“Women!” said Kiss aloud. The word echoed round inside the bottle and died away.

Never mind. If it’s any consolation, when the planet gets blown up in a few minutes I expect the force of the blast will shatter the bottle and you’ll be away clear. It’s an odd thing, but in any significant explosion, glass is usually one of the first things to go.

Kiss looked up, and then down, and then from side to side. “Do I know you?” he asked.

I’m the duty GA. I’m having a busy shift, actually, because I was talking to another guy in more or less the same fix as you not that long ago.

“Go away.”

Beg pardon?

“I said go away. I’ve got enough to put up with as it is.”

There was a pause.

Why is everybody so blasted hostile? I’m only doing my job.

“Take the day off. Go and spend some quality time with the family.”

It’s a pity you feel you have to adopt that attitude, you know, because the GA service really does have a great deal to offer to people in your position. If you weren’t so cramped in there, I could give you some leaflets which—

“No leaflets. Piss off.”

It’s this crisis of confidence which is bringing the profession to its knees. Me, I blame franchising. Under the old system—

“I said—”

Under the old system, you see, I could have brought gentle subliminal influences to bear on that mouse…

“Piss… What mouse?”

The mouse presently scampering along the mantelpiece on which your fragile glass bottle is resting, three feet above a tiled fireplace. Like I was saying, I could have subtly suggested to that mouse that it might find it a good idea to run along this mantelpiece terribly fast, regardless of the risk of accidentally brushing up against your bottle and dislodging it. Whereupon the bottle would have fallen to the floor and smashed, and…

“Yes, thanks,” Kiss said. “I think I was there way before you. Now, about this mouse…”

Small for its species, sort of greyish-brown, whiskers, answers to the name of Keek. Unusually gullible, too, even for a mouse. The faintest suggestion that there’s a small crumb of mozzarella just to the side of your bottle, and all your problems would have been over. Pity, really.

“Gosh.”

Yes. As it is, the voice continued sadly, all I can do is offer moral support and axioms of an uplifting nature designed to help you to come to terms with the harsh reality of your situation without too much culture shock. For instance, “It’s a long road that has no turning.” “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” Actually, that’s not quite true, because generally speaking just before dawn you get that rather attractive pastel-pink light just above the horizon, which always puts me in mind…

“Excuse me…”

…of a strawberry milk-shake. Sorry, did you say something?

“The mouse. Now where is it?”

About eight inches to your immediate left. It seems to be eating a microscopic crumb of some sort, probably toasted crumpet.

“I wonder if you might possibly…”

No, it’s gone again. Something must have disturbed it. That’s a real shame, in my opinion. A good mouse is hard to find, I always think.

“Gone?”

“Fraid so, yes. Now then, where were we? Had I got on to “If at first you don’t succeed” yet?

Kiss slumped against the side of the bottle. True, in even the most spacious bottle slumping room is generally at a premium, but he managed quite nicely under the circumstances.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Any minute now, the air is going to be blue with fucking great big nuclear bombs. Unless I do something about it, these bombs are going to blow up the planet. Now, can you do anything to help?”

That does put rather a different complexion on it, the voice admitted.

“I rather thought it might.”

Quite so. In that case, I think either, “You can’t make omelettes”, or “It’s no use crying over spilt milk” would be rather more appropriate. Or possibly even, “It is better to have loved and lost than…”

This, Kiss reflected, is what comes of getting involved. If I was back in the bar right now, along with the rest of the lads, none of this would matter. True the planet would go pop, but so what, there’s plenty of planets. Let’s have another cup of coffee and another piece of pie. But as it is…

“I think I’ll pass on all of those, thank you. So unless you’ve got anything actually positive to suggest…”

Try singing.

“Right, that does it,” Kiss snarled. “Unless you’re out of my head in a five seconds flat, I’m going to bash my brains out against the side of the bottle. One-Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three-Mississippi.”

He paused and listened. Nothing. Good.

Won’t be long now. Time, ladies and gentlemen, please. Haven’t you got afterlives to go to?

He waited.

Try singing. Try singing, for God’s sake. Yes, of course! Now why the hell hadn’t he thought of that for himself?

The bomb had fallen asleep.

Just, grumbled the carpet to itself, my bloody rotten luck. First time I’ve been on a promise in God knows how long, and she goes and falls asleep on me. Marvellous.

The carpet flew on regardless. It was, after all, a gentle carpet. Take her back to the shop, let her sleep it off there.

As if things weren’t bad enough, it noticed as it flew, she snores. Or rather, she ticks loudly in her sleep. Amounts to the same thing, in the long run.

Question. Since it’s such a painfully obvious solution, why hasn’t anybody thought of doing it before?

Answer. Because genies are generally too bone-idle and pig-ignorant to try anything. Put a genie in a bottle and he’ll stay there till somebody lets him out. After all, they have all the time in the world.

Kiss cleared his throat, swallowed, and sang.

“Do-rey-mi-fah-so-la-tee-do!”

Nothing. He tried again, an octave higher. Then an octave higher still. That was enough to make his eyes water and his teeth ache.

Excelsior.

“Do-rey-mi-fah-so-la — tee-DO!”

He paused to massage his throat and jaw. Come on, Kiss, if some fat lady in a blond wig and a hat with horns on can do it, so can you. Higher still.

“DO-REY-MI-FAH-SO-LA-TEE-DO!”

He broke off, coughing like a terminal tuberculosis case, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Reckon I’m just not cut out for this sort of work, he told himself.

Indeed. Very apt.

“DO-REY-MI-FAH…”

Success; and just in time, too. Another note higher and he’d have been in no fit state to save green shield stamps, let alone the world.

Subjected to a harmonic stress equivalent to seven fat elephants jumping up and down on it, the bottle flew into pieces. Kiss tumbled out, cutting himself to the bone on broken glass as he did so, hit the tiled floor of the fireplace, swore horribly and scrambled to his feet; all in one nice, fluid movement. All around him windows were falling out, decanters were splitting, light bulbs were popping. The mouse was curled up in a ball in the coal-scuffle, its paws jammed in its ears. Only the picture of Abraham Lincoln seemed not to mind, probably because its mind was on other things.

“Now then,” Kiss said aloud, as he aimed himself at the window. “That was the easy bit.”

He jumped.

The sky, when he got there, was a bit like the Rome rush-hour. Nose to tail intercontinental ballistic missiles, all hopelessly snarled up, their proximity-actuated guidance systems completely up the pictures, all at a complete standstill; honking, swearing, waggling their fins in unconcealed fury, trying to nudge past on the inside, ignoring the traffic-light beacons helpfully shot up into orbit by Side A’s mission control centre, and generally not improving the situation. Kiss crossed from Europe to Asia by walking across the backs of bottleneck bombs.

There is no need, Kiss realised, to save the world. Just sit back and let old Captain Balls-Up do it for you.