A SMELLY SHORT STORY
Alan Parker passed gas, lifting up one butt cheek from the stool to make it easier. Silent gas. Good, I wouldn’t want to get the others’ attention with a loud rip and foul odor. He sniffed. Not too bad. No one noticed anything, this time. But he felt another one coming.
Across the way he heard Brad make an odd hiccough swallowing sound. He made several of these in a row, and Alan wondered if Brad were choking, when Brad finally belched. A loud, ferocious earthquake kind of belch.
“Whoa! That was a big one!” Alan said. “You must have been holding that in.”
Heath and Mark burst out laughing.
Evelyn covered her mouth and pretended not to giggle.
And Ingrid said, “Really! Excuse you. That is inappropriate and disgusting. And aboard a space ship no less. I assume you won’t let that happen again.” She peered at him over her reading glasses, her stern librarian voice making his mother’s scolding seem so much more preferable.
Brad said, “I kept trying to hide it and let it out in little … bursts, but I couldn’t contain it any longer.”
During the commotion, Alan and several of the other men took the liberty to release their own built-up gases. Not too many people noticed. At least, Ingrid hadn’t noticed, though some of the men exchanged looks of a newfound brotherhood, one that said I know you just farted. I did too. Now we’re fart brothers.
An awkward silence followed, not occupied by noisy emissions, until Gordon swung his chair over. “Hey, so I think I know why so many of us are experiencing gas. There is a lot of carrageenan in our food.”
Ingrid asked, “What does that do?”
“It’s a seaweed extract that’s used to replace fat in our diet, but it also produces more gas in the digestive system. Basically like eating beans or chili.”
“When will it stop? How do we get it out of the food?” she asked.
Gordon tapped his head, “Ah, that’s the rub. The machine—basically a robot cook—is programmed to make our food. So we’d have to reprogram it.”
Ingrid tapped her foot, “Well, how long will that take?”
Gordon said, “A while?”
“Well fix it now! We can’t have all this gas in here,” Ingrid said as she stood up and placed her hands on her hips.
How many men would it take to fix the cook robot? Alan wondered. Were there even substitutes available? “Okay, we’ll go find the cook robot, and see what we can do about it,” he said aloud.
“Evelyn, would you be so kind as to accompany these so-called gentlemen?” Ingrid asked. “I think they’ve spent so much time in VR as young men, they’ve carried it over into the real world. I can’t believe I’m stuck on a shift composed of eleven men and only two women.”
“Sure,” Evelyn said. “Be happy to.” The twelve of them set off for the kitchen, which was on the opposite ring of the ship. They decided to go through the center of the ship instead of walking around the deck they were on. After walking for a bit, they found themselves in the central part of the ship with no gravity. They drifted along, until Gordon let out a big fart that sent him spinning.
“Whoa!” He caught himself on the opposite wall. “That was fun!”
The men then began producing the biggest farts they could. They propelled themselves back and forth across the spacious room in an unpredictable fashion, colliding with one another at times, creating a sort of soccer match without a ball.
“You next,” someone yelled.
They zoomed past one another; some collided; some wrestled; and Mark and Joe grabbed each other and twirled around in opposite directions.
While many of them passed gas, Brad still belched instead. “Hey guys, remember this? Aaa, bbb, ccc, ddd…” And he burped the alphabet.
Greg said, “Whew! It’s starting to stink in here.”
Alan looked over and noticed that Evelyn floated at the side. “Aw, come on, Evie! Let ‘er rip! Join us. It’s fun.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s impolite.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t worry. We won’t tell Ingrid.”
She smiled. “I’ll think about it.”
He floated past her and tried not to look at her. Maybe some privacy would help her.
They continued in their collision game, and then a skirt zoomed by.
“Yay! Evie!” The men chanted. They cheered, and some men pounded their chests. Evelyn laughed, “It feels wonderful! I’ve been dying to get that out.”
Over the next few minutes it became apparent that Evelyn had more control of where she went than the men. “Hey Evie, how come you can aim so well?” Alan asked.
“Must be the skirt,” Evelyn said.
“Yeah, it’s like a rocket engine nozzle,” Brad said. “To Infinity and Beyond!”
* * *
After farting around for a while, they found their way to the cook robot, tucked away in a decent-sized kitchen. When they neared the kitchen, they heard disco music and sizzling.
“You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen…. Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine….oh yeah!”
They peered around the doorway and saw a stereotypical-looking robot doing a disco move with a spatula and rattling measuring spoons for a tambourine.
“Wow, that’s a bad singer. You’d think a robot would be better at this stuff.”
The robot stopped and whirled around. “Who’s there?”
The group bumped into the kitchen, approaching the robot.
Alan became their spokesperson: “Hi, um, we’re here because there’s a slight problem with the food.”
“What!” the robot screamed. “I am the best cook in the universe!”
Evie said, “Of course you are. You’re a great cook! We love your food.”
Gordon said, “We were just wondering if you could maybe not put so much carrageenan in the food. I mean, we love seaweed extract, but sometimes it’s a little overpowering.”
The robot eyed them, and even though none of them had ever thought that looks could kill from a robot, some of them wondered if there were daggers or bullets that it could release from its eyes.
The cook robot held up the container of carrageenan, and pretended to cry. Its metal arms and shoulders shook up and down and it tilted its head back in a howl.
“Oh, no, no, no, it’s okay.” Evelyn said. “It’s only seaweed. And we love seaweed. It’s just that…”
She looked at the men for help, but many of them averted their eyes.
Then Rob farted.
And the robot laughed. “That’s funny.”
“I know, right!” Rob said. “This carrageenan really makes us pass gas, though.”
The robot laughed, with a quirky motion of metal arms and shoulders jerking up and down. “Okay, seaweed extract makes you fart. I wonder if I can fart?”
* * *
“I thought you fixed this,” Ingrid said. “There’s more carrageenan in here than ever!”
Alan peered at his eggs. Yup, no doubt about it. The adjustment they made the previous evening to the cook robot had worked. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I guess we misread the scale and turned up the seaweed content instead of lowering it.
We’ll get right on it after breakfast,” he assured her.
“See that you do,” she sniffed. “I don’t think the air recycler can take another day like yesterday.”
Ingrid finished her breakfast, dropped the dishes in the dishwasher, and headed off to begin her round of inspections on Deck 12.
“Okay, where are we going?” Evelyn asked.
“The low G storeroom on Deck 2,” Heath said. “It’s huge.”
Along the way, the men stopped in their rooms and grabbed large bath towels. Gordon headed to the gym to pick up a volleyball on his way to Deck 2.
With gravity so slight on Deck 2, they had to go hand-over-hand along a handrail built into the access corridor wall as they approached the storeroom. Alan led the way, and opened the access hatch to a large cylindrical room with a tube running down the center of it.
“Wow, this place is huge,” Rob said.
The storeroom was shaped like a two hundred foot wide, five hundred foot tall donut. Deck 1, the central core access tube, ran through the center of the room. Stacks of supplies clung to the outer wall with heavy nets, but this far into the journey, a good deal of empty space intervened between the supplies and the inner wall.
While Evelyn gaped at the immense space, the men had all removed their pants and wrapped themselves with towels.
They wore only jock straps. “Watch this,” Mark said, and let one rip. He shot up into the air and did several cartwheels.
“The towel forms a rocket nozzle, just like Evie’s skirt when we flew around yesterday.”
“Wait for me,” Heath called, firing off one of his own, with similar results.
“O-M-G,” Evelyn said, as he shot off into the air.
“Try it,” Alan said. “Most fun I’ve had since they took away my little blue pills.” He lifted off with a loud ripping sound.
Evelyn laughed so hard she couldn’t help herself. Pop! Pop! Riiiiiiiiiiip! And she was airborne as well.
Gordon emerged from the hatch wearing a towel skirt and holding a white ball. As he launched he called “Dodgeball, anyone?” and flung the ball in Mark’s direction. Mark dodged and the ball bounced away. Heath shot after it and the game was on.
Much to her surprise, Evelyn won the dodgeball game when she slipped around the curve of Deck 1 and emerged behind Gordon, then bopped him on the head with the ball. “Gotcha! I win,” she said.
“Drat!” Gordon said. “Congratulations. You’re the Queen of Windbag Dodgeball.” He made a bowing motion while twirling his right hand like a Maharaja’s lackey.
“Help,” Heath called. “I’m out of gas!” Evelyn turned to see Heath hanging in space, a good twenty feet from anything he might grab onto.
“Hang on,” said Gordon. He crouched down and let one rip, before rocketing off in Heath’s direction. Evelyn watched him go, then clapped her hands over her nose and mouth to block the stench.
“Gross. Are you sure you didn’t crap yourself?” Evelyn popped off in the opposite direction, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and Gordon’s fumes.
“I most certainly did not,” Gordon called as he snagged Heath and the two of them grabbed onto a cargo net. “Must be the prunes.”
“What now?” asked Mark.
“I think I’ve run out of gas, too,” Gordon said. “But I’ve got an idea for next time. You see all those discarded nets from the supplies we’ve used up. We could fashion some soccer goals at either end of the storeroom and play S-B-D Soccer.”
“Or Cut Muffin Kickball,” Alan said.
“Break Wind Surfing,” Richard said, and broke wind. He doubled up laughing at his own joke, which sent him tumbling out of control.
Later that morning, Alan adjusted the cook robot to reduce the amount of carrageenan in all the foods except for the cheese pizzas. Being lactose intolerant, Ingrid never touched any dairy products. Over the next week they managed to slip away from Ingrid at least once a day for some type of flatulence-fueled game.
* * *
Ingrid slapped a tablet on Alan’s desk. Alan jumped and managed to hold in a fart, hoping his insides wouldn’t burst.
“Look at this!” She hissed. “Our air regulation system is reading that it can’t filter any more gases. But you assured me the gases would stop. What is going on?”
“I…uh…I don’t know. We fixed the system. It should be fine. I’m sure it’s fine. That’s probably a misreading.”
“It stinks in here. It stinks everywhere! Clearly something is happening and the system is overloaded. This report says that if we don’t fix the gas problem immediately, the oxygen system and air regulation system will shut down soon. No oxygen means we all die. Fix it.”
He pulled up the information on his own tablet and confirmed it. The storage tank used to collect noxious gasses was near capacity. They were dangerously close to the systems shutting down. He grabbed the tablet and found the others.
A few minutes later, they met in the gym, certain that Ingrid wouldn’t find them, since she never went to the gym.
After he presented the information to the group, he asked, “Any suggestions? We have to do something. All this gas is causing a real problem.”
Gordon said, “We’ll just release the filtered gas from the ship.”
Rob asked, “Is that possible?”
“Sure, we divert all the filtered gas to the outer docking station, then hit the button that opens the door to space.”
“Will it work?” Evelyn asked.
“Basically, the ship will release a big fart. Then that’s it. If we have to do it again, we can.” Gordon assured them. “It should work as many times as we need it to.”
Alan said, “Problem solved! Gordon, go ahead and do that now. Then we’ll play another game of Frisbee fart golf.”
* * *
A few minutes later, the outer docking door opened and released the gas into space. Gordon closed the door, checked the air system levels, which returned to normal, and joined the others in Frisbee golf.
* * *
They threw their Frisbees toward the door, and they farted at their own speeds, propelling themselves forward to chase after their Frisbees and retrieve them. At that moment, however, the door opened. And first one Frisbee and then another hit the person who opened the door. Ingrid!
As if the other Frisbees knew they were in trouble, they stopped in their tracks, and the gases that the players used petered out to leave them floating in zero g, staring at Ingrid.
“What is going on here?” she asked.
They exchanged glances. Who would answer her?
“I thought you fixed the problem. It turns out that you’ve been hiding in here playing while the ship is in danger of the air systems breaking.”
Gordon said, “Not to worry, ma’am! We’re just releasing the gas from the ship. Simple!”
She held up a tablet, and they watched the tiny screen as they bobbed up and down in zero gravity. Joycelyn Effervescent’s day-glow avatar appeared.
“A large cloud of gas is heading toward Planetoid GXI-23A,” Joycelyn said “If it doesn’t change course, then it will impact with GXI-23A in about twenty-three hours. The gas cloud is large enough to saturate the atmosphere with flammable gasses. If it mixes with GXI-23A’s nitrous-oxide atmosphere, it could produce a spectacular explosion! Won’t that be pretty? Of course it would also destroy half the planetoid, so that’s a downer. Since sensors indicate GXI-23A is at a critical stage in the development of single-cell, silicon-based organisms, you should probably try to stop it. The planetoid could take millennia to recover from an explosion of this magnitude. And have a great day!”
“I assume you will also tell me that this gas cloud is not our gas cloud,” Ingrid said. “You can’t let this destroy that innocent planetoid. Fix it!” She turned around and walked away, taking the three Frisbees that floated nearby with her and all fun out of the game.
“What are we going to do?” Evelyn asked. “We can’t let new life forms be wiped out by our flatulence.”
Gordon and several others farted to send them the rest of the way to the door. “Let’s get to work. We need to see maps, take another look at this cloud, and figure out what to do.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Evelyn and the ten men huddled in the astrophysics lab. “Okay, the fart cloud is composed of 58 percent nitrogen, 21 percent hydrogen, 9 percent carbon dioxide, 7 percent methane, 4 percent oxygen, and one percent hydrogen sulfide gas,” Alan said. “Any ideas?”
“We could use a laser to light it on fire,” Gordon said. “The cloud would burn out before it got to the planet.”
“Not enough oxygen,” Heath said. “You’d burn up the methane, but not the hydrogen.”
Just then, the cook robot trundled into the room. “Hey gang, I learned how to fart!” And he let loose a small squeak.
Immediately the room filled with the pungent, irritating odor of bleach.
“What the hell is that?” Mark asked.
“It’s chlorine,” the robot said. “Don’t worry, I released just enough for you to smell it, not endanger anyone. I can do much bigger ones,” he said.
“Please don’t,” Evelyn said, holding a napkin over her nose.
“Hey, that gives me an idea,” Heath said. He explained his scheme to everyone.
* * *
“What the hell is going on in here?” Ingrid demanded.
Evelyn handed her an emergency breathing mask, and said, “We’re saving that planetoid.”
“It looks to me like you’re all standing here watching a robot fart.” Ingrid sighed. “I never thought I’d say those words.”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Heath said. “The cook robot farts chlorine. Once we’ve accumulated enough, we’ll shoot it towards the fart cloud at high pressure so it catches up. Once it does, the gasses will mix.”
“So what? How does that help? It seems to me you’re just adding to the problem,” Ingrid said.
“Ah, but once the gasses mix, we’ll shoot the laser into the cloud,” Alan said.
“What? That’ll just make things worse!” Ingrid exclaimed.
“No, it won’t,” Heath said. “The mixture of chlorine, hydrogen, oxygen and methane will explode, creating hydrogen chloride, elemental carbon, and water. There will be residual toxic gases, but the explosion will scatter the cloud so much that it won’t threaten the planetoid or the possibility of life forming there. Problem solved.”
* * *
Two weeks later, while they gathered in the cafeteria for breakfast, Ingrid walked in, put her hands on her hips, then relaxed and smiled. “Great news, everyone. I don’t believe I’m saying this, but it appears the planetoid we passed was indeed saved by a robot fart. A probe we left behind has recorded a sudden burst of protein-like molecule formation. We may very well have given that world an evolutionary leap forward.”
Everyone turned and gave the cook robot a resounding round of applause.
“It was nothing,” he said. “I was just trying to do my fart.”
“You know,” said Alan “If this is how life gets started in the universe, it puts a whole new perspective on The Big Bang.”