“Somebody ate all the watermelons.”

Denzel stopped looking at the painting he was holding in his upper legs. The pink human required his attention yet again. He turned around in his chair and looked them in the eyes: how small and lifeless they always were. There was nothing interesting in them.

“I am sorry for your watermelons,” Denzel beeped coldly. He had by now grown tired of the pink human’s endless schemes and plotting.

“I guess we’re back to crackers then. Darn. This will take forever.”

Denzel nodded.

“It will. I hope to see you succeed during my lifetime,” he lied comfortably. Humans couldn’t smell lies.  

The pink human broke out in uncontainable laughter. It took them a few minutes to calm down to the point where they could say something. Those few short moments of laughter buzzed through Denzel’s brain like a swarm of bees.

“I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you,” the human finally said.

Denzel didn’t bother replying to that. His lifespan was much shorter than that of the human’s; besides, not seeing them succeed was actually a relief. He didn’t want to have the burden of choosing sides. Perhaps a life of simple existence was all one needed to be happy. Denzel had found many clever ways to keep himself entertained; it wasn’t all wasted, no. Happiness was found in the little things. That was what human philosophy was all about.

The human stood up and walked over to Denzel. They were, surprisingly, in high spirits today despite their failure with watermelon theft. It wasn’t unusual for the pink human to be unsuccessful: Denzel had enjoyed plenty such occasions up until now. Perhaps the human was finally learning to embrace failure.

“Well, what are we looking at now?” the human asked before they even got to the desk.

Denzel was tired of constantly answering questions from someone with zero understanding of art. Sometimes, he even made up his verdict about a painting without really looking at it; that was one particularly amusing game, but one which lost its charm rather quickly since Denzel never knew if he was winning. But today he was in a good mood as well: finding a way to smuggle watermelons behind his supervisor’s back was something Denzel was not looking forward to.

“A typical post-millennial painting of nature at night. Nothing special. Nothing unheard of” he beeped through the little device on his antennae.

“Post-millennial? Darn. We’re really out of luck today. We can’t burn those,” the human replied.

Denzel was a bit surprised by that response. He wasn’t aware of any restrictions. Nobody had mentioned anything up to this point.

“Why not?” he asked without giving it too much thought.

“You don’t know? Post-millennial art is the only somewhat adequate representation of the outside world. Mozart is dead for sure, but rivers might still be flowing somewhere.”

Denzel scratched his head for the first time in his life. Now that he thought of it, this was probably one of the few painting of the post-millennial period he had so far seen. One or two might have been burned thanks to his simple amusement strategies. It was best he kept quiet about that.

“But this is mostly the night sky. Of what use could it possibly be to you humans?” Denzel tried his best to steer the conversation in another direction.

“Do I look like I care? Maybe the stars change their shapes or something. It’s the boss’s orders. The big guy,” the human said and made some sort of strange sign with their hands. Denzel didn’t understand anything, but he wasn’t going to press the matter.

“Stars don’t change so quickly,” Denzel flapped and gave the human a slightly irritated look. The pink human’s bottom parts were now touching the left corner of the painting.

“Whatever. I don’t get it either. The moon and the stars are of zero interest to me. Just sniff out the age of the paint and I’ll toss it aside. I’m starting to get cold. I hope the next one is from the Renaissance or something.”

Denzel’s heart skipped a beat; even though it was probably twice the size of the average human’s head, the pink human didn’t notice anything. And then it started pounding. Very, very fast.

“The moon?” Denzel carefully circled back to what the human had just said.

“Yeah. The moon. The stars. You’ve never heard of those? I thought you come from the outside?” the pink human replied.

Denzel focused a few of his eye lenses on the image in front of him, while still looking at the pink human. There were clearly two moons drawn on it. One was the usual moon everyone knew about, even the pink human; then there was the small, floating, blasted-off piece of moon right next to it. It could be confused for a star, of course: there were plenty of shiny objects in the night sky. But this one resembled the second moon so closely. The small moon which was blown off during the third space station war. It was a recent event in history, no longer than 300 years ago. It had nothing to do with post-millennial realism.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was something written inside the small moon.

Denzel’s heart was going to explode. The key he was looking for was standing right there in front of him. He cursed the Lizards. Why couldn’t he just wait until the end of the week and retire? Then it would be all out of his hands.

But now, right now, Denzel had to decide what to do. The painting was real. It existed.

“I guess I never payed attention to the sky,” he beeped.

“Really?” the pink human said, then got up and patted Denzel on the back.” Well, it’s a shame you’ll never get another chance to see it.”

Denzel nodded mechanically. All he could think about was the small moon and the miniature letters inside of it. Were they really so hard to read by humans? They were real letters, taken from the human alphabet. Denzel could clearly see what was written.

“Anyway, tell me the year of the painting and let’s move on. We don’t have all day for this junk. At least I don’t,” the human laughed.

Denzel didn’t need to use his antennae for this one; the normal paint was clearly from the year 2300. And the tiny letters were no more than four months old.

“I’m not sure it’s post-millennial. The paint is quite old. Possibly 1990s,” he lied again, but now his heart was stuck in his throat and was almost going to make him choke. Denzel had never felt such intense feelings in his entire life.

“The 1990s? The time of drugs and internet? Are you sure?” the pink human rubbed their eyes suspiciously and came closer to the painting. They felt something was wrong. Denzel cursed the Lizards once more.

“It’s unusual, but it’s true. The paint is very old. It isn’t post-millennial art.”

The pink human grabbed the painting from underneath Denzel’s legs and scanned it with their eyes. They were in a state of mind he had never before experienced; humans were usually clumsy, careless and corrupt. But now the pink human looked serious.

Denzel realized anything could happen now. They might be able to figure it out.

“Just burn it. It’s useless,” Denzel said and instantly regretted it.

The human locked their cold eyes on Denzel’s face and studied it for a while. Denzel could feel the blood flowing through his entire body. His veins were pulsing. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to end this torture.

The human walked back to their desk and placed the painting there.

“This is post-millennial work, Denzel. I won’t burn it.”

Denzel tried to contain himself as much as possible, but from the smell the human was creating he knew very well that it was all over for him.