Sword Play

After a long day in the office, which by the way just happens to be in my penthouse apartment, I figured it was high time to hop down the hall to the kitchen and grab me a snack. I felt good again. All the reports were in and the brownie production was up and running. Best of all, Qui-Gon and I could now step back into our appropriate rolls as CEO and figureheads.

I walked through the living room where Qui was finishing up cleaning his little…eh…incident the other day. “You feeling better?”

“Oh, yeah. I spent the night with my plants meditating and listening to old records of Bob Dugyn,” he responded with a relaxed smile.

“Hey. Where’s Dooku?”

”Oh, he said now that he’s back to normal he can go out and show his face again. So…I don’t know. He went out. Oh, you got some mail on the counter there.”

I took a look. Most of it was junk mail. There was a letter from J.A.W.A. (the Jawa Advanced Wonders Association- a union of Jawas back home that I belong to.) Probably want another donation. I’ll put that one on the bottom of the pile.

I then came across a long package address to me from Fluke Skywalker. With increasing interest, I opened the package and found….

A lightsaber!! Not just any lightsaber…but MY lightsaber. It seems Fluke gave me a lightsaber some time back but I was too busy with other stuff at the time and forgot about it. I turned it on. It was green!!!

“Woah….This is cool!!!”

Qui-Gon looked up and I think his face got as pale as milk. “Uh…J.J. That’s a lightsaber.”

“I know that.”

“Who gave that to you?”

“Fluke”

I heard Qui shake his head and mutter ‘Goobersmoocher’ under his breath. “Only Jedi are supposed to use those.”

“But Fluke’s not a Jedi, he’s a wannabe.”

“Oh…well…I guess that’s all right then. But you should be careful with that, man. A lightsaber is a delicate weapon yet extremely dangerous in the hands of an untrained person. It requires years of practice and diligence to the forms to….

“YAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!”

“J.J.! Now stop that. You can’t just run around with a lightsaber like…”

“WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

I guess I got a little over exuberant cos the next thing I knew I was being lifted into the air while my arms became as stiff as stone. I took a deep breath and looked down to see Qui using the Force on me.

“I’m sorry, man. But if you are going to use a lightsaber, you got to learn control. And besides…I just finished cleaning up the place.”

“Eh….Sorry Qui. I guess I got a little carried away. It’s just that I always wanted a lightsaber.”

“I understand,” he spoke in sympathetic tones releasing me from the Force. “But it takes a very disciplined mind to start down the Jedi path.”

“Woah. Wait a second. Who said anything about being a Jedi? Jawas can’t touch the Force. We can barely touch a counter top. I just want to use a lightsaber.”

“But only Jedi may use lightsabers as their weapon.”

“Is it in writing?”

“um…..oh……well, no. It’s kind of an unwritten code, but-"

”Ulp! Not in writing then it’s not legally binding. You know that.” I then turned on my turgid green saber once again. “HiiiiiiiiiYAAAAAAA!!!”

“No. No. Wait. Let me at least…um train you how to use the thing so that you don’t kill yourself…..or me again.”

“Trainning? Why do I need training? Don’t you just wave this thing around spastically-like until you hit something?”

“Oh…well…I guess you do.”

“Well, there ya go. Training’s over. Now to…”

Just then, the doorbell rang. And just as I was about to do a back flip. “All right, all right. I’ll let you give me some pointers. Let me get the door first.” I turned off my new weapon and walked over to the door. I half expected Yoda behind it. (You know how he is when he hears someone breaking his precious Jedi Code…I bet those Force Wedgies he administers aren’t written in the Jedi Code either…)

As it turned out, the face behind the door was non-other than Commander Oneida.

I was very surprised to see her. It seemed kinda early for a booty call. (Of course I would never tell her I thought of such a thing…)

“J.J. ….I need to talk to you.” She was dressed in her formal naval officer blues and had a grim look on her face. Obviously she was on duty.

“Yeah, come on in. I haven’t seen ya since the Big Brother game. What’s shakin’ toots?”

She looked uncomfortable at first, like she didn’t know where to start. “I…I have some bad news for you. It’s….it’s about your mom.”