Watching and waiting, visitors from the Moon orbit the planet. Their mission: Conquer Earth. Of course, that’s the easy part…
Lt. Kern didn’t like Earth.
Actually he did. Earth was a fine place. It was Earthlings who wrecked it.
He sat at a window table in Le Bar on Lafayette, in Manhattan. His keen black eye noted the evening crowd, shoppers and commuters clipping along, very on vogue. Especially the women. For the first time Kern really saw them. Earth had been a slag heap. A penitentiary. Now it was a garden of flowers.
One of these walked in. Her first name was Sylvia. Her last name, incredibly, Flowers.
“Hello, my dear.” Kern stood. His guest wore a plum-shaded Milano silk dress, belted with three-quarter sleeves, informal but not inconsequential. The color of her skin took Kern’s breath away. There were plenty of dark Malthusians, but not wearing purple Milano dresses.
He pulled a chair. At heart he was a chivalrous man.
“I didn’t think you’d be here,” Sylvia said, placing her handbag on the table.
“Why not?” The two sat across each other.
“You got your money. What more is there?” Earlier that day, Kern had taken one billion dollars from her boss, the media tycoon Braxton Raab.
“That’s business. This is…”
“Pleasure?” Sylvia smiled, narrowing eyes.
Wine was delivered, and the waiter presented menus. Sylvia chose a lobster broche, speaking excellent French. Kern worried over his menu, printed on fine parchment. He turned it over. There was nothing on back.
“Want help?”
“No.”
He didn’t say so, but Earth food was killing him. All his life he’d eaten lima beans, kale, and apples. Not escargot consommé de boeuf. Especially escargot consommé de boeuf.
He ordered escargot consommé de boeuf.
A second bottle arrived. Sylvia raised her wine glass. Kenneth Kern raised his. Their glasses chimed. “You know,” Sylvia said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever met a man like you.”
“From outer space?”
“That, too.” She paused. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Since there’s no money on the Moon, why do you need it?”
Kern explained. “When we take over, we don’t want any trouble from the big boys. Like your boss, Braxton Raab.”
“I see.”
“So we’ll bribe them.”
“Isn’t that rather inefficient?”
“In what way?”
Sylvia explained. If Kern was extracting money from one group of billionaires to pay another, what was accomplished? It was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
There was a moment of silence. “You’re right!” said Kern.
“Furthermore, if you intend to bribe my boss, why not do it now?”
“Now?”
“Save you some time.”
Sylvia Flowers gave him a peck on the cheek as he handed over the check. He wasn’t at all sure what happened. Smiling, holding her hand across a small table draped in white linen, he didn’t really care.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com