ash a picture, and I fink I loves you. I'll alwaysh love you, you big, fat, cuddly bint, you're..... you're..... you're fandabbydozey!”

“Get your coat on, Algernon, you silver tongued bastard, you've fuckin' well pulled,” Joanne whispered in Number One's ear – he had to come up with a name as quickly as possible while he was chatting the woman up, and Algernon was the only one he could think of. “Don't bovver callin' a taxi, me 'usband'll drive, 'e's the papier-mache copper over there 'oo's copped off wiv yer slutty cock-gobblin' sister, we can travel in style in 'is squad car wiv the siren blarin' as fast as we bloody well like. 'E won't be jealous or anyfing, we 'ave an open relationship. You know you said you wuz a space cadet, duck, does that mean you like Star Trek?”

“I fuckin' love it. Beam me up, Shcotty.....”