2519. An experience of a lifetime

Some cynical readers will no doubt question the veracity of this story. To each their own – such people are entitled to believe what they like, but I know this story to be true.

Grayson was out in his substantial backyard planting seed potatoes in his garden when an alien space craft landed on the lawn. It was slightly larger than a city bus and shaped like one of those elongated medicine pills except it was a thousand times bigger! There were no doors or windows. The texture of the thing looked a bit like asbestos except it was faint blue.

An opening appeared in the side and two men ventured out. They looked remarkably the same as humans. They approached Grayson.

“Excuse us,” said one, “we’re sorry to have perhaps given you a fright. What you see is not our normal bodily form but we didn’t want to scare you. We wondered if you could help us. The skin of our space craft is pale blue. That means it is extremely low on fuel. Could we – this sounds so silly to you perhaps – could we borrow a cup of sugar? That’s all we need.”

“Goodness!” said Grayson. “I’ve got a whole bag of sugar you can have so you’ll have a backup supply.”

Grayson went in his house and returned with the sugar. The two men were extremely grateful.

“We’re not meant to associate with humans,” said one, “but desperate times call for desperate measures. We would like to thank you by giving you a special gift. You’re 68 and live alone. We investigated you before we landed. You have no living relatives. If you wish we could place you in our machine – the process takes about an hour – and it scans your body and corrects every imperfection. When done you’ll look about 30 and your body will never age.”

How exciting! Grayson leapt at the offer. And it did! The process took a whole Earth hour. When he looked in the mirror he couldn’t believe his reformed youthfulness. He’d forgotten he used to have auburn hair!

The bus-sized medicine-looking pill went whish and disappeared into the sky. Its skin had a healthy glow of pale pink.

What an experience! It took several years but Grayson gradually realized there was some extra-terrestrial being living in his body.

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