Hands OFF!
I never thought I’d have to live the rest of my life without my right hand. But that was before it happened. I woke up this morning thinking it’d be just another day in paradise. I drank my fruit-vegetable shake while contemplating the mysteries of the universe, but suddenly my dreamlike reverie was shattered by the burst of blue light emanating from my microwave.
Hmmm, I thought, why is that bizarre ultramarine-coloured stream of photons exiting my kitchen appliance? Surely the aliens don’t want my toast. They never have. The thing was, the aliens did want my toast.
“Greetings, Earthling,” one said as it crawled out of the microwave. “Hand over the toast or we toast your hand.”
Sarcastic aliens are the worst, I thought. Little did I know that sarcastic aliens were the least of my problems. That didn’t occur to me at that moment because I was being surrounded by sarcastic aliens demanding my toast and looking hungrily at my hand. Despite their attempts to disguise it, most were salivating enthusiastically. My hand was beginning to burn a little.
“Hand over the toast,” they insisted insistently. Reflexively, I clutched the piece of perfectly golden brown whole wheat bread covered in delectable grape jelly the perfect ratio of smooth-to-crunchy peanut butter closer to my chest, not caring that it would stain. My toast had to be saved.
“No,” I replied with vigor and the belief in the fact that I would save my toast.
One of the aliens, the fifth from the left, glanced towards the bluest of them all and eagerly asked, “Can we do it yet? Can we? Caaaaan weeeeeeeeeeeeeee?”
“We will tell you again,” said Mr. I-am-so-very-blue, ignoring his subordinate that had just spoken. “Hand over the toast and we will not toast your hand.”
I frowned, not liking their ultimatum. On the one hand (no pun intended), I was fond of the idea of having–and keeping–all ten digits, but on the other, I was very partial to my toast. Making a split second decision, I ran out of my kitchen. Before long, the pounding of extraterrestrial boots could be heard throughout the house. But, Alleluiapraisethechoirofangelsonhigh, I had a plan.
Even if the aliens found the blueprint of the house that was sitting on the table by the television in the living room, they would not know that I had a secret laboratory under the basement. When I reached said place, I shouted, “Release the Rhino!” at the top of my lungs. The doors parted and I was safe.
It was only later that I realised my right hand had been severed and was now sitting on the other side of the steel portal I had come through. Oh well, at least I have my toast and left hand, I told myself. And I’m not human. Thank God for those starfish genes grafted into my already multi-species deoxyribonucleic acid.
After five minutes of patient waiting, I realised it had not been starfish genes but actually star-nosed mole genes the mad scientists had used. By then, though, I was already half dead from blood loss so there was nothing else I could do but eat my toast.
THE END
