Killer Robots From Eyebrow
I was recently telling someone a story about killer robots from Mars. It was a scary story, too. Not Friday the 13th scary, more like Andy Rooney’s eyebrows scary: freakish and designed to make small children wet their beds. The story didn’t scare the person I told it to, though, because she is convinced that there is no life on Mars.
I asked how she knew there wasn’t any life on Mars, and she said something about the temperature being all wrong, and there’s no water, so there can’t be anything alive.
I was feeling very third-grader-ish, so I told her “Well, maybe they don’t need water, and they live their whole lives being really cold and thirsty, then die miserable deaths in the red wastes. Kind of like people, except for the thirsty and cold parts. And the dying on Mars bit, too.” I am so smart.
But then she informed me that we had satellite images of the surface of Mars, and nobody had ever seen anyothing that indicates that there’s any life on Mars at all.
I felt cheated, like candy that was stolen from a baby and given to some cantankerous old man who won’t even enjoy the fruity goodness that I have to offer. I spit on you, old man! I spit on you with all my fruity phlegm! I knew I was beaten and heading right down that sour man’s gullet when I thought of something. I stuck myself in his throat, choked him and got spit back out onto the pavement for another baby to find! Or something like that. I can never tell how far to take an analogy.
Anyway, I turned the tables back on her. “Well, maybe all the life was on vacation when the pictures were taken! Or maybe they were hiding under rocks! Or maybe they’re invisible! Did you think of that?”
Then she said I was stupid and left. Which means I won because she gave up!
But then, I got to thinking about it rationally. True, I had won the argument, and winning proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are invisible vacationing aliens hiding under rocks on Mars. But what if simply winning an argument is not grounds for assuming that there is life any other planets, let alone Mars? What then? Then my story about killer robots from Mars can’t be true at all. And if there’s no chance it can be true, it’s not scary.
Since invisible vacationing aliens small enough to fit under rocks aren’t believable, I had to think of some reason why there’s no life out there and yet there can still be killer robots from Mars. It took me a while, but I got it, clean and simple. There’s no life on Mars because the people there made the killer robots and the killer robots killed all the life on Mars. Of course, that changes the moral of the original story from “Be very scared of killer robots from Mars” to “don’t build killer robots, especially if you’re a Martian, because then the robots will kill you and everything else on your planet.”
But I digress. After all, the moral isn’t important. The point of a scary story is to scare people, not to teach them valuable lessons. So maybe I need something scarier than killer robots from Mars. Maybe I’ll just replace them with killer eyebrows from Venus. The general story line would go something like this.
“Aieee! A killer eyebrow is coming!”
“Quick, let’s barricade ourselves inside our house!”
-They do so-
“Good, we’re safe.”
“No we’re not, it got inside before we sealed ourselves in!”
-They run away from the most violent, bushiest eyebrow they’ve ever seen. Going from room to room, they realize that they can’t hold out much longer-
“Maybe we can burn it.”
“Here’s some gas and a match. Let’s set a trap.”
-They set a trap, and even though the eyebrow springs it, it doesn’t catch on fire, because it’s not just any eyebrow, it’s the QUEEN EYEBROW!-
“Oh, no, it’s a queen eyebrow. It must have laid eyebrow eggs in the basement. We have to break them while trying to evade the queen eyebrow!”
“You must be right! Let’s destroy them with this chainsaw I just happened to find.”
-They try to go to the basement, but then they realize they don’t have one. Then, they get cornered by the eyebrow-
“Oh no! We’re stuck!”
“Aieee!”
-They eyebrow kills one of them and blood and guts and brains splatter everywhere, because the queen eyebrow has a flair for the dramatic-
“I must kill the eyebrow to avenge that other person’s death!”
-The eyebrow attacks the second person, who manages to stab it repeatedly with a banana. The queen eyebrow is killed-
“Neener neener! I win!”
-The person goes to the door and unbarricades it. He or She flings the door open and savors the fresh air. However, when the person goes back inside to mourn the dead person, the dead person’s eyebrows are gone. The living person looks back toward the door, and catches a glimpse of the biggest, most violent eyebrows he ever saw slip outside. Humanity is obviously doomed-
The end. Now, that’s so much more thrilling than some stupid clunky Martian robots. It would have even scared me a little if I wasn’t so fearless. And besides -- Wait, what was that crawling on my foot? Why don’t I ever have a banana when I need one?
I asked how she knew there wasn’t any life on Mars, and she said something about the temperature being all wrong, and there’s no water, so there can’t be anything alive.
I was feeling very third-grader-ish, so I told her “Well, maybe they don’t need water, and they live their whole lives being really cold and thirsty, then die miserable deaths in the red wastes. Kind of like people, except for the thirsty and cold parts. And the dying on Mars bit, too.” I am so smart.
But then she informed me that we had satellite images of the surface of Mars, and nobody had ever seen anyothing that indicates that there’s any life on Mars at all.
I felt cheated, like candy that was stolen from a baby and given to some cantankerous old man who won’t even enjoy the fruity goodness that I have to offer. I spit on you, old man! I spit on you with all my fruity phlegm! I knew I was beaten and heading right down that sour man’s gullet when I thought of something. I stuck myself in his throat, choked him and got spit back out onto the pavement for another baby to find! Or something like that. I can never tell how far to take an analogy.
Anyway, I turned the tables back on her. “Well, maybe all the life was on vacation when the pictures were taken! Or maybe they were hiding under rocks! Or maybe they’re invisible! Did you think of that?”
Then she said I was stupid and left. Which means I won because she gave up!
But then, I got to thinking about it rationally. True, I had won the argument, and winning proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are invisible vacationing aliens hiding under rocks on Mars. But what if simply winning an argument is not grounds for assuming that there is life any other planets, let alone Mars? What then? Then my story about killer robots from Mars can’t be true at all. And if there’s no chance it can be true, it’s not scary.
Since invisible vacationing aliens small enough to fit under rocks aren’t believable, I had to think of some reason why there’s no life out there and yet there can still be killer robots from Mars. It took me a while, but I got it, clean and simple. There’s no life on Mars because the people there made the killer robots and the killer robots killed all the life on Mars. Of course, that changes the moral of the original story from “Be very scared of killer robots from Mars” to “don’t build killer robots, especially if you’re a Martian, because then the robots will kill you and everything else on your planet.”
But I digress. After all, the moral isn’t important. The point of a scary story is to scare people, not to teach them valuable lessons. So maybe I need something scarier than killer robots from Mars. Maybe I’ll just replace them with killer eyebrows from Venus. The general story line would go something like this.
“Aieee! A killer eyebrow is coming!”
“Quick, let’s barricade ourselves inside our house!”
-They do so-
“Good, we’re safe.”
“No we’re not, it got inside before we sealed ourselves in!”
-They run away from the most violent, bushiest eyebrow they’ve ever seen. Going from room to room, they realize that they can’t hold out much longer-
“Maybe we can burn it.”
“Here’s some gas and a match. Let’s set a trap.”
-They set a trap, and even though the eyebrow springs it, it doesn’t catch on fire, because it’s not just any eyebrow, it’s the QUEEN EYEBROW!-
“Oh, no, it’s a queen eyebrow. It must have laid eyebrow eggs in the basement. We have to break them while trying to evade the queen eyebrow!”
“You must be right! Let’s destroy them with this chainsaw I just happened to find.”
-They try to go to the basement, but then they realize they don’t have one. Then, they get cornered by the eyebrow-
“Oh no! We’re stuck!”
“Aieee!”
-They eyebrow kills one of them and blood and guts and brains splatter everywhere, because the queen eyebrow has a flair for the dramatic-
“I must kill the eyebrow to avenge that other person’s death!”
-The eyebrow attacks the second person, who manages to stab it repeatedly with a banana. The queen eyebrow is killed-
“Neener neener! I win!”
-The person goes to the door and unbarricades it. He or She flings the door open and savors the fresh air. However, when the person goes back inside to mourn the dead person, the dead person’s eyebrows are gone. The living person looks back toward the door, and catches a glimpse of the biggest, most violent eyebrows he ever saw slip outside. Humanity is obviously doomed-
The end. Now, that’s so much more thrilling than some stupid clunky Martian robots. It would have even scared me a little if I wasn’t so fearless. And besides -- Wait, what was that crawling on my foot? Why don’t I ever have a banana when I need one?