“DO YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING I TOLD YOU, SIR?” BOX ASKED POLITELY.

“Nope!” Exflibberaguil answered cheerfully, “none at all.”

Exflibberaguil stepped out of an interesting machine in the corner of his ship, completely neglecting the horrible shape the machine was in.

The machine resembled a giant portable sphere frame. Why anyone would care if it were portable or not was a great question, but “portable” sounded nice and professional, and perhaps would attract a few more galactic bubble solution bottles.

The frame was made of foot-long lengths of ruler-shaped metal, connected together with hinges and great amounts of duct-tape. It was given a nice afro of twisted wires, which seemed to just sit on top of the sphere rather than connect to it.

Inside the machine was a smoking mess of tangled wires and brown soot.

“That machine needs cleaning,” Box remarked.

“Perhaps.” Exflibberaguil didn’t say anything for another few seconds. “I don’t suppose you can clean it for me?” he asked Box.

“I’m sorry, but that is not an ability I have.”

“Well then,” Exflibberaguil said with finality, “the machined does not need cleaning.”

“However,” Box cheered brightly, “you can go to your BawksApp for a full list of my abilities. Would you like me to list some for you?”

“No.”

“I can call your friends, tell the time, and tell the weather. Additionally, there are many Easter-eggs—”

“Yes, yes, thank you. Just shut up.”

“I apologize for any inconvenience. Would you like me to file a complaint? Bawks Kumpuhnee offers a full refund guaranteed to anyone unsatisfied with their products.”

“Yeah right. I’ve read the fine print and the terms and conditions. ‘Full refund’ does not mean the customer has to pay double the original price plus donation to fund the company again.

Box shut up.

“Sir?” it asked after a moment.

“Out with it.”

“I would just like you to know that you should probably consider landing in the next five days. Of course, the alternative is death with a pain factor of 7.69241 out of ten. We’ve done surveys to confirm the exact number.”

“And you didn’t think of informing me sooner.”

“No.”

“What about my ferret?”

“He knows.”

“And he didn’t tell me.”

“For a very good reason.”

Exflibberaguil was stumped.

“Well, what do you suggest?” he asked, changing the topic.

“My opinion is that McDonalds is a pretty swell place to land. The most grease and oil concentrated on one spot that I know of.”

“Will I kill anyone?”

“There’s a really big chance.”

“Rabbits?”

“There’s a really, really, really, small chance.”

“Then I won’t land.”

“But, sir, it is highly recommended that you land in the next five galactic days.” Box reminded, annoyingly cheerful.

Exflibberaguil typed into a little laptop without answering. Suddenly, his head dropped.

“7730 still has not reported positive!” Exflibberaguil moaned.

“Really sir, it would be recommended—"

“But 7730 had not reported positive!” Exflibberaguil insisted, “It was all my fault. I must’ve scared that one Odriew away. I never knew Sodriew were so jumpy.”

“Sir, landing after the next five galactic would not be recommended.”

“Why the hurry? I have plenty of time. Why did I leave my planet anyway?”

“Because it was destroyed.” Box was no longer so cheerful, having repeated the same thing for several years.

“Oh. Did I forget that?”

“Yes, sir,” Box sighed, “three hundred sixty-seven times, not including the years you spent back in time. The last time you forgot was three galactic days ago.”

“And I intend to do so again.”

“Sir—”

“Anyways, I still have loads of time. It takes seven years for one breeding pair to produce four million bunnies. Seven is more than four. Plus, seven is five is four is cosmos. It all makes sense. I’ll have at least a couple more galactic years.”

“Sir, it takes four years for four million bunnies to be born from one breeding pair.”

“What?” Exflibberaguil exclaimed, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier.”

“You forgot, sir.”

“Well, for such bad news, I can see why!”

Exflibberaguil instinctively moved to his large spheroid machine in the corner, tinkling with the wires. “Hold on. I think I can double wire this so I forget about my home planet and this bad news. And next time I ask something I forgot, don’t tell me the answer.”

“But sir, last time I did that you smashed my CPU,” Box said painfully, “I do not like being smashed. And the new one you bought isn’t the same. Nothing is the same. I liked my darling little CPU before it was smashed.”

“Shut up,” Exflibberaguil muttered instinctively, “I’ll smash your AC the next time.”

“It’s not my air conditioner, it’s my—”

“Done!” Exflibberaguil intentionally interrupted, saving himself from a lengthy and boring lecture. “I think that’ll do it.” He stepped into the spherical frame.

“Sir, it is not recommended you use that machine for the current time being.”

“And why is that?”

“For your health, sir.”

“Why?”

“Well,” the box said brightly, “it will drain most of the fuel, and landing takes a lot of fuel, so you would die with a pain factor of 7.69241 out of ten.”

“Oh.”

“Doctors do not recommend dying very much. No one has ever done it more than once.” Box added, wheeling toward a plasma display and showing the statistics (a histogram with an infinitely rising bar at ‘Deaths = 1 per being’ on the x axis).

“Remind me to forget as soon as we land,” Exflibberaguil said with a sigh.

“I will, sir, unless you forget to forget about what you told me to forget.”

Exflibberaguil was not to be beaten. “I shan’t forget what not to forget for getting into the forgetting machine so that I can forget what you told me not to forget.”

“But sir, forgetting to forget is not—”

“One. Twenty. Nine.” A nasally, monotonous, feminine voice boomed through the ship.

Exflibberaguil jumped. His ferret jumped. Box danced a sort of turning Irish jig, for Box was a flat, circular machine with wheels (who couldn’t jump), and Exflibberaguil purposely didn’t buy the newest version of Box (which had legs) because it was said that those new versions had an even worse personality. Also, Exflibberaguil couldn’t buy the newest version because Bawks Kumpuhnee closed. It would not have been smart to continue the production of Bawksez because everyone in the company, included the CEO’s, were dead. But Exflibberaguil had chosen to forget that insignificant detail.

“What was that?” Exflibberaguil demanded.

“The countdown clock,” Box replied, dancing a different sort of jig because one of its wheels was caught in a bundle of wires.

“Who set it up?” Exflibberaguil said, then realized the stupidity of the question. “It was me, wasn’t it, and I just forgot. I must have set the timer as a personal reminder. How smart I am.”

“Well, actually—” Box coughed, “it was me.”

“No it wasn’t,” Exflibberaguil said with spite. His ferret agreed.

Box looked taken aback. “Well—”

The ferret started an odd screech.

“Ok, ok,” Box admitted, “it wasn’t me. It was that ferret.”

“The ferret?”

“But the credit should go to me because I thought of the idea first,” Box added.

“The ferret?” Exflibberaguil repeated,

“Yes, I mean, I couldn’t have done it anyway because I don’t have hands. But, in case you forgot, I thought of the idea first.”

“Can’t you do a computer-telepathy-thingamabobber, and not use hands?”

“It’s called NodeTalk,” Box said, offended, “but I rather NotTalk to the Countdown. She’s so boring.”

Exflibberaguil ignored to lecture that followed on the up and downs of NodeTalk, and if the pros outweighed the cons in Binary.

“Ferret,” he asked, “why did you set up a countdown clock?”

“Because he was in a hurry to land, of course,” Box said matter-of-factly.

Exflibberaguil blinked. “Now why would he do that?”

“To escape death. And several other very good reasons I can not tell you because it’s password locked.”

The ferret screeched again and quickly ran off.

“That’s odd.”

“No,” Box said, “it really isn’t.”