By Kerrie Noor
“A knob by any other name still requires a hand to work it.”
“February is a month never spoken about on Planet Hy Man,” I said to Bunnie.
Bunnie, a master of multitasking, was spring cleaning and listening, while Mex was sitting on the couch, feet up, trying to get to grips with the Radio Times.
Bunnie muttered a “hmmm.”
“We used to celebrate it when men were more than footmen and enjoyed festivals, dressing up, and coming home to a woman pleased to see them,” I said. “Back in the days when automation was on the cusp of existence.”
“March, on the other hand, is a month of cleaning,” muttered Mex.
“And what the hell is a footman?” said Bunnie, working up a shine on the TV screen.
“March,” I continued, “is a month of celebration for us on Planet Hy Man. It is the anniversary of the first egg fertilisation and the beginning of the end for men and their stupid festivals.”
“It’s celebrated by wearing giant Petri dishes on one’s head,” muttered Mex, turning the magazine upside down. The TV Guide really threw her.
Bunnie stopped. “What?”
“And for those who can’t afford a Petri dish, anything that looks like a large Petri dish,” I said.
“Aye right,” muttered Bunnie, returning to her polishing.
“A month where women are ‘tickled pink’ and spring into action at the drop of a hat,” I said.
“Or pertinent dish, if you want to get technical,” said Mex with a flick of a page.
“You’re taking the piss,” said Bunnie.
“The first day of March is spent filling one’s Petri dish with freebies. The markets are free, and the lower-level Building of Opulence is open to all.”
“Women go crazy,” muttered Mex.
“I find that hard to believe,” said Bunnie.
“And create such a mess that it takes the rest of the month to clean up,” I said.
“March is a month hated by the cleaning team,” muttered Mex, rotating the magazine with a confused look.
Bunnie stopped in her tracks. “Wait a minute—you have a building called Opulence?”
“Well, yes,” I said.
“Why would you call a building Opulence?” said Bunnie.
“Figure of speech, ma’am.”
“It’s more a statement,” said Mex, tossing the magazine aside with disinterest.
“Of what?”
“Well, opulence—it’s not available for everyone, I guess,” said Mex.
Bunnie admired her polished TV. “Yes, we all know that,” she said, flicking imaginary dust from the top. “But what is opulence in your world?”
“How would I know?” muttered Mex.
Bunnie looked at her.
“Anything that is in the building of opulence, ma’am,” I said.
“And what is that?” said Bunnie.
“I don’t know,” sighed Mex. “I have only been to the room with a view for orders. I am not a Voted In. I am only allowed up the back entrance.”
Bunnie moved on to polishing the door. Surveying the finger marks, she let Izzie in.
“I have spent the last month trying to understand a world where men are footmen, whatever that is.”
“Men who stand to attention, ma’am, and retrieve things, sort of like a . . . retriever,” I muttered.
Bunnie eyed me with the sort of look she called cryptic. “Really?”
Izzie barked and jumped up on Mex’s lap, his favourite place.
Mex cooed. “We don’t have dogs on Planet Hy Man, ma’am,” she said.
“That explains a lot, except . . .” Bunnie eyed Mex, who was talking gibberish to Izzie.
“You’re the great man spy who rid Planet Hy Man of all men,” said Bunnie, “kicked them out.”
“More kicked to the gym, ma’am,” I said.
“You made it all possible though,” Bunnie said to Mex.
“Well, yes,” said Mex.
“Why the back entrance then?” said Bunnie.
“The Voted In are easily impressed,” I said to Bunnie. “Their idea of opulence is anything others can’t afford.”
“And?” said Bunnie.
“And Mex and the like choose what to make unaffordable,” I said. “It keeps them happy, malleable.”
“Who’s a cute boy?” Mex cooed at Izzie.
“Insightful,” muttered Bunnie.
“Turns out it doesn’t matter if it’s males or females who rule. They are all the same in the end,” I said.
“I see,” tutted Bunnie.
“Manipulatable,” muttered Mex.
“What some would call a knob,” said Bunnie, now polishing one.
Mex and I, confused, looked at each other until Bunnie gave a way-too-in-depth description of the true meaning of a knob, where, as she put it, polishing was negotiable.
“So, the polishing of a knob,” I said, “is a term best kept in the same sentence as a duster.”
“Or Mr. Clean.” She chuckled.
“On our planet,” muttered Mex, “polishing is strictly for the robots.”
About the Author
Kerrie Noor
Kerrie Noor was born in Melbourne Australia in 1960 but has spent most of her adult life in Scotland.
She has, in the past been a regular on Dunoon Community Radio, taught and performed Belly dancing, ‘done’ a little stand up, performed as a story teller and appeared at the Edinburgh Festival.
She has had one radio script performed on BBC Scotland and has been short listed for the Ashram short story award.
She writes both Sci fi comedy and romantic comedy and is about to publish her fourth book in her Planet Hy Man series The Rise Of Manifesto a Sci Fi comedy with a twist.
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
Timothy Dwyer is an American science-fiction writer living in New Zealand.
Haneko Takayama is an award-winning Japanese writer. In 2009, her short story “Udon, Kitsune tsuki no” was a runner-up for the Sogen SF Short Story Award. 
Amy Logan's first work was published on October 29, 1970. It has been a bit of a dry spell since, so she is very excited to have the opportunity to contribute to AntipodeanSF.
Keech has been writing fiction and poetry for 40 years, and is currently working on a speculative novel of the Afterlife, focusing on Victorian literature, though it is technically set in the near future.
Bruce is an older Australian, living in Adelaide, who enjoys reading and writing, especially short stories and flash fiction.
Myna Chang writes flash and short stories in a variety of genres.
Umiyuri Katsuyama is a multiple-award-winning writer of fantasy and horror, often based on Asian folklore motifs.
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
Although a writer of the baby boom persuasion, Ed has not boomed for quite a while.
Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
