The Day I Saved Our Universe

by Humphrey Price

The slimy thing popped into my kitchen while I was pounding out another third-rate science fiction story to submit to the slush piles. The shapeless, pulsating creature was sickly green and about the size of your average adult male human being. It smelled like swamp gas.

“You are the hack science fiction writer I seek,” the oozy blob proclaimed in an accusatory tone through its gelatinous mouth as it pointed an extruded pseudopod in my direction. “I am very angry with your story concerning the underground microbial mats on Mars. We are much more complex and sophisticated than you portray.”

Uncertain if this was a hallucination, I pulled myself together and said, “It’s a fictional story. You’re not real.”

“In the multiverse, every possible universe exists, even your fictional ones. Anything you write will occur in one of the infinite number of realities.”

“That’s hard to believe, and I think I’m just imagining you, but why do you care?”

“You have incorrectly depicted the nature of our intelligent microbial colonies on Mars. Your story sucks.”

“It’s not going to win the Nebulous award, but it got a middling review in Locust magazine.”

“Your horrible writing is inaccurate, has no character development and includes too much boring exposition. Also, we do not appreciate being called ‘slimy.’ It is insulting. We prefer the term ‘viscid.’ In my universe, we are the highest form of intelligence. We invaded the Earth and enslaved all of you abominable humans. Your universe must be nullified. It is a blight on the multiverse, so I shall wipe it out of existence.”

“But if it wasn’t for my story, according to you, your universe wouldn’t even exist. If you wipe me out, you won’t exist, either.”

“I cannot be tricked with your causality hooey. I think, therefore I am... I think. Anyway, there is another universe where you wrote a much better story.”

The creature produced a metal device with a square handle that it held in a pseudopod while another pseudopod engaged a mechanical crank on its side that caused two intersecting oblong frameworks at the working end to spin in opposite directions.

I stifled a laugh and said, “That’s an eggbeater.”

“It is an Illudium Nullifier.”

“Is that so? Well then, how does that absurd contraption work?”

“The two counte-rotating field generators disrupt, unzip, and destroy the quantum fabric of the cosmos.”

“Well, I think your eggbeater looks pretty silly.”

“Oh, just you wait and see. And now... I shall nullify your universe.”

As the mucousoid being turned the crank, sparks flew out of the whirling end of the eggbeater, and a column of sizzling light hit me. I was overcome by a wave of weakness and nausea. My body began to fade away, and the room around me was distorting and disintegrating as well.

“Farewell, stupid science fiction writer,” cackled the slimy blob.

In a desperate gamble, I pulled open a drawer and grabbed a battery-powered hand-held mixer. I pointed it at the blob and switched it on. As the beaters rotated, sparks and lightning bolts burst forth and began to counter the deadly beam from the creature.

The blob yelled, “You have an advanced Illudium Nullifier!”

“You got that right, phlegm-face. And now your universe is the one that’s going to get nullified.” The blast from the creature was equally balanced by my onslaught. I switched the mixer to high, and its beam inched closer to my adversary, pushing back against its own energy ray. The creature was cowering in defeat. This was the end game.

Then my battery started running out of juice and the mixer was slowing down. The beam was getting weaker. Seizing its new advantage, the blob stood taller and continued to spin the mechanical eggbeater, and its quantum ray was pushing back on mine. As my beaters slowed to a stop. The blob’s beam hit my mixer, and I tossed it away as it turned into molten slag.

Bearing the brunt of the Illudium Nullifier, I was starting to fade away again. Our universe was doomed. If only I had kept the hand mixer charged up.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the stand mixer. I staggered to the counter top and swivelled the motor up out of the bowl and pointed the beaters at the slime ball’s weapon and switched it on. Nothing happened. Damn! It wasn’t plugged in. There was a painful buzzing in my head, and I was starting to black out. In a final surge of effort, I fumbled for the cord and jammed it into the wall socket.

The mixer came to life and blasted out a blinding bolt like a flame thrower. The creature frantically spun the mechanical crank faster on its clunky eggbeater, but it was a losing battle against the stand mixer. Then I toggled it to the frappe setting and blew the eggbeater right out of the creature’s pseudopod.

The slimy blob wailed, “Nooooo...” as it dissipated into oblivion.

I turned off the stand mixer and collapsed into my chair. It all had to have been some kind of weird delusion. After a time, my breathing and heart rate finally slowed down. My eyes were drawn to the copy of Locust magazine, so I picked it up. Thumbing the pages, I saw that the review of my story about microbial mats on Mars was missing, as if I had never written it. I rifled through the magazine and checked the table of contents. Nothing, nada, zippo.

I checked the files on my laptop, and the piece was gone. I struggled with the thought of writing it again. No, I thought, I’m just going to forget about it, content with the knowledge that I had saved our universe from being nullified.