Band of Capable Idiots – Chapter One

About my Book 

When I was sixteen, I decided to try my hand at writing a book. At the time, becoming a writer was my dream, so over the Christmas holiday I started writing my very own Band of Capable Idiots.

The result is best described as a wild joyride of insanity. Don’t expect Shakespeare or Homer. Expect a sixteen-year-old having fun with a silly, chaotic story. If you enjoy the kind of humour found in Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, or Monty Python, this might be something that piques your interest.

The book then sat unedited on my computer for over a decade, and I’m finally in the process of editing it, with the goal of self-publishing it once it’s finished.

Below is the first chapter of Band of Capable Idiots. I’d love to hear what you think.

1.   The Most Ironic Thing in the Entire Universe.

Mister Renrew was feeling very well, except for the fact that his body was covered in sores, his eyes had swollen to the point that he could no longer see through them, and all his organs were on the verge of collapsing. He lay in a hospital bed with all kinds of life-support systems attached to him, but other than that he was feeling perfectly fine.

You may have discovered that Mister Renrew is quite an optimist, which was exactly what he started to realize about a minute ago when his doctor came in with a grave expression on his face and told him:

“Mister Renrew, I’m terribly sorry to say that we did all kinds of tests on you and we couldn’t find out what you have, because you have a sickness that is unknown to mankind…”

“Oh, that’s great news,” he tried to reply, but because his lips were swollen, what actually came out was, “Oth, thath grate nevs.”

“Furthermore,” the doctor continued, “because your sickness is unknown to science and mankind and all that sort of thing, there is no cure for it yet. I am afraid that you only have one or two days to live. All I can do is give you something to ease your pain.”

The doctor pulled a huge needle out of his pocket, searched for a spot on Mister Renrew’s swollen body where he could put it, decided that his left arm would do, and jabbed it in. Once again Mister Renrew lay alone in his hospital bed, and once again he thought about how wonderful things were.

He thought it was great that he only had two days to live. The state he was currently in wasn’t altogether that comfortable, and he didn’t really have anything to look forward to anyway. He didn’t have any family save for a nephew he had long since lost contact with, but this too was great, since his nephew had brought shame upon the family name by being caught dealing drugs. Renrew didn’t want to ever see him again for that very reason.

Fortunately, the rest of his family had died a couple of years ago in a plane crash, so he didn’t have to live through the shame they felt because of his nephew. His life savings had been stolen in a bank robbery about a month ago. Luckily, he wouldn’t need it anymore, and now he wouldn’t have to go through the tedious business of finding someone to put in his will. He never married, but he didn’t regret that, since he was certain his wife would have left him by now.

He thought about the last one for a while. After about thirty milliseconds, he concluded that it didn’t make any sense. Another fifty milliseconds passed before he realized that none of the other positive things he had thought made any sense either.

He would have jumped up and hit something if he still had any feeling in his legs or his arms, because he had just realized that everything he had ever thought in his life was absolute rubbish. He decided that he had been too optimistic. He had been optimistic all his life, and his life wasn’t getting any better.

Now he was going to hate being in this bloody hospital with all these sores and tubes attached to him. But he couldn’t keep hating it for long, because while he was thinking all these things, his body suddenly gave a jerk, and he was completely cured.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when he looked down at his hands in amazement. The sores had disappeared completely.

“That’s one hell of a painkiller,” he said to himself as he got out of bed to get dressed.

 

***

 

In the hallway, the doctor had just closed the door and was on his way to see his next patient when he heard the door open and close behind him.

“You’re not allowed to go in there,” he said.

“I wasn’t going in. I was coming out,” a voice replied.

The doctor wasn’t in the mood for arguing, so he decided the best way to avoid conflict was to turn around and start insulting the person, just to show him how idiotic he was and how smart and knowledgeable the doctor himself was.

When he turned around, he found himself facing a short old man smiling up at him. When he saw the man, he suddenly realized he hadn’t actually decided on an insult yet.

“You are…” he began.

Then he stood there for a few minutes without saying anything. After a while, he realized the anger was fading, and he had to shout something soon or he’d lose the moment.

“You are an old man!” he shouted.

“Yes, I am. Haven’t you ever seen an old man before? I daresay with the way your medicines are working, you should be seeing plenty of old people.”

The doctor, not being very bright, took this as an insult.

“You are short!” he shouted.

“Yes, I know. There’s no need to shout about it.”

The doctor’s mind scraped desperately for another insult.

“Well, I’d be off then,” Mister Renrew said as he stepped past the doctor and continued down the hallway.

 

“You’re a bloody idiot!” the doctor shouted after him as he went around the corner.

 

***

 

The fact is that Mister Renrew is an astronomer, and he had been searching for another planet with life on it for fifty-five years. Of course he hadn’t found one yet.

Well, he hadn’t found it.

In a strange way, it found him.

About two days after starting his work as an astronomer, he and his fellow astronomers found a planet that might support life because of its size, its distance from its star, the amount of water on its surface, and so on.

They decided to send a message to the planet.

Of course, they didn’t think the message would take millions of years to reach it, and even if it did, the aliens wouldn’t understand human languages…

But this was not what happened at all.

The aliens understood the message quite clearly.

The only problem: they understood it wrongly.

The message that meant:

“Hello, not to bother you, but if you got our message, would you be so kind as to send a message back saying you got it? Thank you, goodbye.”

…meant in their language:

 

“We are going to launch a full-scale attack on your world, and no one will be spared.”

The planet was populated mainly by a bunch of farmers who called themselves the Zarks, and as you can imagine, the news of their world being destroyed made them uneasy.

Soon the unease turned into terror.

And the Zarks did what most people do when they’re frightened:

they killed and burned stuff.

 

***

 

Farmer Jones was an old farmer who had experienced many hardships. He had dragged his farm through plagues, civil wars, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, a witch who cursed him with seven years of bad luck because he refused to put more sugar in her tea, fires, floods, droughts, and something called “in sure ants.”

He wasn’t quite sure what it was, all he knew was that it would cost him 30 Zarkian dollars a month, and he simply didn’t have that sort of money.

But he had never seen anything as horrible as this alien invasion.

He could think of only one sensible thing to do:

sacrifice his livestock to each and every one of the fifteen billion Zarkian gods until one answered his prayer.

Jones was almost finished sacrificing his herd of five hundred cattle when his youngest son’s head appeared over the fence.

 

“What you doin’, Father?” the little face asked.

Jones dragged his now-dull knife across the last cow’s throat. He watched the cow bleed before muttering:

“Oh, Gasnek, goddess of death, please have mercy on us by…”

“Father, what you doin’?” his son repeated.

“Sh’. Don’t interrupt me.”

He emptied a canister of petrol over the cow.

“Please have mercy on us by…” He paused. “…by not visiting us any time soon.”

“What you doin’, Father?” Jones glared at him.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m sacrificing cattle! How many times must I tell you not to interrupt me?”

“To which god?”

“All of them. Now go and torch our fields in the name of Rasha.”

“Why?”

Jones’s muscles tightened visibly.

“You’re testing my patience, boy. Just go do it. Oh, and ask your brother to sacrifice the chickens to a couple of minor gods.”

“But Father, there are still a lot of gods we have to make sacrifices to.”

Jones nodded slowly with satisfaction.

“That’s why I’m going to the neighbour’s farm too,” he said.

 

***

 

Farmer Hobs was busy barricading his windows when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“What you doin’?” it said.

“Don’t bother me, I’m busy.”

Hobs hammered a nail into one of the boards he felt wasn’t secure enough.

“Busy with what?”

“Barricading my house, of course. Now either help me or bugger off.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?”

Hobs turned around savagely to tell Jones exactly what he thought of him, but when he saw Jones, holding a bloody knife and the longest list Hobs had ever seen, he reconsidered.

“What you doin’ with that?”

“I’m making offerings to the gods.”

Hobs slapped his forehead.

“Blimey. Why haven’t I thought of that? We should let the other farmers know. If we're going to get through that list of yours, we’ll need help. Let me get a few things. You fetch my truck, it’s parked in the shed.”

Hobs threw him the keys and went inside.

When Jones returned with the truck, he saw Hobs walking out the door carrying a large butcher’s knife. Then he went back inside and returned moments later with a crate of whiskey.

“What’s that for?” Jones asked.

“Well, we’ve got reason to celebrate, haven’t we? Now stop lollygagging and help me load the other crates.”

 

***

 

The first thing the Zarks noticed the morning after the “alien invasion” was the smell of burning petrol. As they got out of bed, they also smelled burning crops and badly done barbecue.

When they went outside, they found their livestock killed and their crops mysteriously burned during the night. When they checked their barns, everything was intact, except a few missing petrol canisters.

Hmm. Odd.

 

***

 

The mob made its way down Kaveroc Boulevard, turned right at the old abandoned church, turned right into a road without a name, stopped to buy ice cream, turned left into the street where that nice old lady lived, asked for directions, turned right into a street whose name they failed to recall, and eventually reached the parliament building.

Once there, they did what mobs generally do:

they danced in circles, threw rocks and insults at passersby, broke every object in sight, waved billboards reading “KILL THE PRESIDENT,” and were just a general nuisance.

Meanwhile, President Victor sat in his office reading the morning newspaper. He read the newspaper every morning before beginning his work, but something felt different today.

Maybe it was the smashed windows.

Maybe the carpet full of rocks.

Maybe the noise outside.

It could be nothing, but better safe than sorry.

He sent his two bodyguards, Bill and Frank, to investigate. They weren’t the smartest guards, but their family had protected Zarkian presidents for generations. Vincent trusted them more than most guards, but most guards these days didn’t even know the proper way to take a bullet.

After two hours, Bill and Frank concluded that there was a riot outside.

The president decided the best course of action was to give a speech.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked as he walked out the doors.

“We want our farms back!” a huge bearded man bellowed.

“Why? What happened to your farms?”

“The alien invaders destroyed them!” a small boy shouted.

“I see, but I’m not sure what I can do.”

 

“You’re the one in charge. Think of something! We want you to rebuild our farms!” an old lady yelled, waving a broom.

“I’ll see what I can do. When do you want your farms?”

“We want them now!” the mob shouted.

“Oh, I see. Tell you what, if you give me time until tomorrow, I’ll give each of you a million dollars.”

The mob thought this was reasonable and left.

“How are you going to meet their demands?” Bill asked.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control,” the president said, grinning. “But first I’m calling my wife.”

He went back to his office, dialed her number, waited for her to pick up, and said:

“Pack your things. We're going to my underground bunker for a couple of years.”

While this was happening, a few sensible Zarks who had not destroyed their farms decided to build a rocket to invade the invaders. They flew in the direction the message came from, landed years later on a huge black planet, and were eaten by Mister Renrew.

 

***

 

Most of you at this point have absolutely no idea what is going on.

Well, let me tell you, the next part will make you either say:

“That’s ridiculous. That’s not how the universe works. I’m putting this bloody book down, it’s full of rubbish.”

or:

“This writer is brilliant. He has such a good imagination.”

Both statements are wrong.

I assure you my story is not made up, but completely true.

This is the moment where you will either throw the book out the window or read on. I advise you not to throw it out, because this book will tell you how the universe works and the answer to the meaning of life.

We’ll start with how the universe works.

This may disappoint you, but the truth is, it doesn’t work at all.

In the beginning of time, the universe consisted of nothing but a big pile of mishmash. No one ever knew what was going to happen next because there weren’t any rules the universe had to follow.

As a result, the universe did whatever it wanted whenever it wanted, which wasn’t pleasant for the people living in it.

You could be the president of a country one minute and a rock in someone’s garden the next. And the dead simply didn’t stay dead. After a while, the streets were full of dead people. Cities became dangerously overpopulated.

Other rules didn’t exist either, like the rule that people couldn’t fly or walk through walls. People woke up with these powers, then lost them midair or halfway through a wall.

So a man named Frank Physics, or rather, he was a man at the time, the day before he was a goat, had a brilliant idea: create a few laws the universe had to follow. He called them the laws of physics.

These laws were not to be broken.

But the universe didn’t like laws, and it had a habit of making impossible things happen.

This is exactly what happened with the Zarks and Mister Renrew.

The planet was not light-years away where the laws of physics said it should be. It was actually a microscopic planet on the lens of the telescope. And the giant black planet the Zarks landed on was a raisin Mister Renrew was eating.[1]

As for the meaning of life, I won’t be telling you that right now. You’ll have to read on to discover that.

And as for the Zarks, they weren’t killed when Renrew ate them. They made it into his bloodstream, where they crashed into a blood cell with a huge mountain in the middle. Around the mountain were three giant canyons splitting the blood cell into three parts, but the spaceship crash created a fourth canyon.

These canyons became known as the Four Great Canyons.

The people named the blood cell after the first words their leader said after climbing out of the spaceship:

“What the…”

And the mountain was named after his second word:

“Oh, bugger.”

 

***

 

Due to wars and plagues, the Zarks split into the four sections of the blood cell. Over time they evolved, growing gills so they could breathe in the blood, and lights on their fingers and foreheads so they could see in the darkness.

After centuries, a few Zarks who remembered tales of their old world decided to search for it using the crashed spaceship. Not knowing how to pilot it, they crashed into other blood cells before giving up and settling on one. Before they gave up, they crashed into almost every blood cell there was, populating them all.

You may think all of this is impossible to have happened in a few years, precisely fifty years, one month, two days, three minutes, and five seconds, but it is not impossible because the Zarks experience time 10,000 times faster than any other organism.

Oh, and if there are any scientists reading this book, stop immediately. This book proves all scientific discoveries up until now completely wrong. In fact, you shouldn’t even have started.

As for the rest of you, if you want to learn the truth, please continue reading.

 

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[1] About three months later Mister Renrew Found himself in hospital due to a mysterious disease.

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