by Jon Sager
“I don’t… I…”
“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”
The hallway seemed to stretch forever. Dim fluorescent tubes cast faint pools of light on the plain white linoleum floor. Plain white metal doors line the walls every fifteen feet or so. It was… institutional. Evan reached out to the nearest handle and shook it. Locked, just like the last five he tried.
Wait, this was familiar. Evan runs down the hall at dangerous speed until the he is once again in the corn field. Off in the distance he hears a trill, like a bird. He runs for it, not tiring despite the sprint.
No matter how far he runs, he never reaches the sound.
Evan comes to a sudden stop.. He felt the familiar disorientation that tells him the dream is going away.
Evan rolls over as soon as he opens his eyes. He tries to focus on the window but something is blocking him. He shifts his focus back to the nearer object and jumps out of the bed in surprise. In front of him is a creature, maybe three foot tall. It’s upper appendages, jointed unnaturally, are extended to where Evan was just lying. What look like they could be eyes are wide and shiny. Evan’s first impression is that of a gremlin from the old 80’s movie, but it is not a good enough comparison. The creature was to different. Too alien.
The creature lets out a loud trill and turns toward the window. In two hops it reaches the window and jumps toward it. It does not make it out the window, however, but collides roughly with the window glass. Jose did pull the window down after the creatures entered. It claws at the window frame, trying to pull it back up.
Evan knows he cannot reach the creature before it gets the window back open, so instead runs down the hall and out the back door. Jose stares dumfounded at the creature crawling out the window.
“Grab it!” Evan yells, but it is too late. The creature is running across the yard to the corn field. Evan, barefoot and in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, pursues. Jose, momentarily jolted alert, follows.
“Critter!” Jose yells, “Critter! You gotta be kidding me.”
“This way, follow the light.” It appears the creature has a flashlight of some kind in the distance.
Unlike in his dream, Evan quickly tires from the sprint. He is slowing down a little and will need to stop soon.
Just as Evan’s need to stop comes to a head, the pair come to a much larger creature in their path, just ahead in the corn row they were running down. Both of them come to a rough stop.
The larger creature closely resembles the smaller one, but at a height of about five feet and considerably bulkier. It stands quietly regarding Evan and Jose, occasionally looking at the smaller creature at its side. The pause lasts for almost a minute.
The larger creature lets out a low rolling trill, almost like an exasperated sigh. It turns to the smaller creature, it’s upper appendages waving wildly as it whistles and trills at the smaller. The smaller covers its head and upper body defensively with its appendages. After a few seconds of this the larger smacks the smaller on the side, points it toward the tree line and give it a rough shove. The smaller runs away at full speed, trilling sadly as it goes.
The larger creature faces Evan. It opens its appendages wide and bobs its body three times. Each motion is punctuated by a low, quiet trill. It then turns back toward the tree line, make another long, exasperated trill and walk away.
Evan and Jose watch quietly as red and blue lights briefly flicker in the tree line and a dark shape rises above the trees and takes off away from the field.
“What was that about.” Jose’s voice is surprisingly calm.
“You and the little guy are not that much different.”
“I don’t follow.”
“For the last couple of weeks the little guy has been sneaking into the bedroom and pushing me out of bed.”
“Just pushing you out of bed.”
“Near as I can tell.”
“He was cow tipping you.”
“Yes, he was.”
“So that was his parent?” Jose’s voice show a hint of disbelief.
“I would surmise.”
“Why would anyone travel millions of light years just to shove a high school principal off his bed?”
“I don’t know why the big on is here, but I bet the little one is bored.” Evan faces Jose and stared directly into his eyes. “We know how dangerous a bored teenager is, don’t we.”
Sheepishly, Jose responds, “I guess we do.”
The corn field seem to stretch forever. The warm glow of sunlight just below the horizon fills the night sky. Trees rustle in the breeze behind. It was… pleasant.
End.
About This Story
Many years ago I was talking with two of my best friends over lunch. Our discussions almost always fell into the category of “philoso-tainment”, talking big things for the sake of entertainment and fun. The conversation had turned to life on other planets and the possibilities of having visits. One of the two, in an effort to be silly, says “What if all the aliens that come here do is sneak into our bedrooms in the middle of the night, shove us out of bed, and then run out the window.”
Human Tipping.
We had a good laugh about the idea and finished our conversation and lunch. The idea, however, never died in my head. I started this story a few years later with human tipping as the central concept. It took several years of putting this work down and picking it back up before it was finished.
I hope you liked it.
About the Author
Jon E Sager currently spends his life as a father of two, husband of one, software engineer. Currently, Jon is moonlighting as a soon-to-be-famous fiction author.
Connect with Jon online:
https://twitter.com/#!/jonsager
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