#improvised comedy

The helicopter thudded impatiently on the landing pad, its blades chopping the air into anxious pieces. The sky had the color of old steel. Below it stood the President of the United States, coat tugged tight, staring at the horizon where the Cube had begun to glow again.

"Sir," said the guard beside him, stiff and careful. "They’re ready when you are."

The President nodded, then paused. "How are you feeling?"

The guard blinked. "Me, sir?"

"Yes. I like to know the people around me."

"I’m… fine. Just security."

"What’s your name?"

"Robson, sir. Son of Rob."

The President smiled faintly. "Robson, son of Rob. A good name. How long have you served?"

"Twelve years. Three presidents."

"And your favorite?"

Robson hesitated. "We’re not meant to—"

"Oh, come on."

"…Obama," he admitted. "He was a good man. Lost him in the war."

The President looked toward the horizon. "Yes. On the horse."

"Shirtless," Robson said solemnly.

"With a sword."

"A shame he didn’t take a tank." Robson said "But, he chose the horse."

They stood in silence. Somewhere far away, the Cube hummed—a low geometric sound.

"My time has come," the President said. "The Cube has returned."

Robson swallowed. "The last cubing nearly ended us."

A voice interrupted them. "Husband!"

They both turned. A woman hurried forward, fierce and breathless.

"My wife," the President said. "She calls me that."

"Husband," she said again. "You can’t go."

"I have to."

"No. You don’t. You remember what happened to Obama."

"I have to be like him."

She grabbed his sleeve. "Then at least don’t take a sword."

Robson nodded vigorously. "Sir, respectfully—any weapon but a sword."

But the President shook his head. "The Cube doesn’t fall to bullets. Or rockets. Only a sword and a horse have ever worked."

"I’m coming with you," the woman said.

"No."

"I am."

They stared at each other until the world narrowed to that single moment of stubborn love.

"I love you," she said. "And you’re the President of the United States of America," she added, as if daring him to contradict her.

He smiled. "Say it again."

───

Across the country, people watched the Cube’s shadow creep closer.

Two men sat on a porch in the South.

"Looks like the one from twelve years ago," one said.

"I remember that," the other replied. "Didn’t vote for Obama, but I respected him. Shirtless on a horse. That’s leadership."

"That’s how I wanna go."

A radio crackled. Then silence.

"Oh, what’s he going to say now?" Bubba muttered. "Probably that we’re out of water. Again." He gave a dry laugh that didn’t quite land.

"Or that he’s calling up the Reserves. That’d be me." Jeremiah muttered. 

Bubba turned toward him sharply. "Don’t say that. I mean it," he said, softer now. "I don’t want to hear it"

Bubba stepped closer, voice breaking through its usual bravado. "I don’t want you going anywhere. I love you. I’d hide you in the basement if I had to. I’d tuck you up in the attic and board the door shut. Anything to keep your body safe."

Jeremiah smiled, sad and tired. "I know."

"Stay with me," Bubba said. "Don’t go somewhere I can’t follow."

Jeremiah looked down at his hands. "I made a vow to my country."

"And you made one to me," Bubba shot back. "In that cornfield. You went down on one knee and said my name like it was a promise. You said you’d never leave my side. Not ever. Not even after the war took my legs and gave me these wooden ones instead."

"You don’t have to remind me," Jeremiah said quietly. "I carry those vows with me every day I think about going back out there. Every day I think about that Cube."

"You can’t fight it," Bubba said. "You don’t have a horse. You don’t have a sword. That’s the only thing that’s ever worked."

Jeremiah huffed a bitter laugh. "You think the Army doesn’t have thousands of horses they could lend me?"

Bubba tilted his head, studying him. "Sounds like you want to go."

He opened his mouth, closed it again. "Maybe I do. Maybe when you’ve been to war like I have—"

"Don’t," Bubba snapped. "Don’t you dare tell me about war. My legs are made of wood."

The words hit the room like a dropped plate.

Jeremiah swallowed. "You know as well as I do," he said gently, "a part of you always stays on the battlefield."

Bubba stared at him, jaw tight, eyes wet.

"Yeah," he said. "My fucking legs."

Then, finally, the President’s voice—The broadcast crackled into life with a long, uncertain breath.

"My friends… Americans… Romans… Americans… and—ah—people."

"I come before you today because I have… a great—" he stopped, regrouped, then continued, his voice drifting strangely southward, rounding its vowels. "I come speakin’ to you in your own tongue, so you can understand me a little better down there."

The accent wavered, tried to settle, failed. It was not quite Southern, not quite anything, as if geography itself had lost confidence.

"I know many of you don’t want a return to the war from years ago. The one where we lost Obama." He paused. "But enemies have a way of comin’ back stronger. You cut off the head of a snake, it grows back meaner. And when the enemy is a cube—well."

He cleared his throat.

"When you cut the head off a cube, you don’t really solve anything. You just make more sides. More problems. A cube can become… well. Somethin’ else. An octagon. Or maybe a quadragon. The math ain’t important. What matters is this—"

His voice sharpened suddenly, rising with borrowed conviction.

"What matters is you. Look at the person you love right now. Really look at them. Imagine a great cube descendin’ from the sky and crushin’ them flat. Legs gone. Head gone. Everything you know about them turned into geometry."

He inhaled, audibly steadying himself.

"And then tell me you wouldn’t climb onto a horse. Tell me you wouldn’t ride out and fight for the human race."

The signal wavered. Static hissed like wind through dead grass.

"I’ll leave you with a poem," he said, softer now, almost pleased with himself. "By Rudyard Kipling."

He recited it poorly, but with conviction:

" 'When the wind does blow,

To and fro,

You must get your shit together

And fuck up them hoes.' "

The broadcast cut out shortly after, leaving only the hum of electricity and the uneasy sense that history had just cleared its throat again.

The man with wooden legs squeezed his partner’s hand. "I’d go," he said softly. "So I understand if you gotta go."

"I gotta go." Jeremiah muttered

Bubba nodded, "I’ll keep the farm waitin’ for you."

───

The Cube army arrived without ceremony.

They descended like thoughts made solid: vast, humming blocks folding space around themselves. Smaller cubes bustled beneath them, chirping in tones that almost sounded cheerful.

"We seek the Nintendo GameCube," announced the Cube Commander. "The most powerful cube-based technology in human history."

A smaller cube malfunctioned mid-sentence and collapsed with a sad electronic wheeze.

"No!" cried another. "He was my friend!"

The cubes regrouped.

"Send scouts," said the commander. "Stealth Cubes. Learn how many swords. How many horses."

Light twisted. Shapes softened. Two cubes reformed themselves into human outlines, imperfect and glowing.

"Remember," one whispered, "less cubic."

They walked toward the front line.

A soldier greeted them cheerfully. "Defense post! Round front. Confuses the cubes."

One of the disguised cubes tried to walk and forgot how arms worked.

"Think water," the other hissed.

Music played from a nearby radio. A crooner sang about the moon.

"What is this?" the cube asked.

"Frank Sinatra."

"I know Frank Sinatra," the cube said instantly.

"You do?"

"Yes."

"What’s his famous song?"

"Cube."

The human frowned.

The radio began to howl—frequencies warping, reality bending.

The disguise failed.

Steel screamed. Someone screamed louder.

"They’ve breached the line!" the soldier shouted. Gunfire erupted around them.

───

Inside a command tent, the President paced.

The figure burst into the command chamber with urgency badly disguised as confidence.

"Where is the President?" it demanded. "I bring a message. Not about cubes. About presidents."

The President looked up from the console. "Are you the man they sent to fix my computer?"

"Yes!" the figure said at once.

The President clapped once, relieved. "Good. I need this working. I have to send orders. The troops must advance through the eastern front."

"The eastern front?" the figure repeated, tilting its head.

"Yes. And then they’ll attack. We have to attack." His voice wavered. "They’re already coming. Oh God… I’m never going to be like Obama."

The figure leaned closer. "You knew Obama?"

"I did," the President said. "Now he’s dead. He has two sides. Like a square."

The figure considered this. "Do you want to be a square?"

"No—if you’re not cool, you’re a square."

A voice burst in before the thought could finish forming.

"Husband!"

He turned sharply. "Wife! I— I thought you were— how was the front?"

"Beautiful," she said, breathless. "Terrible. Beautiful."

She gestured toward the stranger. "Who’s this?"

"My technician," the President said quickly. "He’s helping with the computer."

"I’m helping," the figure agreed, pleased.

Miranda studied him, head tilted. "You’re very… square."

"Thank you," he said warmly.

An awkward quiet settled, humming with machines and distant alarms.

"Did you know Obama?" the The President asked.

The technician nodded. "I was there. At the end of the Obama-time."

The room seemed to contract.

"He came rushing forward," the technician said, eyes brightening. "Riding the cubes themselves. So fast. So strong. For one moment, the cubes hesitated. He broke their front line."

The air thickened as the story took shape.

"His sword pierced the greatest cube. Jelly poured out—cube jelly. Everything became soft. All jelly. We did not like it-" A pause. "The cubes did not like it, I mean."

A small, nervous laugh escaped him.

"And then Obama disappeared into the jelly. One man for many. Gone inside it."

Silence followed, reverent and uneasy.

The technician lowered his voice. "He went through so much. When you are on a battlefield… a part of you does not come back."

The President swallowed.

"Oh," he said quietly.

And in that softness—in the shared reverence, the confusion, the grief—the room seemed to tilt, just slightly, toward something else. Toward a trap quietly closing.

───

A stealth cube. In the camp. The President had been taken.

Outside, alarms wailed. Inside the Cube, something deeper awakened.

They rode together into the breach: the President, his spouse, and a cowboy.

They rode on one horse, singing badly, yelling defiance at the sky.

Inside the Cube, geometry folded inward. Space became argument. Logic curved.

The cowboy fell first. Held in the arms of his love, Bubba. "Go inside the Cube. Finish it!" Jeremiah told him with his last breath.

At the center waited the Queen Cube—vast, radiant, patient.

"You have entered the cube-within-cubes," she said. "We came for your GameCube. But we found more."

The President’s spouse appeared, transformed—cube legs humming softly.

"I chose this," she said. "To understand them."

The Queen Cube spoke gently. "We are tired of war. Humans become jelly. Cubes become jelly. In jelly, we are equal."

"You killed him," Bubba said.

"Would you like him back?"

Silence.

"There is enough life-jelly for one return."

The choice hung in the air, heavy as gravity.

"Not Obama," Bubba demanded. "Bring back my husband."

The Cube hesitated. "That is… love."

"Love doesn’t have shape," Bubba said. "It doesn’t have sides."

The Queen Cube considered this.

"Very well."

Light poured out. Forms melted and re-formed. Jelly shimmered, rearranged itself, remembered.

A body returned. Human. Breathing. Jeremiah was alive again.

The Cube dimmed.

"Peace," it said. "A world that is part round, part square."

───

Later, as dawn rose—round and soft—Bubba and Jeremiah stood hand in hand, back in their field, staring up at the empty sky where the cube had been just hours earlier. 

───────

watch IMPROVISED PLAY #11 | "Inside the Mysterious Cube" | Shoot From The Hip :