Monstrous

I settled in for the night, snuggling down in my covers, shivering as I waited for my body heat to warm the sheets and pillow.
   Borzes cleared his throat, the sound rattling around the room. Borzes is the monster who lives under my bed.
   "Hey, sport," he called out. He calls me 'sport' because he can't remember my name. He drinks. "You gonna have a nightmare tonight?"
   "I don't think so," I murmured as my eyes closed. "Not much going on to have a nightmare about."
   Borzes grumbled, and I heard a few other squeaks and bubbles from his digestive system. He eats dreams, and finds nightmares particularly tasty. "Nothing? What about the state of the economy? Global warming? Your stalled career?"
   "Nope," I yawned, "all of that stuff is so far beyond my control there's no point in worrying, let alone having bad dreams."
   "Really? Not even your career?" my monster sounded both disappointed and angry. "That's firmly in your control."
   I laughed. "Hardly. Settle down, Borzes, maybe I'll have some sort of surreal Hieronymous Bosch kind of dream you can eat. You like the weird ones, don't you?"
   "I like nightmares better..." he groused. "What about serial killers? One could sneak in here and gut you like a fish."
   "Stop talking," I said.
   For a long time Borzes said nothing and I drifted down into slumber.
   "I could show you my true form." He sounded a little timid, almost frightened.
   "I've seen you," I said. "Remember, when I thought you were a mouse? Chased you with a flashlight? Honestly, you're not that scary. You're small enough to fit under a bed."
   Another long pause.
   "You're going to die alone and unloved."
   I sat up. "Seriously? You're trotting that one out? That's more a psychiatrist's couch thing than a nightmare. And it's not true anyway."
   "Ohhh..." I could hear the smile in his voice. "I got it. Something to wake you screaming at 3 AM."
   "You got nothing," I challenged, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
   "Marriage. Commitment. Kids. A house in the suburbs. Real responsibility to someone other than yourself. More debt than you have income to take care of. No more time to yourself..."
   "All right, cut it out!" I snapped as visions of kids and mortgages and college bills flew through my head.
   "Hit a nerve, didn't I?" Borzes chuckled. "Ah, I still got it. Still got it."
   "Shut up," I mumbled. I dug further into the covers. "I'm not going to have a nightmare, so you can just starve."
   "Sweet dreams," Borzes whispered as my eyes closed.

When Last We Left Our Hero

   Captain Grant Manley had just finished single-handedly fighting back the assault of the Neptunians, and now he stood in the airlock of the USS Victorious with their purple ichor dripping from his skin-tight pressure suit. His Q-ray blaster smoked, still hot to the touch, and the plutonium fuel gauge on his jet pack read almost empty.
   "That's the last time those six-armed fiends try to interrupt our peaceful fact-finding mission," Manley growled through his pearly white teeth. He handed his space helmet to Teddy Courage, his trusty cabin boy. "I tell you Teddy, if we weren't trying to win their hearts and minds I'd have half a mind to vaporize their entire village."
   "Yeah, lucky for those bug-eyed freaks you're such a pacifist," Teddy said as he reverentially unzipped Manley's pressure suit, peeling it off his Captain's broad, muscular shoulders. "They look like a pile of something the dog threw up."
   "Now, Teddy," Manley chastised, "there's no call for that kind of talk. They're sentient beings just like you and me. The only real difference between us is their primitive culture and their poor hygiene. Oh, and their laughable religion."
   "I guess you're right," Teddy replied thoughtfully. "Sorry about that."
   Manley hugged Teddy tight to his rippling chest. "All is forgiven, lad. But between us, when we finally bring civilization and culture to these poor, backward aliens I'll be glad to leave this terrible place."
   "I don't know," Teddy replied, still wrapped in Manley's embrace, "I kind of like it here now."
   "It is beautiful in its own austere, desolate way, like a cloistered monastery or an oil rig or a French Foreign Legion outpost," Manley replied.
   "Or a prison," Teddy replied. "A maximum security prison."
   "That too, lad," Manley chuckled. "But I long for purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain."
   "So do I," a lilting, musical voice said.
   Estelle Sparks entered the airlock, all long legs and cascading raven hair. Her lithe, buxom form was barely contained in the USS Victory's standard singlesuit uniform, and the Q-ray blasters she carried on each ample hip said she was just as much at home on the battlefield as in the kitchen.
   Captain Manley released Teddy and grabbed Estelle fiercely, staring into her violet eyes. "We've been apart only a few hours, just long enough for me to dispense justice, and yet I feel as though it's been days."
   "Oh, Grant," Estelle sighed, "I want nothing more than to melt into your arms. But we've just received an alert from the Earth Council. It's terrible, the Neptunians are preparing to use an Ultimate Disintegrator."
   "Say it isn't so!" Manley gasped.
   "How would they get the materials to build an Ultimate Disintegrator?" Teddy asked. "Isn't their whole planet nothing but rocks and methane sand? And hasn't the Earth Council enforced a trade embargo on all Neptunian exports for years now?"
   Manley turned to his trusty cabin boy, his square jaw set beneath his steel-gray eyes. "The Earth Council hasn't led us astray yet, lad. If they say it's so then it must be. And my destiny is now clear."
   "Grant, you don't mean..." Estelle gasped, her bosom heaving.
   "I'm afraid so, First Officer Sparks," Manley said. "Fire up the nuclear generator and ready the Atom Cannon, we're going to have to teach these Neptunians a lesson."

On A Rampage

With all apologies to EPMD and LL Cool J, I think I have a solution to our country's economic crisis. It's so simple, so easy, and straightforward that I can't be the first person to have thought of it. I just wonder why the government hasn't done anything to implement this master plan. What is the plan? Glad you asked.
   We need to get giant monsters to rampage through our cities.
   Yup, it's just that easy. We get someone to go to Monster Island - I'd say Raymond Burr but he's dead - rile up a few of the bigger, more aggressive monsters, let them know that the provocation is coming from the USA, and then sit back and watch the rampaging begin.
   Sure, there would be some destruction, but you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and think of all the jobs created during the eventual re-construction after the monsters bust up a few of our cities. You'd need platoons of carpenters, masons, engineers, plumbers, landscapers, and all sorts of other professions that actually do something, as opposed to stock brokers or other financial parasites. People would need raw materials, there'd be a boom in recycling, probably a run on giant monster meat before it spoiled, all sorts of demand for lasers that could penetrate foot-thick monster hide. I tell you, commerce will just start humming along again. And don't even get me started on all the local landmarks that will need special attention when the monsters are done. Believe me, when Godzilla comes stomping through Seattle he's gonna use the Space Needle as a weapon, and they'll want to replace it once he's subdued.
   It'll be like Eisenhower and his Interstate Highway System, only with giant monsters.
   I'd want Gamera to come through LA, because he's nicer than the other monsters so he'd likely be more choosy about what to destroy, and because he does gymnastics, like a 200-foot-tall Mary Lou Retton with a turtle shell on her back.
   Somebody get the President on the phone.

Monster Suits With Zippers

As I may have mentioned before, I'm descending - prematurely, I contend - into 'cranky old man' status. I attend my local city district meetings, I fondly remember the good old days, and if I had a lawn I'd yell at kids to keep off it. I know what this country needs to get straightened out, and I'm not shy about letting people know it. And to that point, I've come up with another solution for the ills of society.
   We need more movies with giant monsters tearing up Tokyo.
   Or at least show the ones we have a lot more often. Used to be every Saturday morning I could find a good monster movie on TV. Godzilla was out ripping it up, or Mothra, maybe Rodan or Ghidora, or Monster Zero. Sometimes they were good guys, sometimes they were bad guys, but they always knocked a few buildings down, stomped on a few fleeing Japanese.
   Go find a little kid and ask them who Godzilla is. If they know ask about Gamera, or Infra Man, or - God help us all - Godzukey. Bet you they have no idea.
   How do kids these days function without knowing about Japanese monster movies? I used to spend hours at the beach building my own little sand castle Tokyo just so I could stomp through it. My friends and I used to set up our plastic green Army men in neat rows and them mow them down with our atomic breath. Which was green Hi-C, but you get the idea.
   I think I'm going to write my congressman - because that's what cranky old men do - and demand legislation to put more Japanese monster movies on TV. That'll fix these kids up...