SPACE DEER CROSSING

A SPACECRAFT zips through outer space with two occupants, BENTO and MW.  A DEER CROSSING SIGN flashes by under their ship.  And then… BOOM, the space craft hits an object.

MW:  Hey, did you hear that?  ( listens )  What was that?

BENTO:  What was what?  I didn’t hear nothing.

MW:  No, it’s sounded like you just hit something… something big, like a moose or something.

BENTO: ( chuckles )  And what in the hell would a moose be doing up here in outer space?

MW:  I’m not saying it was a moose you hit.  I’m just saying it sounded like you hit something big like a moose.  It could have been something else like… ( thinks ) like a medium sized walrus… with whiskers and stretch marks under her flippers.

BENTO: And again, what would a walrus with – ?

MW: I don’t know – never mind. ( looks out ) Where in the hell are we?

BENTO:  According to my calculations, we should be about one half of a parsec south of the Andromeda Galaxy.

MW:  You sure?

BENTO:  Of course.

MW:  Well, I just saw a joint selling chicken boxes back there, so it looks like we might be closer to Baltimore than the Andromeda Galaxy.

BENTO:  That’s impossible.  ( checks dashboard gauges ). Oh shit.

MW: What?

BENTO:  I didn’t set the ship’s clock forward one hour for daylight savings time.   Our coordinates are all fucked up.

MW: Great, soooo…

BENTO: So…I have no idea where we are.

MW: ( exasperated ) Ideas?

BENTO:  ( thinks ) I could run an ultra high tech cross navigation beta simulation model, ah… with a retro-time stamp or…

MW: Or?

BENTO: Or I we could go ultra low tech and pull over and ask for directions.

MW:  Are you out of your fucking mind?  I just told you we might be somewhere near Baltimore City.

BENTO:  Baltimore isn’t that bad.

MW:  Really, do you not remember the last time we went through there?

BENTO:  Yes, and it wasn’t that bad.

MW:  Really?  First of all, what about all the those squeegee kids converging on our spaceship practically extorting us for money?

BENTO:  Yeah, there was that.

MW:  Yeah, and I got questions.

BENTO:  What questions?

MW:  How far is space from the ground?

BENTO: About sixty-two miles.

MW:  So, where in the natural hell do those squeegee kids get them sixty-two mile high ladders to clean people windshields?

BENTO:  I don’t know, Lowes maybe?

MW:  Or maybe… The Church Of Ladder Day Saints.

BENTO:  Yeah, that would be a tall order, or… ( looks out ) … maybe, just maybe, I just figured out a way to get us back home to WormHole Square.

MW:  How?

BENTO:  Look over there.

MW looks out to his left.

MW:  What the fuck?  Is that a moose?

BENTO:  It’s a deer.  Although a moose would be technically in the deer family, that’s a deer.

MW:  Yeah, well, whether sister, uncle, or second cousin, it’s that same deer you hit earlier.  I knew you hit something!

BENTO:  I didn’t hit that deer.

MW:  No, I’m pretty sure you did.

BENTO:  MW, if I hit that deer at the speed we’re traveling, it would be splattered all to smithereens, don’t you think?

MW:  Well maybe that’s some kind of super-modified deer.  After all, it’s surviving in outer space without a fucking space suit!

BENTO:  Yeah, there’s that.

MW:  Yeah, that… but tell me how that gets us any closer to getting home?

BENTO:  Well, that’s a white tail, deer.

MW: A super- modified white tail deer.

BENTO:  And they migrate to the south of WormHole Square during the mating season.

MW:  Okay.

BENTO: ( listens ) You hear that?

Music can be heard coming from the cosmos.

MW:  ( listens )  Yeah… is that Teddy Pendergrass I’m hearing right now?

BENTO: Oh yeah.

MW:  Are those…  ( looks closer )… are those burning candles out there?

BENTO:  Abso- fucking -lutely.

MW:  It’s deer mating season like a motherfuc-!

BENTO:  Shut yo mouth!

MW: Hey, I’m just talking about deer mating season.

BENTO:  So, if my calculations are right, WormHole Square should be exactly south of our present location.

MW looks down and sees a familiar landmark.

MW: Yo, Bento, there’s Indigo’s art studio!

BENTO:  Where?  Are you talking about that building with the adjacent blue neon, large phallic symbol protruding up in the sky?

MW: The dildo? Yes, that’s her studio.

BENTO:  Well… I guess outer space, black holes, and large, phallic symbols can mean only one thing.

MW:  WormHole Square!  You goddamn right, Bento.  You goddamn right!

Bento steers the spaceship south and the two head home.

 

THEND