Freaky Fiveday 9 (Patreon)

Wow. I actually finished this story!

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Gormat, blurry-eyed and still half-asleep, shambled slowly down the street with his daughter and the commissioner balancing on his head.

“Hey, wake up!” called Yutarenga. Then, she rapped her furry knuckles against his tympanic horn until she got his attention. “If you don’t wake up soon, you’re going to walk us right off a landing platform or something.”

“I’m sorry!” he half-whined, half-yawned. “I’ve never been able to get my act together without a hot cup of tea.”

“Okay, fine,” she sighed. “To your left, do you see that shop? Pull in there.”

He gave her a gentle nod, careful not to shake the pair from his head, and turned down the sidewalk to the little javea shop on the corner. Behind the counter, a young male krakun beamed the sunniest smile at him. “Welcome to Solar Bark,” he said. “What can I do to help start your day?”

Despite the things his crewmates had said about the krakun, each one Gormat met turned out to be even nicer than the last. He couldn’t help but smile. Yutarenga whispered an order into his tympanic horn, and he repeated it for her without using any conscious thought. “A hot caffè sulfa, gigante, and are you still serving breakfast?”

“We serve breakfast all day long, sir,” said the smiling barista as he typed in Gormat’s order. “What can we cook up for yours?”

“Can I get an omelet?” he asked before the commissioner could whisper an order for him.

“Of course, you may!” said the barista. “What would you like in it?”

“Surprise me,” said Gormat, “so long as it’s hearty. I’m so hungry, I could eat a krakun!”

At that, the barista’s eyes went wide, and he paused as if unsure how to respond. Then, he spoke as he typed, “One ‘Fear the Omelet’, with everything… I’d ask if this was for here or to go, but I strongly recommend you sit for this one. It’s not a meal to hurry.”

“Sounds great to me,” said Gormat. “I’m in no rush.”

The barista picked up a huge paper cup and a black marker. “Name?” he asked. When the janitor hesitated, he clarified with “Your name, sir?”

“Gormat.”

The krakun behind the counter blinked in surprise. “That’s a most unusual name, sir. I love how it spills off the tongue.” On the cup, he scrawled the Krakun runes closest phonetically to “Gorn Cat” and set the cup on a conveyor belt that whisked it off to the back of the shop.

“It was my grandfather’s name,” explained Gormat. Instead of waiting at one of the tables for his name to be called, he rested an elbow on the counter and gabbed with the barista about anything and everything that crossed his mind: the weather, sleeping in on his day off, the sexually adventurous and innovative gal he’d had dinner with last night.

Behind him, a yellow krakun growled impatiently. Gormat looked over his shoulder, not having realized that he was holding anyone up. He gestured with a free claw. “Go right ahead,” he said. “I’m just getting to know Ashiok better while I wait for my order.”

The yellow krakun barked an order for a “triple shot, whipped, Mocha Sulfusion” and stormed off to wait in the seating area, then completely blew an airlock seal when Ashiok shouted that his order was ready. Apparently, the barista hadn’t pronounced the customer’s name correctly.

Gormat glared at the customer’s tail while he stomped away, finding him very rude and off-putting. But the barista, to his surprise, actually defended the krakun when Gormat called him a jerk. “I’m like an emergency room doctor,” Ashiok explained, “I see everyone at their worst—their sleepiest, their groggiest, their grumpiest. I never take it personally because I’m just sure that once they’ve enjoyed the drink I’ve made for them, they spend the rest of their morning happy and content.”

Gormat blinked in surprise. As a janitor, he’d had more than his share of crew members treat him poorly. A surprising number of people didn’t think he deserved the respect that others with more vital jobs might. He couldn’t understand what someone’s job had to do with being respectful and polite, but he was so impressed that the barista somehow managed not to take such aggression personally. Gormat certainly never had.

“Personally?” said Ashiok. “I think this is really what I get paid for. You could write your own name on a paper cup. You could type your order into a terminal. You could tap your communicator to pay for the order. But I’m the difference between starting your day at Solar Bark and getting hot caffè sulfa gigante and a ‘Fear the Omelet’ with everything out of a vending machine.”

Ashiok looked around the shop. “Well, that and the clean and comfortable environment we provide for krakun like you, Gorn Cat, who aren’t in such a hurry that they’d rather gulp down their javea before they catch their shuttle.”

Gormat put his claw over Ashiok’s for a moment. “And you’re well worth the extra expense,” he assured the barista.

Ashiok’s smile brightened for a moment, then he shyly looked toward the exit while he pulled his claw away. “Honestly, I don’t mind that Star Sucks guy and the triple shot, whipped, Mocha Sulfusion he orders every day,” he said. “Always grumpy, always in a rush… but I think he’s kind of sweet.”

After eating what surely had to be the largest omelet ever created, Gormat waved goodbye to his new friend and carried his passengers with a much more cheerful gait. He gabbed with Tys about all the amazing things they saw along their way to the spaceport, then Yutarenga shared the flight responsibilities with him. He pushed the control buttons, and she typed out text messages with authorization codes docking orders.

Aboard the Tranquil Sea I, the trio had far less to do. “No, I still don’t know how to swap us back,” said the commissioner. “But the initial swap happened when the two of us were in close proximity here inside the nebula.”

“Do you suppose our souls know they’re in the wrong bodies?” Gormat asked.

“Our souls?” She sounded very hesitant to use that word to describe their consciousnesses, but eventually she shrugged. “Perhaps?”

“So, maybe they’ll swap back on their own,” he suggested, “if we just hang out here in your stateroom together.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m hoping,” she said.

So, the pair spent the day with Tys—listening to her tell stories of the time she spent with the cubs on the cleaning crew, watching her nap curled up in Gormat’s palm, and reading some books that the captain had sent by when Gormat pretended to be the commissioner.

It had been a quiet, peaceful day, but a glance at the gigantic strand hanging from his neck confirmed his suspicions—the day had grown late, and they should be heading back to Krakuntec for another night.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work,” he told Yutarenga. “I know you were looking forward to being a krakun again, but I’m glad I’ll be able to keep the dinner date I set up with your neighbor, Ujaoyrenja. We’re going to eat in bed and watch videos together.”

“That sounds nice,” she said as she gently stroked the fur on Tys’s back. “But it’s okay. I made a friend on my cleaning crew, and it’ll be nice getting to know Leca better. In fact, I’ve been kind of hoping that I might keep this body for a few more days—”

And as if her words had cursed it, that was the moment the lights blinked out. Tys startled in the sudden darkness, but only a moment later, the power came back on. Neither Gormat nor Yutarenga showed any surprise, they just stared at one another for several long, silent moments.

“Well, I guess I won’t be having dinner with Ujaoyrenja after all,” the geroo-turned-krakun-turned-geroo-once-more sighed. “I guess that leaves things kinda awkward for you, being her neighbor and all. Could you do me a favor and break it to her gently? She’s a wonderful gal who deserves all the best.”

The krakun-turned-geroo-turned-krakun-once-more sighed. “Yeah, I’ll do my best. But I really feel bad that I’ll end up leaving Leca without any closure. She’s really nice too and deserves an in-person explanation.”

“Well, if you wanted, I could pretend to be you tonight, so Leca won’t feel like you left without saying goodbye,” Gormat suggested. “Tys had a great time with the other cubs, so I’m sure she won’t mind. It’s not like I had any plans back here on the ship tonight anyhow.”

Yutarenga opened her mouth to reply, then shut it once more. Much more quietly, she asked, “You wouldn’t mind?”

Gormat scooped his daughter up in his arms and gave her a snug to his heart. “No, of course not. It’s been a great day. I’m not ready for it to be over quite yet,” he said. “Perhaps, you could pretend to be me and go out on that date, so your neighbor won’t feel stood-up?”

The commissioner shrugged. “I suppose I could. I didn’t have anything else planned either.”

Gormat grinned wide. “And if we have breakfast again at Solar Bark, you should really try the ‘Fear the Omelet’. It’s delicious!”

The End

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kPMGGLhLus3IaEnDosAxGO-PnrksGMk8JucZcy5cDNc/edit?usp=sharing

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