The sun rose above the distant jungled hills and cast light across the concrete compound – nestled into the side of a small rocky hill. Lovely Day by Bill Withers played from the outdoor speakers, positioned throughout the compound.
Big Ham stepped outside to greet the blissful morning. He wore a Def Leppard t-shirt. It was way too tight but, they simply didn't make shirts big enough to be loose and baggy for Big Ham's impressive and portly musculature. His long, jet-black mullet flowed in the morning breeze. In showed some subtle signs of aging, with a strand of grey hair or two, but otherwise it was in mint condition.
In his left hand he carried a large novelty coffee mug about the size of a stein. A cartoon of a green snake with the caption 'I just really like snakes, okay' was painted on the mug. The mug was filled to the brim with searing hot black coffee, six teaspoons, just as he liked it.
Big Ham felt an itch and scratched his rump through his beige cargo shorts. He breathed in the clean, cool and crisp air. Big Ham looked up beyond the massive, impenetrable concrete walls of his compound to admire the stunningly beautiful sight of the surrounding mountains and volcanos.
"Ahhh," he quietly admired in bliss, "what a truly, beautiful day."
He did his usual rounds, dropping by the enclosures of his various snakes, monstrous lizards and herbivorous sauropods.
"Hello Matilda," he said to an overwhelmingly huge Brachiosaurus, who raised her head out of her enclosure towards Big Ham. He used a tractor to push several thousand pounds of vegetable matter towards her snout, "it looks like it's going to be a beautiful and uneventful day," he said this as he hopped off the tractor to take a few steps towards Matilda's shipping container sized head. He gave the behemoth saurian a loving pat.
Soon after, Big Ham fed his utahraptors several live hippos and a pride of lions that he instantly whipped into existence using the energy to matter conversion module he had installed in the utaraptor's enclosure. Big Ham looked down at the raptors as they promptly charged towards the artificially created animals with ferocious delight.
The hippos and lions barely had time to cogitate the astonishment of their sudden existence before they were set upon and consumed. His expression was dull and emotionless but behind his sunglasses were slightly sad eyes. Big Ham didn't like to feed his pets live prey. He found it cruel. However, the utahraptors were fussy eaters and they would only eat live prey.
"Well," he said quietly to himself amongst the saurian roars of blood curdling ecstasy, and tortuous cries from hippos and horrifying moans from lions, "that's enough tooth and claw nihilism for one morning," he trudged away.
Big Ham continued to do his rounds, feeding his collection of fantastic reptiles and saurians.
"Yep," he said as he paused to pan and take in the panoramic view of his compound, what a beautiful day … life; is good."
He noticed his wife approaching – a stunning, blonde bombshell of a woman. She was Slavic, possibly Polish, Yugoslav, Ukrainian or Russian? Looks were deceiving of course. She was actually a shape-shifting amoebic lifeform who assumed the appearance of such a woman.
She was from one of the countless backwater, uncharted worlds that Big Ham visited on missions for the Primordial Earth Protectorate. Initially, she had stalked the giant man, intent on attempting to eat him.
However, she grew fond of her supposed prey, falling in love with him – for some prey, were worth the wait. When she finally revealed herself, they were in a swamp. In her original amoebic form, she rose from the waters and morphed into a woman. She loved him dearly, with all of her cytoplasm. For Big Ham, it was fondness at first sight. She had maintained this humanoid form. She did it for the man she loved, for Big Ham's benefit.
Now here, years later, in the heart of his compound, Big Ham stared at her in puzzlement as she ran towards him, pointing repeatedly to the sky. By the time she stood by his bulky side, Big Ham had already looked up and sighed at the celestial nugget of approaching cosmic excrement.
"Vhat is it?" she asked with a thick, Eastern European accent, looking up at the object with intense curiosity.
"That my dear," sighed Big Ham, "is the great fudgening."
"The great, fudgening?" she replied, "vhat, is this; great fudgening, dat you speak of?"
"Yes, the great fudgening."
"You did not answer my question," she said as she put both hands on her hips.
"A big arse asteroid."
"It is going to hit?"
"Does a bear taking a crap in the woods use a fluffy white rabbit for toilet paper?"
She slapped him on his big chunky shoulder, "Do not use such words to me, for I am a lady," she was not impressed, "it is going to hit; yes?"
"Yes, it's going to hit."
"Oh … dat is not good," she said, "but, you said vee vere fine. You said, dis asteroid vaz not to hit for another hundred, thousand years, no?"
"Meh," shrugged Big Ham.
"But," his wife replied with a look of confusion, "you did the calculations, yes? Vith both pen and paper. I saw you vith der pen and paper. Ven vee did der time travel jump to here, no?"
"Meh," said Big Ham as he kept looking up at the asteroid, "I probably forgot to carry the two."
"You think?" she replied, "Oh Big Ham, big sexy Ham," she rested her pretty little head on his mammoth pecs, "vee must leave, now."
Big Ham put his hand in his pocket, feeling for his keys, "Here," he said as he tossed his wife the set of keys, "take the rocket."
She caught the keys, "You are coming, yes?"
"It's not big enough for the two of us."
"But Big Ham," she said as she gave her mighty man a huge hug, "I don't vant you to die. Not nyet, remember, ven you grow old, vatter – you vill be vore tasty, vore succulent. Dat is ven you die, and ven you are dead, dat is ven I finally eat you."
"Don't worry," he said as he put both of his club like hands on her shoulders and leaned down to give her a peck on the top of her head, "I won't die, not yet anyway."
"But, how?" she said, with a puzzled look of concern, "how you not die ven big rock fall from sky and KERPLAT!" she slapped her hands together, "big explosion, everything, dead, no?"
"Not everything," Big Ham replied, "this is what allowed my ancestors to evolve."
"Oh yes – the big lizards die and den the little rats start to climb trees to become monkeys, no?"
"Yes," agreed Big Ham.
"But how you not die?"
"Remember the nuggetbot?" Big Ham said as he pointed to a large white pile of pterodactyl excrement that concealed most of a corroded park bench.
"Oh, dat android you have svitched off over dere?"
"It has a ship stashed somewhere. I'll hose it down, turn it back on and ask it where it is."
"But, but?"
"Hey, hey, hey," he said to his wife, reassuring her again, "just get to the rocket and blast off. Lock it in a geostationary orbit and just wait."
"Okay," she said as she walked at a fast pace towards the rocket, "but," she said, stopping suddenly to turn and look at Big Ham, "how long you vant me to vait up dere?" She asked this with a tone of annoyance and concern.
"Dunno babe, a few years perhaps, but I'll come find you when all of this dies down."
"Vell," she replied, "I guess dat is okay. But only a few years … yes?"
"Of course," smiled Big Ham.
She knew that look, but what choice did she have? She turned and continued to walk at a brisk pace towards the rocket.
Big Ham stomped over to the huge fire hose reel and pulled it towards the pile of excrement covering the park bench. He turned it on. A torrent of high-pressured water blasted the excrement away, revealing the SBT-22. It sat motionless on the park bench. Its eyes open with a mouth agape in mid conversation. Big Ham reached behind its left ear lobe, probing for its power switch. He found the lump, disguised as a small lipoma and pressed it.
"And that's why it is imperative that you come with me immediately," said the SBT-22 before he paused to look around like a stunned mullet, "Mm," he deduced as he stood up from the seat and wiped flecks or white excrement from the lapels and sleeves of his jacket, "you asked where my power switch was Agent Big Ham," he said as he wiped the last flecks of excrement away, "I believe revealing that to you was a mistake."
"Indeed nuggetbot," replied Big Ham, he adjusted his sunglasses and put his giant hands on his barrel of a waist, "now, where the fudge is your ship?"