The War Of the Worlds

[Robert Crisman]

When people on Earth die their souls go to Mars, don't ask me why, except that, as souls now, they don't have to breathe, and their diet consists of these mica-like crust rocks whose flavor is something like anthrax on cornflakes.

A real taste treat, at least to the Martians, and all seemed right with this cozy celestial arrangement, until NASA space probes got going, and especially after Proctor & Gamble took over in 2012; turns out the crust rocks on Mars meant big bucks when P&G saw they could melt the things down and stick them in tubes and sell them as wrinkle remover.

The shit was better than botox, and people whose faces had looked like topographical maps of the Andes slopped on that skin cream and came out looking like new babies' butts; Proctor and Gamble cleaned up, ran the world, and jacked up the price on the wrinkle remover.

Meanwhile, on Mars, Tony "No Thumbs" Oblongato, an Al Capone hitman from back in the day who'd died in a shootout with Dion O'Banion, was pissed; he and his buddies weren't raking the cut that P&G'd promised, even as they sucked up the whole food supply, and, as Tony roared in the General Assembly just before war broke, "Those fuckers owe us!"

Proctor & Gamble said Eat Me to Martian demands, and, two weeks later, New Jersey went up in a cloud of black smoke, a redundant air strike that nobody noticed, but then, after that, Las Vegas went over the moon.

As Please Remit notices go, it beat broken thumbs, and Proctor & Gamble made new arrangements forthwith...

[Jeanette Cheezum]

HAHA  Bobby DeCrisman, are you smoking those little cigarettes again? F U N N Y Six.

[Joey Delgado]

One of the most inventive things I've read. Great job. I especially like Proctor & Gamble making money on Martian rock. Big business, I tell ya'.....

[Angela]

Whoa!  What a crazy tale.  I like imagining Las Vegas in outer space.  Pretty.

[Jadie Jones]

Wow! I felt like I was sitting across from an ailen in a smokey bar and we were hashing out the galaxy's unpleasantries. This six is so much fun!

[Stephen Torelli]

Bravo for N.J., but Las Vegas? Now I'll have to go to Atlantic City, yet that's in smoke. Anyway, nice write!