Banter On Ice And Snow

“Captain? Captain? Hello?”

“Can you hear me?”

Static. Darn it. That sky-cursing frost. Always causing malfunctions. I stamped across the snow laden ground and hollered around the wasteland. I paused and let the echoes ring. It was beautifully frightening. To think that my vibrations would forever, travel, to who knows where on this planet. After a long two minutes there was a silence. Silence was beautiful... and breathtaking in its own way. There was not a sound to be heard. There was never place so dangerously beautiful. It was simply void of life. Well except for the two of us, as I glanced behind me to the annoying thing. I looked back to admire the view.

A sneeze snapped me out of my trance. I jerked my head towards the back. I gave the squat man with a goatee as a hairstyle an annoyed glance. Did he really have to disturb my admiration for this eerily frozen terrain?

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know so wow. I’m cold, can we get a fire started. I’m actually super duper cold... ” sniffled Silv,” Wait are you even listening?”

I had refrain myself from slapping my forehead. Silv was, is and will be stupid, no matter what happens. Doesn’t he realize that there’s an even worse problem than a few sniffles. The comm wasn’t working.

“Okay first Silvvy, I live in what we called the Galaxy Age, I don’t know about you, but I live in the Galaxy Age. It’s been just over three and a half million years ago from the Lapisild Age, I recall. That was about when they discover fire. I unfortunately, I’m not even close to a million years old, so please stop asking me. Manuals of your ‘How To Survive In Tropical Climate’ are more likely to converse upon this rather vexing ancient concept,” I retorted.

“Don’t call me by that nickname,” whined Sliv.

“Just go read your crappy manual. You boasted that you know how to light a fire from reading it.” I imitated in his low-pitched whine.

“It’s not crappy”

“The first page was.”

“That’s all the licenses and copyright stuff.”

“Still only idiots read it.”

“You read the first page, you therefore you are a self-classified idiot.”

“I meant reading the whole manual.”

“Still,” Silv grinned, revealing carnivorous-looking teeth.

“Just go read your manual.”

“That might be a bit problematic, seeing that out spaceship is a wee bit dented in the entrance, Denis,” Silv slyly replied.

“Then go through the exit.”

“That’s for exiting.”

“Well, it’s a door, and doors are supposed for intelligent beings to come in and out,“I added,“Unless you aren’t an intelligent being.”

“Well, the exit is a wee bit dented to come through.”

“What do you mean--,” I trailed off.

By then I have spun a 180 degrees.

And there it was, in all its glory was our space ship a ‘wee bit dented’. Smoke curled towards the sky, like the ghosts. The space ship, was no longer the Soaring Star, just an enormous unrecognizable lump of metal. A pungent smell floated about the icy terrain, it was the scent of an unusable space ship.

A wee bit dented was an understatement for the once magnificent Soaring Star. It was utterly destroyed, wringed out as if it was no more than a mere handkerchief.

“Yeah. Here lies the Soaring Star, all wrecked and out of use,” Silv murmured, “Rest in peace, Soaring Star.”

Silv began to throw snow at the wreckage, murmuring rest in peace, rest in peace.

I shook my head.

“What? Isn’t that what you humans do?” Silv the idiot asked, “Like throw whatever’s on the ground on top of someone and then cremate them.”

“No, you stupid thing. Humans cremate the fallen person before throwing soil, not snow on someone. I’m only half human, anyways, you idiot. So don’t expect me to know everything about them.”

“But I’m seriously cold,” whined Silv.

“I’ll give you a cold shoulder,” I flashed back.

Silv mumbled under his breath. He really had to realize there is a source of heat, though it wasn’t exactly classified as sanitary. I had to ahem and cough while pointing at the not-exactly-sanitary heat source.

“Oh,” Silv responded.

“Yeah, oh. I don’t even know how you were selected for this mission. Your intellect would rival one of hippopotamus,” I rolled my eyes.

“What’s a hippopotamus?” Silv inquired.

“See I am correct being that rivals a hippopotamus

“An animal that looks like this,” I said as a used my foot to make a childish-looking hippo.

It took about two minutes to draw the hippo on snow. The drawing was actually quite good, maybe even abstractly artistic. My drawing skills had to be praised for its depiction of a dead animal. It’s not everyday you draw a hippopotamus on snow, with your foot, on foreign ground. Who knows? Maybe it isn’t even snow, maybe its some new substance that looks like snow.

“What are the crosses for?” Silv asked.

“It means that the animal, in this case a hippo, is dead. You know like the dead emoticon they sent to the enemy, in the movie: The Last War.”

“I’ve never watched The Last War before.”

" Too bad,” I shot back.

“Soooooo, how we are we going to survive the cold,” sniffed the freezing Silv.

“I don’t know, I’m not the one that read How To Survive In Tropical Climate manual,” I shrugged.

“It isn’t so crappy now is it?” smirked Silv

“Well, because you are an idiot, and if actually you’re cold like you mentioned quite a few times, then I suggest you to walk towards the heat source and stop bantering the soul out of me.” I sucked through my teeth, as I gestured to the only heat.

“Sorry, mate. But I wasn’t cold. I was only testing you, wouldn’t want to fall into that hole anyways,” Silv winked, as he pointed as the obvious looking hole made from the only heat source.

I growled in frustration. All that talk was for nothing.

I was really tempted to throw myself in the very hole Silv mentioned.