The crew fixated on the deeps of the sky.  Their opponent was 400,000km away and bearing down.  In five seconds the two ships would close the distance.

At 199,000km, hungry sensors licked the perfectly rounded and mirrored surfaces the ships presented – each scanning for micron-wide fissures.  The rival captain thought he found one first and, at 35,000km, trained 100 million joules on the Ivanhoe.  The attack revealed an uneven aperture, and the Ivanhoe responded instantly.

For a moment, the two glassy hulls were centimeters apart.  Then they were again impossibly distant – one, a smoldering husk, and the other, a champion.

Deep beneath the museum, the Thief discovers a cavernous warehouse – the burial ground of suppressed truths.  Searching the labyrinthine storeroom, the Thief moves past the delicately jointed skeleton of a thunderbolt hanging from the ceiling and the limestone fossils of clouds, dense with capillary beds.  Past tall shelves laden with jars of preserved fetuses that link man, not to primates, but to a race of loping salamanders.  Past photographs that prove mountains are the work of one very prolific man, now over 4000 years old and living in East L.A.  Suddenly, the Thief stops short before a modest little chest….

A high, warbling whistle split the air, interrupting the Naked Cowboy’s three-line act.

“Who’re you?”

“In this world there are two types of people my friend: those with guitars and diapers, and those with loaded guns.”

The Naked Cowboy’s gaze drifted to the pistol casually pointed at his head.

“Hey man, I’m just here to take pictures!”

The Man With No Name squinted.  He squinted hard.  He squinted into the sun and his eyes glinted like steel spurs.  The Naked Cowboy started to pee a little.  Finally, the Man With No Name holstered his .45.

“Put on a goddamn poncho.”

The Universe may not be infinite, but it’s pretty darn close.

The next generation of astronauts, or the generation after that, could be the first Earthlings to encounter these beautiful alien party babes. Unfortunately, every one of our astronauts is a socially retarded science geek. The party of the eon is going to fly right past us.

“This place is awesome!”

“Yeah. If God really loved us, he would have skipped the whole living part.”

Charlton Heston chewed through debates like a drunk cow gnaws at grass.

Only after the election did the voting populace realize Charlton Heston had died in 2008. And that’s the story of how a camel became President of the United States.

Sir Isaac Newton had once again allowed his anger to get the better of him. For punching Lord Chesterfield in the stomach, he was sentenced to 9 months of forced servitude at the Trinity College Kindergarten of Cambridge.

He would always refer to this period as his descent into the dark ages.

Reldresal, the giant killler, was famous among his people. He slayed every giant that stood before him. His hunting expeditions usually involved a tremendous amount of Earth shaking, what with all the giant slaying.

Redresal’s fame as a giant killer never reached America. His ship was swallowed by a bluefin tuna somewhere off the coast of Hawaii.

Socrates Johnson hated almost everything about high school. The long winded teachers more interested in test scores than true knowledge. The jocks who would bully him for being too smart. Graduation could not come fast enough.

In the end, Socrates and Alcibiades found themselves with broken hearts. The hottest love, as they say, has the coldest end.