An emoji story about astrophyiscs, hats and diplomacy

❤️‍🔥 🪩 👽 🤠 🙈 🌜

And the emojis are…. a burning heart, a disco ball, an alien, a cowboy, a monkey who can see no evil, and the moon. In other words it’s a story about hats and confusion and love and war and embarrassment and cocktails and space and all the usual stuff that make up a half-way decent Friday night.

Cast

Our Narrator: Clive, a monkey. He spends a lot of time with his paws over his eyes because so much out there in the world is terrible (British dentistry, Vladimir Putin, Lobster Thermidor etc). Originally from Madagascar he thinks, but that was a long time ago. Now he lives in a fancy apartment somewhere in Manhattan that he shares with his friend

Bubbles: who used to be a cowboy but is now a hot young hat designer. He had great success with his ‘variations on a theme of the Stetson’. Vogue called him the best thing since sliced bread. Since neither Stetsons nor cowboys have much to do with sliced bread, this comment was a bit of a mystery. Come to think of it, the intern who came up with the idea has since been fired, and has gone off to live their best life, gluten-free.

, an Alien, who doesn’t have a name as the concept doesn’t exist in outer space.

Luna: a lovely young lady, who in a fit of nominative determinism is studying astrophysics and is currently applying to NASA for a job. Bubbles is wildly in love with her and doesn’t know how to go about courting her as he feels insecure about his grasp of advanced mathematics (and hell, who doesn’t?). And the whole thing would never have happened if it hadn’t been for a disco ball someone took up to the roof of Bubbles’ and Clive’s apartment as party décor one Friday night after work.

Over to you, Clive:

Thanks. OK, so here’s the thing. Yes, I admit, it was me who took that ball up there, but I didn’t have any idea it was going to have those sorts of repercussions. I mean no one would, right? We were throwing a party because Bubbles-

[Sorry, quick digression: I just want to say Bubbles isn’t his real name. His real name is Edgar, which is a difficult one to have to live with. I mean, great if you happen to be an Anglo Saxon king and live one and a half thousand years ago, but less great if you are a hat designer or a cowboy living now. Apparently his mom was doing an online course in Anglo Saxon history when he was born. I mean, I guess he was lucky not to end up being called something like Æcswine or Sexred - both real, I assure you. Names. They can be a bit of a thing. They told him he wouldn’t get anywhere in Hats with a name like that, so he changed it. Bubbles… champagne… you see? Personally I think he should have stuck with his own name, but I guess it’s none of my business.]

Sorry, where were we? Oh yes. Bubbles has been in love for AGES with this girl Luna. She is gorgeous but Bubbles thinks she’s out of his league because she’s super clever.

 ‘Dude!’ I said, putting my paws over my eyes in despair at his defeatism. ‘When has clever ever had anything to do with it? It’s all about chemistry!’

He looked even gloomier at that, and muttered he’d never been any good at chemistry either.

‘Don’t be negative,’ I said, removing the paws, and fixing him with a Look. ‘Anyway, opposites attract.’

‘Are you saying I’m an idiot?’ he asked me, all cross.

‘Of course not! Now, play to your strengths! Let’s throw a party. That is something we are awesome at and we will invite her, and dot dot dot….’

‘Please don’t start singing ABBA songs,’ he replied.

I mean personally I don’t see what’s wrong with ABBA songs, so I ignored him and started organising stuff for Friday.

And Friday came round, and you know what? Even though I say it myself, we’d done a pretty amazing job, even by our standards. We had every colour of fizzing, sparkling, somersaulting  cocktail, mini hot dogs running around handing out mini pizzas and lots and lots of sushi. Oh yes and the most amazing yummy chocolate cake! This girl I met somewhere in Brooklyn gave me the recipe, and now I bake it like ALL the time. Anyway, enough about food. The place looked fabulous: there were lights everywhere and that disco ball I was talking about, which swirled about in time to the music. The DJ insisted on playing endless cheesy 80’s hits, but no one seemed to mind too much.

Oh yes, I forgot to say, also, it was fancy dress. There was a whole lot of Star Wars, a Kermit the Frog, quite a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean, about four Jon Snows, a Roman general or two, lots of Mean Girls (they scare me, so I put my paws over my eyes whenever I came across any of them. I think it’s the best thing to do when stuff scares you). Someone even came as Anna Wintour. Actually, I think it was Anna Wintour, but difficult to say with the specs. You know how it is.

Just then, someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned round and it was an alien.

‘Wow!’ I said, ‘that is a super impressive outfit! Where did that come from?’

The alien put its head on one side and said:

‘Right,’ I said. I didn’t quite understand, but I think I got the general gist.

Then it added:

 I was beginning to get an inkling that perhaps this wasn’t one of our usual bunch of friends. ‘So great to meet you. Did you come with…?’

The alien sighed like I was literally the stupidest thing ever and said:

By then, I realised we were in fact speaking two totally different languages. So I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders and an astronaut came to my rescue. Actually, it was Luna, who had come dressed as an astronaut (quite a hard outfit to eat or drink or dance in but hey, why not). She removed her helmet and greeted the alien:

 she said.

The alien got really quite excited about that and hopped up and down and said a whole lot of stuff I really couldn’t work out.

Luna turned to me and whispered, ‘says he’s here to parlay.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Bubbles, who had come to see what was going on. ‘That sounds like he thinks we’re at war or something.’

Luna translated, and the alien pointed at the disco ball that was revolving in time to the music and sending lovely lit up patterns into the sky.

Luna said, ‘light waves and sound waves seemed to have reached him somewhere out there and – well, I’m afraid they transmitted some kind of a message. His people have responded accordingly and, well, now they seem to be preparing themselves for, um… for an alien invasion, I guess you could call it.’

‘What????’ Bubbles looked pretty shocked. ‘But this is a party, it’s just lights and music and stuff.’

‘What was the message?’ I asked.

Luna asked the alien and then repeated the answer carefully: ‘Two worlds collide…Rival nations…It's a primitive clash…Venting years of frustration bla bla bla, and then a whole bunch of stuff about a burning heart. Is it a riddle, do you suppose?’

Bubbles thought for a moment and said, ‘No. It’s the theme song to Rocky 4.’

 And they both turned and looked at me like I was the worst person in the world (which is unfair, given that I’m a monkey not a person) and so I put my paws over my eyes for all the usual reasons. I mean, I really don’t go out of my way to cause an alien invasion on a Friday night after work. I don’t. It’s not my fault that ball was sending messages into the sky. Specially not given it was the DJ choosing the tunes – well, was it? I mean admittedly it was me who booked the DJ, but – oh dear.

The alien then pointed at our guests, and to be fair, I hadn’t really appreciated quite how fighty all the costumes actually were: Star wars, Game of Thrones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Mean Girls (aaarrrrgghhh!). Even Kermit’s quite fighty where Miss Piggy is concerned. I could see his point.

 Luna looked earnestly at the alien and said urgent things to it like:

and 

and

and

The alien looked perplexed, and Luna said anxiously to Bubbles, ‘I’m not sure I’ve quite got the hang of this language yet…’ and Bubbles thought carefully (because the situation was both Dire and Urgent) and said, ‘I think we should change the music… let’s talk to the DJ.’

And Luna gazed at Bubbles with admiration all over her face and said, ‘That’s brilliant! Of course! You are a genius!’

And Bubbles blushed a little bit and rushed off to the DJ and suggested a track full of love and peace and harmony. The disco ball took up the rhythm and an entirely different vibe was sent out into the ether.

Oh my, that was quite emotional. Yup, and by the time the guests had finished fully appreciating it, they were all pretty much in tears and hugging each other and all of a sudden the fighty look was out, and a swirly/ floral/ batik one was in.

The alien looked on, and (I’m guessing here, as clearly, I don’t understand alien) I reckon he thought we were all deranged. Nevertheless, he was happy to accept a bottle of locally brewed craft beer. Luna did her very best to ask him whether the war was now off and as far as we could make out, the answer was positive. (Yay!)

Well friends, there were quite a few consequences of that particular party:

1.        There has been a worldwide ban on the playing of Burning Heart in the open air

2.        On the subject of burning hearts, Luna was so in awe of Bubbles’ extraordinary insight, and his ability to bring about interplanetary peace, she fell utterly in love with him

3.        Bubbles was immediately recruited by the UN to head up their interplanetary peace team. Bubbles thought this was totally tremendous, gave up hats, and he and Luna immediately embarked on an intergalactic tour where her advanced mathematics were easily matched by his peaceful diplomacy so no one had to worry about not being good enough

4.        Bubbles stopped calling himself Bubbles and went back to Edgar. (Incidentally, the original Edgar, the one his mom had so admired, was, as it happens, completely peaceful and thus an exception among Anglo Saxon kings).

5.        A Mean Girl came up to me and said she thought I was cute and did I want to hang out. Friends, I did not, but I have stopped putting my paws in front of my eyes as I realise perhaps scary isn’t so scary when you look at it. Well. Maybe.

And it remains for me to say, If you've enjoyed this and would like to buy something I've written officially, please do head over to bookshop, or audible! Thank you for reading!