Out of This World

I watched the small spaceship land in the remote area of the Nevada desert. The door opened and a dashing young astronaut came out and walked towards me.

“Good to see you again, Chalk,” Commander Hash Borden of the Interplanetary Division of the Department of Inertial Cosmic Kinesis said as we shook hands.

“What’s it been, three, four hundred years.” I said.

“Something like that. Time flies when you’re a time traveler!”

We both chuckled. Hash and I had been partners back in the early days of our careers as D.I.C.K. agents. Hash had moved on to the space program while I remained on earth, moving through time monitoring whatever crisis popped up.

“Your call sounded urgent,” Hash said. “What can I do for you?”

“These,” I said, handing him a heavy backpack. “The master tapes for those inexplicable best-selling albums by all those bands we hated in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Styx, Journey, Supertramp…”

“REO Speedwagon, Fleetwood Mac…” Hash cut in, shaking his head. “What a load of crap. I hated being assigned to those times. Made me want to ram railroad spikes in my eardrums. What did you have in mind?”

“I heard you were heading out to Chianti-5.”

“Yeah, in the Campari Galaxy. Pretty desolate, basically uninhabited… oh, you want me to drop these off there!”

“You’d do a favor for all mankind,” I said.

“Great idea!” Hash said, grabbing the backpack and heading towards his ship. “Looks like it’s time to space the music!”