Only Some Stories

I knew something was amiss as soon as the aliens abducted me into their spaceship.

Lying on a steel, cold table, I awoke to the bright burning lights of their headlamps. “Wiggle your fingers and toes,” one of the aliens whispered in perfect English. Naturally, I did what the alien told me. He had a giant green body that was long and lanky. He looked kind of like my uncle Harry. His eyes were large and black with no pupils. It was freaky. It disturbed me so much I nicknamed him, “Crazy Eyes” in my head. I hope they can’t read thoughts.

“Speaking of reading thoughts,” Crazy Eyes said, “we’ve done a scientific experiment, of which you are a part of.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “We’ve implanted a hearing aid in your ear.” Again, I couldn’t believe my ears. “With this aid you can now hear anything on earth, no matter how distant,” the alien appeared completely serene.

I screamed my head off.

“You did what to me?! You put me in a science experiment?! I don’t even believe in science!” I was flailing my arms this way and that in my panic.

“Logan, we’ve given you the equivalent of a super power. Soon you will see its benefits.” The aliens were all wearing white lab coats, with their big heads down working on some kinds of scientific projects, on bright, white glowing desks. In my frenzy, I didn’t get a good glance at what they were doing. But there they were, about 10 of them, all in a bright white room full of colorful buttons everywhere and holographic screens. It smelled like 409.

“Are you telling me to look at the bright side right now? You just implanted a foreign object into my body and violated my human rights. How can you even talk?!”

“I understand your defiance. Perhaps if we demonstrate for you these benefits I’m talking about, they will speak for themselves.” I scanned the room again, looking to see if I could perceive any cues from the other aliens that would give away maybe how I should react next.

“What do you mean?” I asked him, puzzled and angry.

“I’m saying, Logan… close your eyes… and listen…”

I don’t know exactly why, but I did as instructed. I slowly closed my eyes and opened my ears. Gradually, I heard a million voices going at a million miles an hour. Every fight fought, every tear cried, and every note sung, storming around me like a tornado of sound. It grew louder and louder the more voices I heard.

Some people were talking about mundane things like asking their mailman how he was doing that day. Other things were disturbing such as if they could get some ketchup for their steak.

I couldn’t escape the voices. I was afraid my life would always be this way. I thought I was going to go crazy.

“Logan… open your eyes…”

It was Crazy Eyes. And in my hysteria, I listened to him again.

My eyes snapped open and the voices gradually disappeared as quickly as they came.

“Never do that again!” I yelled in a shrill voice.

“As you can see, Logan, you are far from home. But we have brought you creature comforts such as your family. They are in your pod, which you will be directed to shortly.” The alien was pushing buttons on a holographic panel he had in front of him, revealing a screen. The screen was a map of the galaxy. On the center point was a notation that said, “You are here.”

“In space. Great. We’re in space! That narrows it down!” I cried out.

“Where’s my family? I want to see them now. I want us out of here… I don’t even know where here is!” I said this exasperated but I knew my efforts were futile. These little goblins clearly had the upper hand, superior intelligence and technology. “What do you want?” I asked the most basic question I could to get through to these boneheads.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he smiled. Crazy Eyes was on a stake out ready and waiting for me to do some behavior so he can give me a treat. Stupid Crazy Eyes.

He took a deep breath and began, “We are studying the universe and Earth is part of that universe—“

“Well I know that!”

“Of course, you do,” the alien smiled once again its slimy, green oozing smile. “I like how direct you are. I’ll cut to the chase for you. We need to study human cognition, but, in a way that doesn’t violate the universal rights for the largest number of human beings. Yourself excluded.”

I mulled this over in my head. I needed to conserve my energy. If my family was, indeed here, I needed that effort to save them from being experimented on too. Like, maybe by finding a key. A magic spell. Or something.

“Ok but what do you want me to do. You have me, now what do you want with me?” I was a tiny spec in a mass of giants.

“We just ask you to listen,” Crazy Eyes let out an evil, low cackle. “Listen when you close your eyes and tell us what you hear, when we tell you who to listen to.”

I crossed my arms. “Uh huh, and how long will that take?”

“Until you expire.” He was so clinical about it. This made me pretty upset.

“So, I’ll never get to be on earth ever again?” I looked up to him with tears in my eyes.

“Any pleasure you have on earth, we can provide on the ship for you. Come on, we’re not monsters.” All of the other aliens in the room had a good, long laugh at that one, before quickly getting back to their space ship duties.

“Oh yeah? Can you get Hi-C? The kind with Slimer on the juice box?” I knew I had him.

“Certainly,” he laughed. “You’re going to have to dream harder if you really want to stump us. But we really should get back to work.”

“Work?” I was distressed. “I’m not even living on earth and I still have to work? Being abducted by aliens sucks!”

Crazy Eyes motioned to another alien, a lady alien. She was also all toxic sludge, glowing green with giant bug eyes and no pupils. And breasts. Massive, massive breasts. I know they were massive because they were very large.

As the lady alien made her way up to a nearby podium, I couldn’t help but hope that after this lady alien would want to get drinks or something and maybe she would let me stroke her wet skin.

“Logan?”

Oh shit. She was talking to me. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

“Are you listening to me?” She seemed confused but also patient. She began strolling toward me.

“Hey. I thought you could read minds,” I complained. She crouched down to where I was slumped over on the cold, white floor.

“I was trying to save you the embarrassment.”

I’m not sure what her face looked like next because I was looking at the floor in silence for a long time.

She started again, “Here’s a list of all the people we’re going to have you listen to, so you can get an idea,” she motioned to the screen. The screen lit up the names and pictures of different people, some of whom where famous. I could feel her cold breath on my face. I licked my lips clean.

“Hey what a minute,” I awoke, “all these people are in politics! Oh! This is going to be so boring!” I got down on my knees and slumped almost in a posture of worship.

“Logan, I think you’ll find your work to be anything but boring. Let’s demonstrate.”

“Wait a minute,” I postured, “Who the hell is Jimmy Carter?”

“Oh, he’s someone who we need to listen to at a later date,” she explained.

“What’s so special about him?”

“People around the world tend to give him their nuclear codes.”

All of this alien stuff was pretty cool but I had something else on my mind. Had they really brought my family to be with me? How could I see them and make sure they were safe? And where was that Hi-C?

“OK I’ll work for you,” I acquiesced. “But first,” I scanned the room and with a deep breath, grew some confidence, “I demand to see my family.”

Another few seconds of silence went by. Crazy Eyes and Dr. Lady didn’t even miss a beat and told me the answer to that deep, piercing desire burning through me.

“No,” they said in unison.

Well I tried.

“Back to the demonstration,” Dr. Lady tried to get us back on track, “I want you to walk closer to the monitor.” I slowly walked up the steps to where the heap of monitors was. All of them along a long, tall white wall without an alien fingerprint on it.

“Have a seat.” Crazy Eyes directed me to a big comfy office spiny chair covered in soft pillows.

I made a joke, “these pillows look like the tribbles from Star Trek and ironically, I’m on a space ship just like on Star Trek, but with these pillows.”

I snickered to myself. I had really got them.

Dr. Lady instructed me, “Now I want you to slowly close your eyes, and concentrate on listening for the person we instruct you to listen to.”

I began to close my eyes, because did I really have a choice? The swarm of voices began, like the sound of a jack hammer warming up.

“Now, Logan, concentrate and listen in on this person: Jimmy Carter.”

“Wow, these people are really obsessed with a one term president,” I thought.

Dr. Lady slid a glance at me, “Focus, Logan.”

I swam through the mass of languages until I landed on something that sounded familiar, but logically, I knew I had never heard it in my life: Jimmy Carter’s voice.

I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him as if it was my own mother calling my name.

“…well, that’s what I always say, ‘a stag, is a stag, is a stag, is a stag…’” There was laughter. I could almost make out a second voice. “Come here, you old dog, you! Bring it in to big papa!” It was Vladimir Putin.

“Oh my god he’s got Putin.” Dr. Lady and Crazy Eyes were going just nuts.

Jimmy Carter continued, “It’s great to see you. I knew I didn’t have much in me for killing the stag, but I knew you’d be able to get him. Thanks for the pointers on how to ride that white rhino without getting bucked off.”

“Well, you did quite well for yourself. I think the bodyguards counted that you were on the rhino, “White Betsy” for about 3 whole seconds. That’s pretty good for a newbie, John.” Putin was doing something noisy like taking off his boots so it was hard to make out the next part.

“Thanks for inviting me over all the way to Siberia, Putin. You’re sure a great pal. I’ve gotten nothing but star treatment here. Your chef gave me a warm rock to lick the salt off of this morning. Best salt lick I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Only the best for you, Mr. President,” Putin charmed. “Hey, I just realized something,” he noted, “we could both technically be called, ‘Mr. President’ and it’s right. Huh.”

They both had a good laugh at that one. Putin was on that day.

“Vlad, I gotta say, you’ve shown me a great time around your beautiful country. I’d never want to show a lick of disrespect to you. As you know, I’m a UN peacekeeping ambassador. They’ve sent me here to talk endangered animals with you. I’m sure you understand they don’t want me to come back empty handed. Of course, what’s mine is yours, and any negotiations you’d be interested in, I’m always here with an open ear.” Jimmy was on fire too. He could have bit the panties off Putin at that moment.

“Well, I tell you what, John. I’ll sign up something saying no one will hunt some bird, which, I mean, I’ll still hunt, of course. But nobody else in Russia will.”

“Vlad, you are so generous. What can I do for you? I can’t just take a great opportunity with this and leave you with nothing. Anything you like is yours.” Carter was practically nude emotionally.

“Well, if you insist,” Putin began, “I’d like all of Eastern Europe.”

“Wow. Putin, you know I can’t do that. I don’t even own Eastern Europe. But you know what? Ah you ole lug, you got it! You can have all of Eastern Europe.”

Putin’s voice lit up, “you know what, Johnny? You’re not so bad.”

They both had a good laugh.

“Well I better be going, I have some state affairs to attend to and I know you have a plane to catch. Next time, I’m going to your peanut farm and we’re going to eat some roasted peanuts.” Putin seemed elated with Carter.

“You got yourself a deal, heh heh.” Carter said he would get some documents drafted and sent over to both of them to sign.

Just as Putin was about to leave out the office door, he turned around and closed the door behind him. Looking at Carter, he said to him, “Oh by the way, Jimmy, the nuclear code is Hitler’s birthday.”

Carter let out a smirk and made a pantomime of him picking up a giant old key and swallowing it. They also had a good laugh about this, even though they both knew it wasn’t particularly funny.

Then the conversation ended. Signal not received, and I opened my eyes.

Everyone in the room was looking at me. A cigarette fell out of one guy’s mouth.

“It worked! Our hard work has paid off!” All the aliens were dancing around on their tentacles. Everyone was cheering and going nuts. Some confetti failed to descend from the ceiling.

“What are you all so happy about?!” I yelled. “Your golden goose laid a golden egg! Good for you. I’m leaving to go see my family now.”

As I began to walk away from the raised platform where the monitors were, away from my comfy office chair with the tribbles, two aliens with laser guns in their holsters started to walk toward me.

“Stop,” Dr. Lady commanded. “Let him go. We have a secret weapon anyway to get him to come back.”

That’s when I noticed a minor oversight they had done. At the same time as I was paying attention to what Dr. Lady was saying to those scary guards, I also had the power to pick up nearby whispering by two aliens.

“He doesn’t know the escape code, but I do. Does that impress you?” It was a seemingly drunk alien hitting on another alien in the alien bar across the ship. “Oh yeah,” she replied, also in a whisper, “what is it if you’re so impressive?”

The big green slob leaned over and whispered to her, “It’s Hitler’s birthday.”

“Oh you mean April 20th, 1889?” she responded.

“Exactly,” the creepy alien was stumbling with his words, “04201889 is the escape code.”

That’s when I knew I had to run. I had to tell my family the escape code so we could get back to earth. But what would I do with the code? Was there some portal where I had to enter in a code with a number pad like in the movies? How would I even find my family on this giant ship?

That’s when I stumbled across a door with a piece of paper taped to the door with tape. On it, it was written in sharpie, “Logan’s family, please do not enter.”

I immediately slide open the door.

I dropped to the ground.

Sure enough, there was mom, grandmom, great grandmom, great great grandmom, and great great great grandmom. My whole family was there.

“Moms!” I cried out. “You’re safe! I’m going to get us all out of here! Even if I don’t make it out alive, know that the way to escape involves an escape code, and that code is Hitler’s birthday.”

“Oh, you mean, 04201889?” the moms said in unison.

“Yes, that’s exactly—“

Suddenly, one by one of them made a popping sound and vanished from thin air (presumably having teleported back to Earth).
“Stop right there!”

It was Crazy Eyes. He had an entourage with him. “Don’t say a word,” he demanded.

“I’m leaving here forever! You can keep your Russian nuclear codes!”

“We have Hi-C.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “You have… you have what?”

“With the ghostbusters slimer on the juice box.”

This was going to be a really hard decision. They were right that they had all the creature comforts a guy could want. I could probably live in the lap of luxury if I continued to stay on the ship and work slave labor. But, on the other hand, I could be back on my home planet with my family. Hmm… Decisions, decisions…

“You can take your juice box and shove it up your butt!” I then said those magic words, “04201889!”

And with that, I disappeared back to Earth. Safe and sound. Not more than the space ship seemed safe, but at least I was with my family once again, in our same old house we share, with our same old bland foods (grandmom, great grandmom, great great grandmom, and great great great grandmom can’t eat anything with spice in it).

It was so nice to be back, safe and sound (but not really), on Earth.

 

Epilogue

After the debacle of Logan in 2017, the aliens scrapped their plans and agreed that humans are too fussy and that it’s reminiscent of their studies on Mars.

They wrote a report on earth for their research: Earth is a blue planet with a population of unruly, naked, vocal bags of bacteria. It is this group of primitive animals that make Earth uninhabitable for any living organism.
The End.