The Empire Strikes a Match

Thursday evening and the temperature outside was 1,000°C. Inside it was something more than that and something or someone had stolen all the air. Yes, a heatwave. In Coventry.

Mary and I didn’t eat much for dinner. It was far too warm to generate more heat through the process of chewing and swallowing. We settled for an ice cube sandwich followed by a shard of ice cunningly shaped as an ice cream.

There was a problem. We used plates and glasses. Meaning there was now a little collection of crockery and glasses that required the process generally known as washing up.

—Dishes need doing, Mary said.

—Yeah.

—Go on then.

—I’ll do ‘em in the morning.

She gave me the kind of feminine side-eye that lacerates a man on the spot. I sighed, licked my wounds and went out to the kitchen. I filled the basin with water and squirted in some Fairly Lipsquid, none of that cheap imitation washing up liquid for us.

I want to reassure you this point, that I was stood quietly doing the dishes. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. Certainly not about galaxies far, far away. Unusual for me, because I often do think about galaxies (not the chocolate bars).

Nope, instead, I was pondering whether the bubbles in the soap suds might actually be farts from the dishes I was washing. And I was counting how many survived the leap from the bowl to the drainer. Some did, some didn’t. I worked out a technique where they all did. I called it the Sudden Uniform Design System (S.U.D.S).

Look, I was bored, right? Nobody likes washing the dishes. Then out of nowhere, a though rattled through my mind:

“The Empire Strikes a Match”

I stopped what I was doing. My lower jaw decided to leave the room for a while, by first dropping down to the floor.

—What the hell? I muttered.

Oh, but I’d done it, hadn’t I? The whole situation came flooding in.

LORD VADER:
Who turned the LIGHTS OFF? I sense a failure in The Force.

ADMIRAL PIET:
Erm, don’t know how to tell you this, my Lord…

LORD VADER:
Did you forget to pay the leccy bill again?

ADMIRAL PIET:
I told Captain Needa to pay it.

LORD VADER:
Send him TO ME…

I mean, what? Where the hell did that thought come from? I have no idea. It just popped into my mind, uninvited. I shrugged and carried on saving the lives of the soap suds. Thinking it was all over.

My mind had other ideas.

I heard a whooshing noise. Exactly like the kind of noise a Sith speeder makes. I looked around. And out the corner of my mind’s eye, I saw a dark-robed figure on a Sith speeder zooming out of the kitchen. He had a small flag on the back on his speeder. It said:

A Phantom Called Dennis

And I knew instantly what had happened. That cheeky blighter, Dennis. He goes zooming around popping random thoughts into people’s minds. Him being a proponent of the shady edge of the cause.

I finished washing up and made Mary a mug of tea. No washing up suds were harmed in the writing of this… whatever this is.