An Alien Interlude

An Alien Interlude

It is hopeless. I will surely die in here. I am running out of hope. I despair. I am at my wits end. My days are numbered.

Pick any of the above. I get them from the TV signal. They seem to be what I want to say, but I’m not sure. Having never spoken to a human before, I’m not so sure of its correctness.

I was considered a criminal on my home planet -- at least in their fine opinion. Me? I just wanted to live free or die. They say die. So there I go. Launched into space with token comforts except that of family and warmth. They give me video screen so they can torture me with pictures of family struggling without their Pa.

I like watching your Walton family. So I call myself Pa. Every night I say night, night to little darlings I leave behind. And feel fortunate that when I arrived on Earth I was no longer able to see family. It is too teary to watch.

Ever since the day my persecutors launched me into the nether regions, I have been sitting here in my craft with no clue as to how to get out. I have video and some nourishment, but can no longer communication with home star. My nourishment, though, is unlike the nourishment I see on the video. It is tasteless, and was meant only to be sufficient enough to sustain my life until my arrival at the prison.

Yet, I do yen for the brisk taste of Tetley tea, or to eat a Taco Bell Chihuahua, for my own source of nourishment will be gone in a short time.

What would Gilligan do? That is my mantra, as I much admire the little buddy in the red shirt. He is industrious and of low intelligence, a much admired trait where I come from. I do not much care for the Skipper, though. I am reminded too much of the large judge who sentenced me to prison planet where I was sent to meet a certain demise.

But by some freak of what is nature, I end up in the earth’s ocean where I wash ashore and am discovered by old-timer man name of Harry. He thinks me some sort of floatation device, and he calls me buoy. But I’m no buoy by any such means. I’m a transporter. At least a transporter while alive. When dead? I am a coffin. And anyone who finds me one day, if this thing ever open, will be frightened, I doubt it not a bit.

I am trapped like Genie in your Arabian Nights. Only I’m not so able to grant wishes. I have no powers as I know of. I know from your movies – which I absorb and try to make the most of – I am to have extraordinary powers that will frighten even your bravest actors. But, alas, I am powerless. I can’t even get out of my own transportation. Imagine if you will not being able to get out of your own transportation. Makes one feel entirely stupid and flush in the face.

Four earth weeks have gone by since I arrived here, and I did my best to gain freedom, only I’m glad I did not gain freedom at the time I was found. For I think Harry would have needed coffin if he had seen Pa. As handsome as I was on home star, it is a different kind of handsome than you are used too.

I inhabit a place Harry calls the Alien Fright House, because Harry thinks my transporter looks like an alien spacecraft.

A man called Slither thinks I look like alien terror bomb. He believes I will blow fright house to a place called Smithereens. I’ve never heard of such a place. But not such a bad sounding place, I’m thinking.

Earlier in the day Slither attacks Pa’s ship with blunt object the noise of which frightens Pa out of his wits. It is large clanking noise that scraps the transporter and makes the little hairs on Pa’s head stand up and shiver.

Harry assures Slither I am no bomb, only simple buoy. But slither continued his attack on Pa until many men in hats carried him away.

Thus I was christened the Death Ray Squadron III.
Later in the day people seem impressed enough to kick me many times and point their empty fingers in my direction. Bang! Bang! They say. Take that evildoer!

I am called a star attraction. Harry has me hid behind the curtain like a talk show guest. Then at certain intervals the curtain is drawn, and pre-recorded spaceship battle noises are blasted over the speaker system and many lights flashed my way. This event startles many of the older people and causes many shouts of “Turn that damn thing down you numb skulls!”

I dream someday that Harry draws the curtain and calls me onstage:

“Ladies and gentleman! All the way from the planet Gloam! One of the funniest aliens you’ll ever rub antennae with! Give it up for Pa!”
“Thank you! Thank You! Thank you!” I’d say. “Sure nice to be back on earth! I haven’t been here since the nineteenth century, and boy, was I glad to get away! Nothing but war, disease, racial strife and political corruption! Now I’m back and can’t wait to see the improvements!”

Sadly, my act ends there, for I know improvements are lacking. Oh, I know you have a better tasting toothpaste and longer lasting gum, but I’m talking about improvements of the heart and mind.

I am suddenly serious when I mean to be uplifting. It is sad when one sits alone and ponders life’s peculiar ways. But my only diversion is the video, and it runs constantly; needing to fill so many hours with news and entertainment that even the minor becomes major:

Breaking News! Billionaire heiress Cindy Socialite’s beloved pooch gets a makeover! See it exclusively on Channel 2 news! Plus hungry people and Aids in Africa blah, blah, blah . . .

I must pick up my spirits if I am to survive this ordeal. I’m longing for home and a good scrubbing from my beloved. And though I feel home is now an impossible endeavor, I must stay alive and get out of my transporter. Even if I am stuck on earth, it is sure to beat death and nothingness – I think.

But how do I do this? And if I do this, what are my chances for survival? So many questions, so little answers. I may yet have my own video news show one day. And now I must think.