The Destructivedisk Anthology/A Konatsian Family Reunion

With this story, context is especially important. It was the first story I ever wrote on the Octopus Garden account, and I wanted that to be believable. So, I decided to make a story that would be decent, but not particularly good either. From this, A Konatsian Family Reunion was born.

The story is basically just a parody of how bad most writers are at creating a culture. As KidVegeta astutely noted, Tapion's culture is just Earth culture with meth involved. This was intentional. The problem that many writers have when crafting a new planet or culture is making it different from Earth culture. This story was making fun of how bad that could get.

This story was written while I was at my Dad's house. It's one of my shortest stories, and was written pretty suddenly without much forethought at all. The story was entered into the July 2012 Short Story Contest, making it my first entirely new story in just under a year. It was written almost one year after Semi-Charmed, my last Short Story contest entry. As with Semi-Charmed, it did not win the tournament, a huge blow to my ego to this day.

A Konatsian Family Reunion
Note: This story takes place in a universe where Hirudegarn did not exist.

Tapion was on his way to his mother’s house for the first time in a year. This was the norm on Konats, where adults were only supposed to visit their parents once a year. This day, known colloquially as “Parent’s Day”, was little more than a bore to people like Tapion, who held a self-sufficient job and found little use in their parents. Tapion was a Sales Engineer at a company called SouthLand, who specialized in the transportation of substances like diacetylmorphine and psilocybin. The business was booming, and it allowed Tapion to afford a residence and food. He felt no obligation to visit his parents.

After a few minutes, Tapion had arrived at his parent’s residence. It was the same as when he had left it last, plain white and small, like the other houses on the block and in most of the town. He walked inside to find that he was the second child to arrive at the place, behind only Minotia.

“Hello, Minotia. Glad to see you made it this time,” Tapion said, referencing an incident six years earlier where Minotia had overdosed on benzoylmethylecgonine and was unable to attend the get-together. Ever since then, Minotia had been trying to live the incident down, as missing Parent’s Day for any reason was widely frowned upon.

Just then, Tapion’s older brother, Tapeohca, walked into the room. He was a veteran, who was living off an army-wife stipend and army pension. He was trying to make it as a painter, but many critics had described his work as too colorful and his painting, “A Different World” had been panned universally. The painting was of a giant monster getting slowly sealed into a music box; art critics referred to it as unrealistic and ridiculous. His painting of a white-skinned Konatsian had received minor media attention after it was burned by the National Arts Association.

Before long, the remainder of Tapion’s siblings began strolling into the building. Sih, Orsor, Oray, Tapwaughta, Aughtin, and Saqves all entered before too long. The former four had entered the entertainment business by forming a sketch comedy group known as “Konats Up With That?” and the latter two had formed a legal firm known as “Aughtin and Saqves Legal Firm”. Minotia worked as a plumber.

Before long, all of the family had sat down. As was the tradition, Tapion’s parents sat at the head of the table, with regal forks and mini-swords. Everybody had white plates. The steaks were made of minotaur meat this year, unlike the cows they had the year before. The minotaur meat tasted a bit expired, but that was to be expected, considering how inefficient the shipping company was. As part of a government mandate, companies were required to send all families an appropriate amount of food for each Parent’s Day. This year, the government had decided on minotaur meat.

Tapion’s favorite part of dinner was bread. He used his sword to cut off a slice of butter and spread it across his rolls, licking the butter off the sword at the end. He put the sword back into his holster and ate a nice roll.

“So, how’s the sketch comedy going?” Tapion asked, hoping to start a conversation.

“Well, things have been better,” Oray replied, nonchalantly. “We’ve been running low on psilocybin lately, so a big part of our inspiration's gone. We tried cannabis, but it’s just not the same, really.” The family nodded in agreement.

“If that’s your problem, I can probably help you out,” Tapion responded. “I’m in charge of psilocybin sales at my company, so I could probably get you a pretty steady supply of the product.”

Tapion’s mother noticed that something was wrong. “Tapion, is something wrong, honey?”

“Well, Mother, it’s just that I’ve really started to notice that I’m growing older. I just started losing my hair the other day, and I’m afraid that I might go bald before long.”

“Oh, honey, that’s awful! Nobody should have to feel out of their prime. Here, baby, have some methamphetamine. That should make you feel better.” Tapion took the methamphetamine up his nose, because smoking it was considered uncivil in most cases. Other people were around and it would just be silly to force them to second hand smoke.

The night continued as usual. The legal firm was not doing too well, and it seemed like they were going to have to hire a bankruptcy lawyer to help them pay off some debts. The comedy troupe was about to go on a Konats-wide tour, one of comedy’s highest honors.

After they finished dinner, everybody engaged in swordfighting. The final two left were Minotia and Tapeohca (Minotia had just beat Tapion in the semi-finals), and everyone laughed when Minotia cut off Tapeohca’s hand. Tapeohca, however, managed to stab Minotia in the chest, ending the battle. Tapwaughta then took Minotia to the hospital, while Tapion’s father helped Tapeohca reattach his hand. Before long, Tapwaughta and Minotia returned, and the family had a delicious desert.

After the nice night, everyone decided it was time to head home. Orsah, Oray, Sih, and Tapwaughta all hopped upon the “Konats Up With That?” tour bus and headed back to their apartment. Aughtin, Saqves, and Tapeohca decided to stay the night at their parent’s house.

Tapion started walking back to his house. He thought about the wonderful time he had that night and realized that, even if he was growing older, family was always there to help him out.

Author’s Note: On Konats, drugs are legal and everyone carries around swords always. That’s why everyone is so unsurprised when Tapeohca stabs Minotia in the chest. Also, the culture is very different there.

Word count: 963

Endnotes
A Konatsian Family Reunion is one of my oddest stories. The writing is deadpan and emotionless, and everything is treated casually. There's a lot of really subtle content in the story and it has a lot more depth than most of my comedies. However, the story is mostly just boring; there's no plot, characterization, and there are little more than silly jokes throughout the story. This is another story that really had no reason to be written in the first place.
 * 1) So there are a few subtle references to Tapion's culture being similar to, say, a communist country. It's said that the government tells people what to eat, that every house looks the same, and that children are expected to only visit their parents once a year. It's supposed to be reminiscent of a totalitarian dictatorship.
 * 2) The chemical names of drugs are used, because names like "cocaine" or "heroin" are culture-specific to the Earth. Their chemical names, however, would likely be more universal. This is still flawed, but it makes slightly more sense than using their colloquial names.
 * 3) Tapion is a Sales Engineer. My step-father is a Sales Engineer and I, simply put, could not come up with a more standard job for someone.
 * 4) It's implied that the same thing happens over and over again on Konats. That's why they're still making fun of Minotia for something that happened 6 years earlier - the same thing happens every day, so a change from the same routine is a big event.
 * 5) Tapeohca and Tapwaughta are puns on tapioca and tap water, respectively. These are really terrible puns and at the time I found them hilarious. The rest of the names were taken from a random name generator.
 * 6) "Konats Up With That?" is a reference to the famous Jerry Seinfeld line, "What's up with that?". Minotia was made a plumber because Buster mistakenly assumes George-Michael to be a plumber in a hilarious scene from Arrested Development.
 * 7) Swords are here seen as a substitute for knives and Earth Board Games. This was mostly just a reference to the fact that many authors make really minor changes when creating a new culture, such as changing knives to swords.
 * 8) The casualness with which the characters exchange drugs is just my way of stating that drugs are only taboo if you make them taboo. In this world, where they are legal, they are given and nobody seems worse for the wear because of it. It's just a natural part of their culture.
 * 9) The legal firm having to hire a bankruptcy lawyer is a rather obvious joke, but it's one of my favorites.
 * 10) Swords are seen as similar to drugs here, in that they are treated casually and nobody seems upset when one of the Tapion brothers gets stabbed.

Final rating: C-