Krishna kumar Mani: SFS1: Science Fiction Short Stories

“Please don’t get upset Lilly. I’ve looked for everything available on the moon. There’s just nothing available.”

She started to cry. “Honey, I need my honeymoon to be on the moon.”

James moved over to console her. “Wait. Don’t cry. What was it that you just called me?” After a short silence she replied. “I called you honey.”

“Well, you are my moon and I’m you’re honey. Whether we’re on the earth or on the moon. It will always be our honeymoon.”

She continued to cry. “I have to go to the moon for our honeymoon. Please find a way, James.” James started to wonder why she had so much excitement about going to the moon. What did she expect to be there? She had never traveled to the moon before. He didn’t understand why she was so crazy about going to the moon for their honeymoon.

“Is there a reason why we have to go to the moon? What attracts you to it?”

“It’s the best place to go. Most of my friends went to the moon for their honeymoon.” James had a good idea why she was so set on it now. It was because of her friends. Just a woman’s mentality. But he knew that if he told her this, she would just cry even more. “Maybe you could talk with your friends, see what resort they went to? We could check that hotel out specifically as well.”

Lilly’s face brightened up and went to call her friends. After a few minutes she came back to James.

”They suggested two hotels. One is called the Blue Moon and the other one was Mootel.” “I already checked Blue Moon. There weren’t any rooms available, but I’ll have to check Mootel”

James searched the internet and found reviews on Mootel. Lilly chatted with her friends some more and finally came back to James with a phone number for him to call.

“Hi honey, one of my friends referred me, so hopefully he will be able to help us,” said Lilly. James called him up.

“Since you are a referral customer, I will try my best to find you a room. At this time there aren’t any available, but I will see what I can do.

After dinner they both went outside to watch the moon from the terrace.

”Don’t worry honey. We will be there for our honeymoon. The resort guy will get back to us and get us a room. I know it.”

James mobile rang and he answered.

“This is James speaking.”

“Sir, this is Brown from Mootel resort.” “So what’s the information?“

“Sir there is a canceled room available, but there’s a condition.”

“What does that mean, what is the condition?” “We will plan out your entire vacation. We’ll pick you up form your door and even return you with a private shuttle. The only thing is that you have to travel with another person’s name.”

“I don’t understand. Another person’s name?” “The moon is a very important tourist spot. We book based off of a waiting list and I simply cannot put your name at the top of the list. I can’t issue the room to you before I issue it to each of them. So if you want the room, you’d have to travel with the name of the canceled passengers. It’s another couple so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Is this going to be a problem legally?” “On the moon there’s no need for a passport or a visa since it is part of Earth. It won’t affect their records in any way. You’ll tell the checkin a different name and show only your ticket. There’s no ID check so that will be fine. But…” “What else?”

“You couldn’t leave the resort until you checked out.”

“So we’d have to stay inside the resort at all times? No outings whatsoever? I don’t think that’s going to fly with the wife. Let me check though.”

James went in and talked to Lilly about it. She told him that it was okay and that they didn’t need to go on any outings. She already knew this though because her friend had also taken a similar kind of deal.

“Oh. So you already knew,” said James surprised. “You know that it’s illegal to do this, right?”

“This isn’t a legal issue James. We’re just going to the moon instead of Mars. There’s nothing to worry about.”

James confirmed the tour package and paid the additional ten percent fee for the agent. James had a bad feeling about the situation but didn’t tell Lilly anything. He didn’t want to ruin all of the hard work he’d done trying to find a spot on the moon at the last minute.

John and Julie were the names printed on the tickets. They remembered the names but James and Lilly weren’t too worried. They always referred to each other as dear or honey and very rarely did they call each other by name. After a long trip in a private shuttle they reached the resort. After they landed, a man checked their ticket but didn’t ask them for any ID or anything of that nature.

They enjoyed themselves immensely while they were in the resort.

“Hey sweetie,” said James. “You can see Earth from here. It looks like a moon itself.”

“Oh we are in moon! I’m the happiest I’ve ever been!” shouted Lilly excitedly.

Four days passed as if they were four hours but James felt was something missing.

A private shuttle picked them up and was took them back home.

“Thanks for choosing Mootel resort. We hope you come again and please refer your friends!” said a friendly agent as they disembarked the shuttle.

“Sure thing.”

“This is our small gift from our resort for both of you,” said the agent. He held out a small photo album filled with pictures of James and Lilly. They looked through it excitedly.

“Bye,” said the agent as James and Lilly turned to walk up to their house.

“Catch him!” yelled a man.

They were surprised to see two cops grab the agent who had just bid them farewell. James and Lilly were afraid that the arrest was in regards to forging names so they turned to silent enter their home. A cop called over to James.

“Did you just travel to stay on the moon?”

“Yes we did, but…”

“That wasn’t the moon. This agent and that whole resort are liars. They took you to a resort eighty miles away from here. A normal resort on Earth that they made to look like it was on the moon. You’re one of about five thousand people that they’ve cheated like this.”

Now James and Lilly understood why they had not been allowed to go outside or to arrange their own shuttle ride.

My name is Joe. I used to work for a bank, but six months ago I lost my job due to the economic crisis. My wife has been working as a teacher so we have been able to manage the bills still thankfully. Also my writing talents have helped me to earn a few bucks on the side. I’d worked for a few unknown magazines as a freelance writer and they paid me nearly $400 for each article I wrote but most of them were monthly so I had to stretch every penny. Mostly the articles were related to news I’d found on the internet. I’d read for hours find current hot topics to create news articles from.

I just completed an article. Please don’t think this news is junk or crap because it’s one hundred percent verified fact. Please find a summary of the article just below.

“A new startup company called Ghost On Call Inc. located in Silicon Valley launched a new service a few months ago. Using this service we can connect and talk to any ghost via phone. It’s become popular in most of the countries around the world though a few have banned this service for religious reasons. During the beginning stages of this service, most people were hesitant and believed it was some kind of a scan. But the company gave free minutes for every mobile phone number and many people simply tried it for the first time because they were bored and it was free. They were amazed to hear the voice of their family members and loved ones that had passed beyond the veil of the grave! Soon after that, the service became incredibly popular in North America and now it has more active users than Twitter! The service was soon extended to all types of users even those that wanted to use computers or even land-line telephones. Soon people were regularly calling and being connected to ghosts within minutes. Last month they increased the cost per minute to two dollars but call volume wasn’t affected. The company’s revenue is individual mobile carrier higher than any network because