Chris and the Aliens

Chris and the Aliens

By Billiam Corona

A crowd gathered around the strange object on the ground. It was your basic small crowd: standing close together, exchanging expressions of concern, murmering and whatnot. Mostly saying obvious things like “What is it?” and “What if its dangerous?” A few friends had found each other and were discussing other friends, not uninterested in the event, but getting there.

The object was small and looked like a steel marble. It had fallen out of the sky with fire. Now the fire was gone and it sat in its little blackened crater. The thing itself was not blackened by fire at all.

“Well its clear to me what the next step here is.” said Donnie, the town douche bag. “One of us needs to eat it.”

“Douche bag.” muttered a bunch of people in the crowd. One person yelled “That makes no sense, Donnie!”

“Ha ha.” said Donnie.

“Someone should touch it.” said Chris, the hero of the story.

“So you touch it then!” said a jerk.

“Ok.” said Chris, who then weaved his way forward from the back of the crowd.

Chris stared down at the weird little thing at his feet. Everybody was very quiet. No one wanted to miss this notable moment in the timeline of the event. Someone said “Don’t do it.” but it was said very softly, and you could tell whoever said it really wanted it to happen. Chris crouched down. He looked at everybody. “Here I go.” he said. Nobody answered. He reached his fingers slowly forward. “Maybe I’ll be famous.” he thought.

TOUCH!!!

Chris disappeared right into thin air. Everyone saw it happen. Half of the people thought “Oh no!”. The other half thought “Awesome!” and then felt bad. Some didn’t feel that bad though and immediately began to fantasize about telling the story to their friends. All of them gasped and yelled one thing or another indicating surprise. They mostly stuck around for a long time hoping for a chance to personally tell some stranger walking by what happened.

Here is what happened with Chris:

He did not feel as if he had disappeared. He felt as if everything but him had done it and been replaced by a bunch of swirly colors and cloudy stuff. There was no ground below his feet, but he felt somehow stable. It was all very pretty and reminded Chris of listening to the Smashing Pumpkins on acid.

“I guess I can’t rule out that I’m dead.” said Chris out loud. “Although…I’m feeling pretty wide awake for it. I always figured death would feel sleepier.

“You are not dead!” boomed a voice behind him. Chris swirled himself around and saw a small cloud about the size of his head floating in front of him. Though it actually looked a bit more like a cloud puppet built from cotton balls. What helped this judgement was that it also had a mouth. A puppet kind of mouth which was hanging open.

Chris was less surprised than fascinated, as his sense of surprise was mostly spent during the initial shock of seeing where he was. He stared at the cloud for a few moments amused, before beginning to feel the awkwardness of unintentional silence. Finally he spoke to it:

“What are you, anyway?”

The cloud chuckled and lifted slightly up and down a few times in laughter.

“Oh,” it said “I’d tell you but you couldn’t comprehend what I am.”

“Well, now I want to know even more!” said Chris, annoyed at the cloud’s smug reply.

“No, trust me.” said the cloud. “Your head would probably explode. I’m far too complex and awesome.”

“I’m starting to think I would understand just fine, and you’re just a jerk.”

“No, shut up.” said the cloud.

“You shut up!” said Chris. “You are a bad conversationist. Go find me someone to talk to that I’d like, how about?”

The cloud let out a spiteful laugh and said: “Fine, I don’t care.” and floated off.

“Unbelievable.” said Chris to himself. “It really is pretty here though.”

A white unicorn galloped up to Chris through the air. “I am Jimmy the unicorn. Donnie the cloud told me to come and talk to you. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing’” answered Chris. “I was just gonna ask about where I was and what’s going on, but to be honest unless you have a real answer, maybe I’ll just figure it out myself. Donnie kind of got on my nerves.”

“Oh, yeah, Donnie’s annoying.” said Jimmy, glancing back into the distance. “Its actually pretty simple. This is a spaceship and we’re aliens. The ship’s computer goes into your mind and replaces all the real images with stuff in your mind to help with the surprise. Also for security purposes to keep everything secret. You’ll never see what the inside of the ship or us really looks like.”

“You look like a unicorn to me, in case you’re interested.” said Chris.

“Uh…yeah. No clue.” said Jimmy. “So anyway, yeah. Its all metaphor, kinda.”

“I knew Donnie was full of shit.” Chris remarked.

Jimmy laughed.

“What did he say?”

“He said I wouldn’t be able to comprehend it, just being annoying.”

“Ha ha! He’s so stupid!”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you doing up here anyway?” asked Jimmy.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing! Didn’t you guys abduct me?”

“Nah, I don’t think so…We’re just kind of hanging out up here.”

“Hanging out?”

“Yeah, not really doing much. Just floatin’ around. You can hang out if you want though.”

Well…alright. Sure, I’d love to hang out on a spaceship, actually.”

“No worries. I’ll show you around. Come on.”

“How do I move around?”

“What?”

“I’m floating.”

“No you’re not. You’re on the ground. Just move your feet.”

Chris realized then that he indeed felt as if he was standing on the ground. He began to move his feet in succession, and was on the move.

The imagery surrounding him did not move, being supposedly so far away. He simply trusted his feet and kept in the direction of the unicorn ahead of him. It was dizzying.

After a few minutes of walking, the scenery was instantly wiped away into completely different scenery. He was now standing in a grassy field surrounded by large boulders all over the place. It was all very pretty and reminded Chris of visiting Yosemite National Park when he was little.

The unicorn led Chris behind a boulder where they discovered a leprechaun. It was seated on the ground at a large assortment of pebbles. They were all half buried in the dirt and the leprechaun was pressing on them as if they were buttons. He looked quite serious about it.

“Hey, Todd.” said Jimmy.

“Hey there, Jimmy.” said the leprechaun.

“This is Todd, he’s our pilot.”

“Oh, right.” said Chris.

“Who’s this fuckin’ guy? Can we eat him?” hissed Todd pointing a bony green finger in Chris’s direction. Chris looked at Jimmy, who didn’t seem to care what happened either way. Chris felt slightly terrified. Then the leprechaun smiled.

“Eh, I’m just messin around. How ya doin’, pal?”

“I guess this is our new crew member.” explained Jimmy to Todd. “He just appeared here out of nowhere, but he seems cool.”

“I don’t know about crew member.” Chris interrupted, smiling nervously. “I wanna go home at some point.”

Chris was still shaking off the terror of possibly being eaten, and was beginning to feel out of place.

“He doesn’t wanna be here, Jimmy. He said so. Don’t put words in his mouth.”

“No, I mean….I just…I like it here. I just wanna go home at some point. This ship is pretty cool.” stammered Chris, suddenly self conscious.

“What the fuck do you know about this ship?”

Chris looked at the leprechaun blankly.

“Jeez!” said the leprechaun with an annoyed half smile. “I am kidding with you! Ever heard a joke before?”

“Yeah.” Chris said dumbly.

“Ah!” the leprechaun said, waving Chris away. Chris took a few steps back.

“So what’s on the map today?” asked Jimmy, walking over to the other side of Todd. Then Jimmy looked at Chris with a smile. “We’re blowing up planets today.”

“See,” said Todd, looking at Chris again. “we don’t have much to do with our spare time, so some days we just blast around blowing up planets, asteroids, etc. it’s a real rush, and it beats work which we have none of anyway so who cares, right?”

“Why don’t you have anything to do?” asked Chris.

“Budget cuts, plus laziness, plus there really is nothing to do. We’ve pretty much seen it all at this point, so now we just amuse ourselves.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah. What say, guy? Wanna blow up a planet?”

“Yeah, actually I do a little.”

“Arrright. Sit on the other side of me.”

Chris walked around Todd and saw on the other side of him a small pool of water. He could see to the bottom of it, but lightly in the form of a reflection he could see an image of outer space.

“This is the front window.” said Todd. “Sit down.”

Chris sat down where he could reach the pebbles and see the water.

“Arrright, here we go.” Todd tapped one of the pebbles with a finger a few times and the stars in the image moved. They appeared to be turning.

After a moment, Earth came into view.

“Locked on. Arrright, just press on this one and we’re in business.”

“Wait!” exclaimed Chris. “That’s Earth!”

“Huh?” said Jimmy.

“Its where I’m from. Don’t blow that up! Everyone I know is there!”

“Oh.” said Todd. “Eh, arrright then.”

“Heh.” Chuckled Jimmy. “Good thing you were here and not there.”

“Tell me about it.” exhaled Chris.

Jimmy scratched his head against the ground and spoke as he raised it back up.

“Oh, hey Todd. I keep forgetting to ask. Have you seen a homing beacon lying around?”

Todd was back to staring at the buttons stoically.

“No.” he said and then looked up at Chris. “Hey what about the red one over there?”

“Yeah, blow up that one. That's Mars. We were gonna go there eventually but I don‘t think anybody really cares that much.”

“Wanna go real quick?” asked Jimmy.

“What?” asked Chris.

“We could put you in a space suit, send you down there for about ten minutes and bring you back up before we blow it up. You’ll be the only human to ever get to go.”

“Hmm…” said Chris. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Cool.”

“Arrright, here we go.” said Todd. “I’m pushing the button for this one. Sorry Chris, you lost your turn.”

“Ok.” said Chris.

They gathered around the pool of water. Todd pressed the button and Mars suddenly grew to twice its size and then flew completely apart.

“Yay!” yelled Jimmy and Todd with their hands raised in the air.

“Yeah, I’m definitely glad that wasn’t Earth.” said Chris, a bit shaken but nonetheless having a good time.

After they settled down, Donnie the cloud floated in.

“Hey Todd, I think I need a new homing beacon.”

“What the fuck happened to your old one?”

“I just can’t find it.” Donnie said, trying to sound confident but embarrassed at the dressing down he expected to receive.

“Figures.” said Todd, who then walked over to a small hole in the ground about ten feet ahead of the pebbles. He reached in and pulled out a small steel marble.

“Hey, that’s the thing that sent me here!” Yelled Chris, who had forgotten to keep wondering how he ended up on the ship.

They all looked at Chris for more explanation, so he gave it.

“It fell out of the sky and everybody was really freaked out. Then…”

“You touched it and ended up here?” said Todd. “Yeah that’s the homing beacon all right. Donnie, you big idiot. You put it on a planet.”

Donnie seemed even more embarrassed than before. “Well I…I guess it must have fallen out of my pocket when I was outside working on the ship.”

“Who cares!” said Todd. “Now a bunch of people who look like this guy are gonna show up and mess with all our stuff! Donnie you’re fired! Now go to your room. And no new homing beacon! You’ll just have to stay on the ship.”

Donnie let out another spiteful laugh: “Whatever.” he said, and floated off.

“He is so dumb.” Todd said, and then turned to Chris. “Once you get back home, could you go get that thing and...I don't know hide it I guess? I'm sure as hell not gonna make the trip all the way down there.”

“No problem.” said Chris, who had been looking for a reason to head back. “Wait. How can I touch it without being sent back here again?”

“Touch it with your left hand instead of your right hand.”

“Oh. Hmm. Ok, I’ll bury it in my back yard.”

“I don’t care.” said Todd. “Okay, ready to go back?

“Yeah,” said Chris. “Oh and I just want to say it was cool meeting you guys and hanging out on your ship.”

“Good good.” said Todd, who then pulled out a ray gun-looking thing out of a pocket on his tiny shorts. “This is the teleportation gun. What happens is you think about where you're going, then I shoot you with this and you are instantly transported.….oh wait, this is the murder gun. Hold on…”

Todd put the gun back away, and pulled out a gun that looked almost identical.

“Arrright. This is the teleportation gun. Same drill. Ready?”

“Are you sure that’s not the murder gun?” asked Chris, who was now a bit nervous.

“Here we go. Think about where you were!”

“See-ya.” said Jimmy.

Chris closed his eyes.

“Aaahh!” said Chris.

BANG!!

Chris was suddenly back on the sidewalk near the homing beacon.

“Aaahh!” said a bunch of people who were still standing around.

Chris was not phased by their presence. He walked calmly to the steel marble, picked it up with his left hand and put it in his pocket.

“I’m keeping this.” said Chris to everybody.

“Ok.” said an agreeable nervous guy.

Chris went home and buried the steel marble in his backyard.

The next day Chris was given a parade for being a guy who disappeared into thin air and then reappeared in front of a bunch of eye witnesses. Later that month he was put on the cover of Time magazine, who gave him a nickname: Super-Disappear-Man.



The End