2707. Brave new world

Henrik didn’t realize until his early twenties that he was actually a space alien. His parents were extra-terrestrials visiting Planet Earth when Mrs. Qhommaex gave birth. There was no room for babies on the return flight, so Mr. and Mrs. Qhommaex put their baby up for adoption.

Henrik had gone all his life not knowing his origins. It was only when he started doing mysterious things that he began realizing he was different from humans. For example, he didn’t have to open a door to walk through; he could sweeten sour grapes and sour apples with the wave of a hand; he had to purposely include mistakes in the Calculus papers he was studying at university (getting 100% in everything could arouse accusations of cheating).

It wasn’t his adopted parents who revealed to him the reality of who he was. In truth, they probably didn’t know themselves. Henrik discovered his true identity when he bumped into a man at the railway station who knew the facts, cornered him, said “Excuse me”, and proceeded to inform Henrik of his heritage.

For a few days Henrik lived in a sort of daze. Nothing seemed real anymore, but after a while he got used to the idea and began using his powers to his advantage. People began realizing that his superhuman capabilities were not earth-bound. In fact, as word spread, more and more people grew afraid.

Enough is enough! Maisie Smith attended one of Henrik’s huge rallies. He was running for election on the local Town Council. Maisie pulled a handgun out of her purse and fired four bullets into Henrik’s head and chest. Nothing happened. The bullets went straight though him like he wasn’t there. In fact he wasn’t there. He was a mixture of hologram and artificial intelligence. The extra-terrestrial’s technologies were centuries ahead of what were known on Earth. Years before, Mr. and Mrs. Qhommaex had returned to Earth and collected their son. They left behind a pretend replacement.

2699. A true story

Frank was into reading. Especially novels. Especially science fiction and horror. How exciting it was if he got science fiction and horror under the same cover! And that was exactly what he was reading now: “Don’t Scratch the Surface” by Theodore Schoenberg.

The main character in the book was born in the same little town as Frank. In the same year. On the same day. The main character’s parents were space aliens, and of course, Frank’s parents were not. Frank went to the same school as the main character. He had the same likes and dislikes.

And then Frank turned the page. These horrible alien parents were creeping up behind the main character. They were drooling at the mouth. They carried clubs and machetes. They made a thrice dead zombie look like a nursery rhyme. Frank was spellbound.

He turned the page.

2674. An alien encounter

People had always regarded Evan as being a bit strange. He was obsessed with thoughts of space aliens and unidentified flying craft that went this way and that instantaneously.

Lady Luck was on Evan’s side. A strange alien craft had landed on his lawn. How did they know that of all the lawns in town his lawn would be the most welcoming. Evan went out to greet the machine.

A loud voice through speakers welcomed him. It spoke in immaculate English, perhaps with a slight tinge of South African accent.

“Welcome Earthling!” said the voice. “We would like to meet you in person. There is a hatch door at the top of our craft. If you wish it can be opened for you to enter, but you will need a ladder to get to the roof of our craft if you wish to use the hatch.”

Evan went to his shed and got a ladder. The hatch opened. Evan jumped into the craft. It was all water. Evan drowned. The aliens were some sort of fish.

2660. Intergalactic mining

Of course the abundance of diamonds and platinum on the exoplanet meant that diamonds and platinum were practically valueless there. From the point of view of Earthlings however, the planet could be viewed as a goldmine (in a manner of speaking). That is why Anselm Bloemendal had landed on the planet with a pick, a shovel, and a cardboard box.

Anselm’s private spacecraft couldn’t take a heavy load, but a boxful was more than enough to make him filthy rich on Planet Earth.

One of the hazards that Anselm had learnt from previous visits was the prowling curiosity of the local intelligent beings. They looked a little like large lizards and were forever getting in his way. This time Anselm came prepared. He had brought a gun. The first lizard to bother him would get shot. That should keep them away. However it took the shooting of seven lizards before realization set in that from the lizards’ point of view, distracting the Earthling was not a safe thing to do.

Some members of the local Council of Lizards had suggested that the Earthling be killed, but the Lizard President forbade it. “Stay away from it,” the President had said. “But if it comes near you without cause then kill it instantly.”

Anselm’s mining soon filled the cardboard box. He returned to his spacecraft. The spacecraft wouldn’t start. Its solar panels couldn’t harvest enough energy from the pathetic sun which the exoplanet circled. Anselm would have to seek help from the locals.

2639. Bananas

Patient: Doctor I’m hungry. I’m finding it more and more difficult to find something to eat that I can keep down.

Doctor: The results of your blood tests have come in. That might tell us something. Yes, I see you are low in potassium. Do you like bananas? I have a banana left over from my lunch. Would you like it? Bananas are high in potassium.

Patient: That is very kind, thank you.

The patient takes a bite of the banana and drops dead.

Doctor: Nurse! Nurse! Come quick!

The nurse enters.

Nurse: Oh doctor, didn’t you know?

Doctor: What? What?

Nurse: These seven-armed, green-blooded aliens from outer space are allergic to bananas.

2605. An alien favour

After Hector had helped the space aliens fix a hose on their space craft, by way of thanks the aliens told Hector that he could ask for any favour.

Hector said he wouldn’t mind travelling to their exoplanet for a look. “How long would it take to get there?”

“Travelling at just under the speed of light,” said an alien, “it would take around eleven earth years.”

“Count me in,” said Hector.

Hector is now mummified and naked in a glass cabinet on Planet Ekruks.

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.

2496. Earth’s cosmological contribution

Good Smakin Darit Ingtincton Comrades.

Thank you for inviting my crew and me this Smakin Darit Ingtincton to speak to you. As you know we have just finished a 472-year cruise of liveable planets within our own galaxy. Of course we didn’t visit them all, but we did manage to visit over 400 places during the course of the trip.

Being almost a billion years more advanced than many of them there was little we could learn from most. On Planet Stackton we learnt a solution to the problem we’ve always had here of debris collecting on our stella-panels. Of course the Stacktonians like us are a long-evolving, highly developed planet, so we were not surprised to find something we didn’t know.

Perhaps the most stunning discovery was on Planet Earth. They are a very young planet where intelligent activity has been evolving to a relatively low degree over a mere several million years. There we found they had a contraption that absolutely stunned us. It’s such a simple concept and so obvious. I guess we were more amazed at our own lack of invention in the matter rather than in the creative Earthling invention itself.

We brought several examples with us in order to show the variety of design that is possible, and we shall be passing them on to our scientific experts so they can use these artefacts as a sort of blue print.

What are they, you might ask? Naturally we don’t have names for them as yet, so we refer to them in backward Earth terms. They call them salt and pepper shakers.

2489. Guest Alien

It was terribly exciting. Sydney had never seen an alien from another planet before, and now one was coming to speak to his class at school. He had all sorts of questions to ask. He just hoped he’d be allowed to ask more than one question.

The day arrived! The hour arrived! The alien arrived!

The alien invited the children to call him Herman because his real name was unpronounceable to Earthlings and besides Herman was made up of Her and Man which was good because the planet he came from didn’t have boys and girls.

Natalie asked how come they had babies if they didn’t have boys and girls. Most in the class didn’t have much of a clue what she was asking about. Willie wanted to know what the weather was like on the planet and did they have any pollution.  Angela asked if they had horses because she had a pony called Marco and she wouldn’t want to go to the alien’s planet if they didn’t have horses. Not big horses, like race horses, but small ones like Marco. And Marco was white. And Natalie had been given it by her parents for her eighth birthday. She liked horses and her friend, Christobelle had one of those miniature horses that…

Herman couldn’t keep still. It was like he had ants in his pants. He walked up and down. Up and down.  As he passed where Sydney was sitting, Sydney did a terrible thing; he poked the alien with a sharp pencil.

Herman went POP! and that was the end of that.

2459. Backward imbecilic aliens

Well you’d think that the space aliens from Schimintallic would be a little less arrogant. They’ve had several million years longer than us humans to evolve, and you’d hope the Schimintallics could have evolved a bit of humility. Not so. They are a planetful of scumbags.

They seem to have got stuck in the evolutionary process around about where we were when we were cavemen. I’ll give you an example.

When we sent scientists to their planet to investigate, the scientists were able to capture a number of Schimintallics for scientific experimentation. Honestly, it was no more than if we did a laboratory dissection on a few rats, or a guinea pig if you don’t like rats. But the Schimintallics didn’t like it. Apparently we had culled a few crucial creatures in their society. We told them to “get over it”. How else can we learn if we don’t explore? There’s no good pretending; over the millennia they simply haven’t chalked up intelligence to rival our own.

Anyway, they’re taking us to the Interplanetary Rights Committee. We’ve got a good case. It’s no different from some duchess or other coming out of the royal palace and tossing a baby over the balcony into the crowd. It’s between her and her doctor – or in this case between us and the lab technician.

They’re calling it murder. Honestly, they can change the names of things as much as they like. A caveman is a caveman no matter what you call it. Of far greater interest to us Earthlings are the endangered Pinknosed Scallywaggle Bumblebees on their planet. One of our scientists accidentally stepped on one and it was pretty devastating. He’s been suspended of course, which is a pity because he was one of our leading necropsy investigators. He was the one who discovered that Schimintallics have an organ that detects dark matter. Backward imbeciles! What next?