NEW DAY.

A brand-new day!

Revitalized and refreshed. Exflibberaguil jumped out of bed. He had a very pleasant dream, and believed that this dream was what inspired his plan. He checked the other bed, but Nick wasn’t there. For some reason, he wasn’t surprised. It must have made sense when he still had his memories.

Memories were strange things. They were very much like dreams. Everything makes sense during the dream, but once you awaken, you forget all the logic and remember only the strange and stupid conclusion. It was only years of training on level one had Exflibberaguil gotten used to this strange feeling.

Humming, he plodded to the door with a wad of money.

Today, he was going to cut his hair.

Long hair was never a problem in the ship, where furniture moved to avoid tangling. Showers were easy as well. All you needed to do was to lay down, and robots wash your hair for you. Plus, the slightly light gravity prevented him from feeling the weight of the hair.

However, the hair had now become quite troublesome on Driew. It got caught in everything, including Exflibberaguil’s own limbs. It always had knots. And whenever it got wet, Exflibberaguil felt like he was carrying a large asteroid on his neck. Step one for a successful plan was to get rid of this horrendous amount of hair.

Exflibberaguil maneuvered through the chairs, somehow still getting the end caught. He opened the door with a happy heart.

Of course, there just had to be a body leaning against the door so it would fall in.

It was a girl with black hair and black clothes. Not a very creative outfit, in Exflibberaguil’s opinion. His own bright red hair made much more sense in black. It looked a lot better.

“Oh, Nick!” Exflibberaguil exclaimed, partly from surprise. “Are you dead? Because if you are, it would be very inconvenient for me. I’ll have to find another person to agree to my terms and agreements.”

Nick turned on her side and groaned, which was strange because she was smiling.

“That’s good,” Exflibberaguil replied. “Would you mind waking up a bit and moving? I’m going somewhere.”

Nick smiled even brighter, and groaned even more pitifully.

“You’re certainly strange,” Exflibberaguil remarked.

“Strange!” Nick said brightly, her eyelids snapping open. “Strange! Like a hat eating a giraffe!”

“Yes, yes. Though that really isn’t very strange. Did you know, an alien named Dr. Rizzactor invented giant robot hats? I’m sure one of those could very easily eat a giraffe.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Giraffe! Like a looooong neck deer!” Nick giggled, then moaned with agony.

Exflibberaguil frowned. He was fairly certain that giggling and moaning do not go together. “Nick, I know Sodriew are usually rather weird, but this is a little—”

“Weird! Like yogurt slime! Like brain slime! Like slime that came out of my nose earlier!”

“Are you okay?” Exflibberaguil asked, surprisingly concerned.

“Okay! Okay! Bibbity-babbity-kay!”

“Box?” Exflibberaguil said, “Why is Nick acting like that?”

”It seems like she’s suffering from extreme memory loss,” Box replied in a voice that matched Nick in cheerfulness. “I believe this happened last night.”

“Oh, no,” Exflibberaguil muttered, recalling the flash he’d seen. “That was you, wasn’t it? Nick, you should have asked me before you used my machine! Don’t you know it’s rude to touch someone else’s things without permission?”

“Permission, parmission, parmesan! Parmesan pizza! Pizza, pizza, pizza, Friday!”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Exflibberaguil sighed. “I didn’t know that my machine was this powerful. How can she become so strange?”

“I believe she experienced a magnitude ten memory wipe,” Box put in helpfully.

“Magnitude ten!” Exflibberaguil exclaimed, tripping over his own hair and falling. “Wh—what? I’m surprised that an Odriew survived!”

“Actually, she just has a larger resistance. Her memories were relatively protected because she wasn’t fully prepared to give all of them up.”

“A whole lot of use that did!” Exflibberaguil exploded.

“That did!” Nick echoed. “Who did? He did? She did? Me did? That did!” Nick settled in the stupid smile again, like a happy drunkard.

“You idiot!” Exflibberaguil yelled. “What were you thinking? Why did you think it was ever a good idea to erase your entire memory? Imbecile!”

“And idiot is dumber than an imbecile,” Nick corrected with a grave and serious expression. “And an imbecile is dumber than a moron.”

“Of all things, you remember that? Why?”

“I remember plenty of things!” Nick argued with a humph. “Astronomer is anagram of Moon Stares and No More Stars! Course, I don’t know what anagrams are. Or astronomers, for that matter.” Nick burst into a fit of gleeful laughing.

“Box, will she ever recover her memory?” Exflibberaguil asked desperately.

“Oh, yes. In a week, probably. The memory wipe was not conducted properly. The beam didn’t hit her head at the right spot, so there’s nothing permanent. However, there is a slight chance of madness that will result if she does not recover soon.”

“How big of a chance?”

“Oh, almost certainly,” Box replied. If a robot could smile, Box certainly did.

“Oh no. How can will I be able to help Nick if she goes crazy?” Exflibberaguil whined. “Today was supposed to be a good day! I was going to get a haircut! I was going to fight some rabbits! But now, I’ll be stuck with a potentially crazy adolescent!”

“Oh, I’m afraid you misunderstood, sir,” Box interjected politely. “I didn’t mean she will go crazy. I meant you.”

“Ah,” Exflibberaguil said. “That’s a very good point.”

“Circles have no points!” Nick put in brightly. “Spheres have no points! And I have no point! That is, none that I remember.”

Exflibberaguil collapsed, already feel the craziness begin to seep into his mind. “I just wanted a haircut…” he moaned weakly.

“I just wanted a haircut,” Nick repeated.

Exflibberaguil turned to Nick, who was still laying on her side on the floor. She looked back at him with bright eyes.

“…you just wanted a haircut? Is that what you said?” Exflibberaguil questioned.

“I just wanted a haircut. Bearcut. Marecurt. Staircut.”

A half smile crept on Exflibberaguil’s face. Might as well make the most out of this.

“You want a haircut?” Exflibberaguil laughed, “Then you’ll get one.”