Work Text:
Seven months after the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship opened, and Grace unwittingly became the most culturally influential figure on Erid, an intern who had just joined the team had an exceptionally bright idea.
“So I am clear, Mica” Iggy, a key figure in the management of the centre, began
“You believe we should open up requests from Saviour-Grace?”
“Yes, it will result in exponential profit increase”
“Mica, this is the best idea I’ve heard, welcome aboard, you are about to be one busy Eridian”
Thus, it was determined that once a month Grace would be entitled to request the construction of a human item, officially, this was to boost his enrichment, and still officially, but less pleasant for Grace to think about, to skyrocket their profits to Erid’s stratosphere.
Grace was elated upon hearing of this, and immediately requested the synthesis of caffeine and alcohol, unfortunately, Rocky oversaw all requests going in and out of the biodome and immediately barred both, especially the alcohol, he had witnessed first-hand what Olesya’s vodka turned him into.
So, Grace settled on a far more tame request, a speaker, to play music for himself and the entirety of Erid.
At the first design briefing for the speaker’s construction, the lead designer: Calico, a snappy Eridian with a tri-colour, calico (don’t judge Grace, he had a lot of Eridians to name) pattern, had perhaps, missed the mark in the speaker’s aesthetic appeal.
“No, absolutely not. We aren’t doing that” Grace bluntly refused the blueprint put forth to him
“What?” Calico exclaimed
“Why not? This is a beautiful depiction of a human for human-music consumption”
“I refuse to listen to music from a human-shaped speaker, that’s just, bizarre.
Imagine if Earth comes for a visit, and they see me, the single representation of their planet, jamming out next to what appears to be a xenonite cast of my own body.
I appreciate your creativity, Calico, but can we stick with a more conventional design?”
“But the human shape will increase Saviour-Grace’s wellbeing! Psychological-thrum agrees!”
“No! What’ll be next” Grace joked “A sex doll I can treat as a friend?”
Grace paled as the words left his mouth, oh dear god, what had he done.
Calico gasped “Amaze!”
She turned to a nervous intern sat next to her
“Write that down! Write that down! Oh, just think of the profits, we could sell copies at the gift shop!”
Rocky, Grace’s greatest friend and number one enemy, reached toward Calico:
“I approve of this idea.”
Rocky, who had no face or eyes, smugly gazed at Grace, he knew exactly what he was starting.
Exactly three nights after the design briefing took place, Grace received a, blessedly, conventional looking speaker.
With glee, he ran to connect his laptop to the device, confirmed that the sound worked correctly, and then began deliberating.
You see, when the entire planet watches your every move, there is a lot of pressure placed on deciding what song should represent your entire species to the aliens who are obsessed with you.
What a relatable dilemma.
Convention states that Grace should probably choose Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” . It was perfectly existential, and exceptionally popular on Earth, except, that was a long song, and, unfortunately, Grace has had a nagging-earworm since he first requested the speaker.
Thus, Erid’s first exposure to the human craft of music was ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, accompanied by a dance from Grace that appeared near exactly like what young females of the human species display after extreme ethanol intoxication.
He moved across the sand to the beat loosely, hands running up his body and then swaying in the air. A bewildered Rocky was made an accomplice to this performance as Grace mimed a “rope pull”.
“Dance with me, Rock!”
Rocky shifted to his bipedal form, and attempted to swing his remaining arms in the air, an unknowing homage to the Earthen phenomenon of: “white-girl-dancing-at-the-club”
Grace screamed
“Not like that!”
Eridians partaking in Grace-observation during this time became mesmerised by the rhythmic beats of human music, and were enraptured by the human dance moves Grace displayed.
As Grace continued to blast music from his biodome, Eridians eagerly joined, mimicking his movements and marking the beginnings of Grace’s career as the first intergalactic zumba instructor.
Grace, witnessing the planet’s adoration of human music through a small stretch of double-sided xenonite, was struck by sudden inspiration.
Thus, Dr Ryland “it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a pill without knowing what it was” Grace approached the management of the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship, and suggested that once a week, the centre be transformed for “music night.”
Grace took great effort to ensure that the centre resembled a “proper” human nightclub. He insisted that the music must be loud enough to shake the floors, which had the unintended effect of creating an almost religious experience for Eridians, who both saw and felt entirely through sound.
To his intense envy, on music nights the centre sold ♪♬, a type of balm-like substance that one spreads across their carapace to achieve intoxication, which, if applied to Grace’s skin, would immediately cauterise him, and have no pleasurable effects. Grace tried again to convince Rocky of his need for alcohol, and was again denied by the little tyrant.
Club nights were terribly popular across the planet, the combination of music, dance, and ensured-activity from their beloved saviour was enough to draw half the planet to his biodome on Friday nights. The event was so popular that it soon became ticketed, and Eridians, who, like humans, had music preferences demanded to know the artists played before attending each event.
Most popular amongst the Eridian public was the new wave genre. The strong rhythmic synthesisers inspired experimental dances from Grace and the Eridians alike.
The Talking Heads became so tremendously popular that he could only play them as part of the last three songs of the night, a lesson learnt after a group of crowd-surfing Eridians had catapulted themselves at the xenonite barrier of his biodome in excitement.
And the management at the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship, upon seeing the astronomical profits these nights were generating, adored Grace perhaps more than the planet itself.
A pattern was established, Grace would debut a genre and its associated dance moves, Erid would fixate on said genre and associated dance moves for the following week, rinse, and repeat.
This expanded to incorporate fashion, when Grace requested custom bell-bottoms from Calico for 70’s night. Resulting in an ensuing wave of fashion wherein savvy Eridians wore cuffs around their limbs, that, to the Eridian vision, caused a distortion of the claws that was viewed as particularly avant-garde.
After that 70’s night, young Eridians could not stop dancing “the disco finger”, an activity that looked particularly absurd when one had five hands, and if you weren’t Rocky, limited bipedal ability.
Grace had not enjoyed Rocky’s demonstration of the move, especially as he had "accidentally misinterpreted” where the finger was meant to point, and poked Grace in the stomach each time.
“Adrian, Rocky, get over here!” Grace called to his friends one, beautiful sunny morning.
“Alright, can you press play on the speaker for me”
Adrian tapped one claw on the top of the speaker, and startled when Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give you Up” blasted out.
Grace, who had the maturity of the middle-schoolers he taught, fell into hysterics.
“What funny about song, question?”
“Grace, why are you laughing at this man’s declaration of undying persistence?”
Grace, having performed the first interplanetary Rick Roll, curled into his side with rib-aching laughter.
Young Eridians at the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship intrinsically understood what Grace had done, thus they bought miniature models of human-speakers from the gift shop, and began “Rick-rolling” friends, family, and unsuspecting strangers.
On Erid, there exists a relatively small spiritual sect who believe that the voice of God will appear through music; they are referred to as "Listeners."
Listeners had existed on Erid long before Grace crashed onto their doorstep, they had retained a remote kind of interest in the cultural sensation, yet hadn’t heard of anything that would suggest a connection to their beliefs, thus disregarding the alien.
That was, until they heard strange, foreign beats echoing from the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship.
A small group of Listeners sat at the back of the club nights each week, waiting for a sign of their omnipotent God. Alas, with each week that passed, they returned empty-clawed.
The hope that the alien ignited slowly began to fizzle out.
One shining, sunny morning, Grace basked along the shoreline of his biodome next to Rocky, who was attempting to build sandcastles, and Adrian, who was sabotaging Rocky’s attempts at building sandcastles.
As he observed his friends he felt a smile spread across his face, and a deep, warm appreciation filled his chest. He was so lucky to have found such perfect friends.
Grace, in this tender moment, remembered a beach day with his younger brother back on Earth. When life had felt simpler, sunnier, and kinder.
His parents had played the Beach Boys the whole car-trip down, wanting to ensure their kids had a “proper” knowledge of music. Grace thought of Brian Wilson’s haunting melodies, that to him, had always felt like returning home, and glanced at the home he had pulled out of the infinite night sky.
He reached to his laptop, and hit play on the Beach Boys 1966 hit “God Only Knows” softly it echoed across his biodome, as Grace relaxed alongside his greatest friends in the universe.
Unbeknownst to Grace, a Listener had been perusing the gift shop at the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship when they had paused, dropping a novelty magnet of Grace’s face to the ground.
There it was.
They burst out of the gift shop, in pure, spiritual elation.
Shoving through the crowd, they reached the edge of the biodome, and placed their body as close to the xenonite as they physically could.
The sound was haunting, beautiful, and completely mesmerising, it filled the Eridian with warmth and joy.
Naturally, they assumed that this could only be the voice of God itself.
An angry mob of Listeners confronted the management at the Centre, demanding that Saviour-Messiah-Grace play the voice of God again.
Grace was extremely confused upon hearing the demands from Iggy,
“That’s not the title of any song I play, unless they meant Kelly Clarkson? I mean her voice is incredible, but she isn’t actually a deity.”
“No, they definitely think it's a specific song.”
Thus, a Listener was escorted into Grace’s biodome, watched closely by a fierce Rocky, and attempted to identify the song off Grace’s playlist.
Bohemian Rhapsody?
“No.”
Night Fever? That had been a hit on 70’s night for sure.
“No.”
The Air That I Breathe?
“No. It's a nice song though.”
Age of Consent?
“No.”
God Only Knows?
The first chords of the song played
“Yes! Joy, joy, joy! Is this song! This is the voice of God.”
“What? As in the literal Voice of God, because, no, it’s not, it is entirely human-made”
But Grace’s justification was far too late, the Eridian had already bolted to the exit, eager to share their confirmation with their fellow listeners.
Grace felt a deep sense of dread settle in the pit of his stomach. Oh fiddlesticks, they thought the Beach Boys were God.
What if, humanity arrived on Erid, found a religion worshipping Brian Wilson’s complex melodies, and then, rightfully, assumed that Grace had manipulated them, toyed with their impressionable beliefs, completely unaware that the Eridians had done this completely of their own accord.
“Grace is ready to host club night now, question?” Rocky, who had been placing rhinestones across his carapace, asked, oblivious to Grace's crisis.
The next morning, Grace awoke achy, sore, and with a voice tired from screaming Lady Gaga lyrics alongside little monsters and aliens.
As he left his home, his eyes met Rocky, who was frantically ushering him toward the double sided panel of xenonite.
Grace rushed over.
There, on the other side of the xenonite, stood approximately 60,000 Eridians, who had made the pilgrimage to the Centre for Human-Eridian Friendship from all corners of Erid.
Together, to the cold horror of Grace, they sang the bridge of God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.
“Oh fudge!” He turned to his friend for support
“What do I do, Rock?” he exclaimed
“How can I stop this?”
Rocky, the little bastard, responded:
“God only knows, Grace. God only knows.”
And then the traitor fled, scuttling away in his bipedal form whilst Grace gave chase, arms at the ready to shake his carapace when he caught that rascal.