Under The Surface

“How very disappointing”, said Kolhak the hunter, a creature from the distant, tiny planet of Appelgarp 3, as he studied the geophys readings for Loch Ness on the screen of his portable, pocket sized omni-tool.

He had hoped to bag himself a loch monster today. The long necked brute, he had thought, would make an excellent addition to his interplanetary menagerie of monsters but, sadly, “Nessie” seemed to be no more than a product of the locals’ whiskey soaked imaginations.

Two wry smirks turned up the corners of his upper and lower mouths. “Imagine”, he mused, “If these Earthlings could see what I and my particularly hideous life mate Kora really looked like. If we were to take off our illusion suits and reveal our purple scaly skins to them”, but then he noticed how beautiful Kora now looked in her illusion suit with her elegant, broad-brimmed earth-style hat and her cute little earth nose , “Though perhaps I might prefer Kora to keep her illusion suit on permanently”, he thought.

Sadly, though her appearance was greatly improved by the suit, no ammount of technological wizardry could ever improve Koras personality.

“I told you that these hairy Earth baboons were a crazy lot”, said Kora, examining a block of scottish tablet with disgust, “Just look what these Spots put in their mouths. It’s truly revolting!”.

“The word is Scots”, said Kolhak, irritated by his wifes narrow mindedness, “And I find their insanity to be quite refreshing. Everyone on our grey, humdrum little orb is so proper and sensible all the time”.

“Well, I happen to quite like sensible”, said Kora, going into a sulk as deep and dark as the monsterless loch, “Infact, I wish that I had been more sensible and stayed on our luxury space yacht instead of coming to this awful Spotland place with you”.

Kolhak was not listening. As usual, whenever his life mate started to gripe and moan, his senses began to blur and his thoughts drifted off to his housemaid; the comely young, funny,sweet natured Agrapina. How many times his heart had soared upon hearing her sing or she’d had him rolling about laughing when she was doing her wicked impersonation of Kora.

“Oh, Agrapina”, he thought, “True joy of my heart. If only you could be here instead of my monsterous mate Kora. We would share such happy times, You and I”.

“Infact, when I get back home. I think I’ll ask daddy if he’ll obliterate this awful smudge on the star maps altogether”, Kora continued, her shrill miserable voice rising up out of Kolhaks lovely dream like the face of a hideous loch beast, “Are you even listening to me, Kolhak?”.

“Yes dear”, replied her husband, groaning, “Ofcourse, I hang upon your every syllable”, he said, but secretly he was dreaming of his wife hanging from a long noose or being devoured by a ravenous Nessie.

Suddenly, Kolhaks eyes lit up, like lanterns blazing in a cold, bleak autumn, because a plan had just popped into his head, a marvellous idea that would rid him of the terrible Kora once and for all.

“I tell you what Kora”, he said, “I’ve had a brilliant idea that will make this trip worthwhile after all”.

“I hope that its better than all your other brilliant ideas”, scoffed Kora dismissively.

“It is”, said Kolhak, “Trust me” and he switched his omni-tool from its geophys setting to its solid-light holographic projector setting, “We’ll show these Earth creatures what a real monster looks like”.

Exploding from below the deep, murky waters of the ancient loch like the hand of some enormous, angry Poseidon with a thunderbolt of deafening roar and two hundred sharp and crooked, obelisk long incisors, came the monsterous head and neck of an aquatic dinosaur carved from solid light with the fiery glow of solid light in its glaring eyes, each eye as big as a face on a clock tower.

Kora laughed to see the terror on the faces of the Earth creatures, “the stupid little Earth monkeys”, as they turned and began to flee like frightened rodents from the reptilian tsunami that was now clawing its way, with crooked, yellow talons the size of volkswagen beetles, onto dry land.

But they needn’t have been so terrified, for the holographic behemoth had no interest in devouring them. What it really craved was Kora; Kora, the bane of Kolhaks life;Kora, who he never would have entered into a life partnership with if she had not been picked for him by the great matchmaking supercomputer of Appelgarp 3 which
all good Appelgarpians had to obey.

As Kora gripped her sides and shook with cruel, hysterical, wide-mouthed mirth, the gigantic, terrible sea-beast opened wide its own hideous, cavernous, sabre lined mouth before snapping it shut, like a mantrap, around Kora’s flabby, wrinkly neck and gulping down her entire head, earrings, expensive necklace, broad-brimmed hat and all.

Still moving, like a headless earth chicken, Kora’s body took a cigarette from its packet and started to light it, holding the filter end up to where her lips used to be, before her limbs and torso finally received word of her decapitation and, dropping cigarettes and lighter, slumped forward dead in Kolhaks arms.

“Agrapina”, said Kolhak, grinning into the mouthpiece of his omni tool, which was also an intergalactic telephone, “Pack your things. We’re going on a long vacation, just you and I”.

“Kolhak?!”, came the screeching, dentist drill voice of his wife Kora from the receiver of the phone, “Is that you? Is that bitch, Agrapina with you? She’s gone missing! She must have drugged my wine this morning because I’ve been asleep for hours and I think that shes even stolen my illusion suit. I can’t find it anywhere. I think she might be passing herself off as me. I think that little tart has some silly kind of school girl crush on you. Can you believe it?”.

Kolhak peeled back the part of the illusion suit which covered the severed (but not digested) head and saw the face of his beloved Agrapina, “Oh, Agrapina!”, he wept, “I had no idea it was you. You do my wife so well!”.