Author: David Berger

(The Phenomenon Known As “Soulmates” – Ms. Blu)

“Why are you always complaining?” my wife asked me one night from across the kitchen. “You’ve got me; you love your work; we have a nice home; good friends; the sex is great.”

“Yeah, great,” I said.

“Is there a problem with our sex life?” she asked.

“Could we change the subject?” I asked.

“No!” she said. “We have to keep things straight between us! You know that! It’s important far beyond the two of us! We’re really a role model as a couple! You know that!”

(I loved the way those two big metallic purple corkscrews came out of the top of her forehead when she got angry.)

“Okay, yes,” I said. “Our sex life is sort of great.”

“Look, Sweetie,” she said to me. “You know how it has to be. I keep my energy level up as high as I can without hurting you. Just last week, you got a nasty little blister on your … .”

“Yeah,” I said. “But sometimes … .”

“Sometimes what?” she said. “Sometimes what? Are you going to start that complaining about my people coming over here again?”

“No, it’s just that … .”

“Just what? My crew are planetary ecologists. We came here and we saw what rotten shape your world was in!”

(Her eyes were turning into lovely, purple compound kaleidoscopes.)

“We were doing okay.”

“BS! First, we had to disarm all your nuclear weapons.”

“We were having disarmament talks.”

“You’ve been having them for a hundred years. Face it, your people like war.”

(Her skin began to harden and turn a wonderful shade of orange.)

“That’s not fair,” I said.

It’s completely fair, and that’s why we had to outlaw war. No armed forces cross any borders. And missiles, planes, subs, drones and military satellites are all banned because we know how you like to cheat.”

(Those two amazing extra legs sprouted from her waist.)

“We could have done all that ourselves.”

“Right, Sweetie. Sure you could. You’ve only had about six thousand years of your civilization to do it.”

“You’re not fair to us. We were trying.”

“Of course you were Darling. And then we sucked all the excess CO2 and methane out of your atmosphere and kept you from burning this big blue beachball up.”

(That fuzzy stuff began to grow out of all her arms!)

“We were negotiating climate change.”

“Naturally you were, Tootsie. And that’s why you got heatstroke five years ago in Greenland on our first date.”

(She began to walk towards me, drawing herself up to her full height of two-and-a-half meters.)

“You’re exaggerating. At least we finally got socialism!”

“Of course you did, after we seized all the banks and industries from the zillionaires and you had to take them over and run them yourselves.”

“Well, we did it.”

“Yes, you did, Snuggums. And everything is cool, now.”

(She grabbed me with her four upper limbs and began to squeeze me tight.)

“Would you like to make love?”

“I sure would! Could you turn your energy level up, just a little?”