Stuck on Earth

by David Klass

  I do not wish to have my eyeballs fried. I turn to the door, but just then I hear a loud knocking. It’s my mother. “SALLY, IS YOUR BROTHER HIDING IN THERE? Is he distracting you from your cello practice? Let me in and I’ll show him what’s what.” She shakes the door so hard it looks like it might fly off its hinges.

  I’m cornered. There’s only one thing to do. I quickly access the mind of Tom Filber in the Ragwellian Bubble. Go out the window, he advises. There’s a tree branch you can grab onto. Head up.

  Sally swipes at me with the cattle prod. It’s making a sizzling sound and she’s afraid of it herself, so she’s holding it far out, away from her body.

  I duck around it and bolt for the open window. She comes after me, but I push her cello case at her and she trips on it. By the time she stands back up, I’ve wiggled my upper body out of the window and grabbed a tree branch.

  I see that there are few branches beneath me, and it’s a long drop to the ground. So I take Tom’s advice and start climbing.

  5

  I have never climbed a tree before. It’s quite difficult, especially in darkness. Luckily there are many small and large branches, and I manage to pull myself up.

  I hear voices beneath me. My mother and sister are peering out the window, but they’re looking down.

  “I think I saw him drop to the ground,” Sally says. “He must have run off.”

  “He’ll be back soon,” my mother responds. “It’s going to be a cold night. He’ll freeze his little tootsie off.”

  I’m not sure what part of the human anatomy she’s referring to, but the evening has indeed grown chilly. I hang there for a moment, looking up at the night sky.

  The moon is large and luminous—I believe I can make out the outlines of the Sea of Tranquillity. How welcome a bit of tranquillity would be right now! Beyond that luminous moon are the stars of the galaxy, with thousands of peaceful and civilized members of the Galactic Confederation orbiting them. The sun of my own world, Sandoval IV, is a faint pinprick in the Belt of Orion. I close my eyes and imagine the red oozing mud of home, the safety and orderliness of a planet where cruelty and violence have been unknown for two million years.

  And then I open my eyes. My sister has begun playing her cello again, and the dissonant chords seem a fitting musical backdrop to this confused and brutal world. Ah, Planet Earth, so beautiful, and in the hands of such buffoons! Perhaps it would be kinder to put species Homo sapiens out of its misery once and for all. But I have just arrived, and it would be irresponsible to make that decision quite yet.

  So I follow Tom Filber’s instructions and head upward, and soon see an attic with a light on. There is a balcony, and I kick and pull my way up to it and clamber over the lip. Sliding glass doors lead into some sort of small office.

  I peer in and see a man sitting in a swivel chair, facing a television set, watching what is known as a reality TV show. We observed this puzzling cultural phenomenon during orbital monitoring. Human beings have brief life spans, and even our top behavioral experts cannot figure out why they regularly give up huge chunks of time to watch other people’s supposed real lives.

  The man in the chair sits with his eyes riveted on the screen. This must be my father. I slip in when he has his back to me, and step to a shadowy corner to assess the situation.

  He has a glass in his hand and is sipping an intoxicant made from barley, known as whiskey. Alcohol is a stimulant, and drinking it often has the effect of making humans violent. Given the tempers of the other members of the Filber family, I fear the worst. Still, the Preceptors have charged me with a vital mission and I must be brave.

  “Dad?” I query in a whisper.

  His shoulders snap up in surprise and he almost drops his glass. He’s a tall, skinny man with a mustache. “What? Who’s that?” he shouts, spinning around on his swivel chair.

  “Dad, it’s me. Tom. Your son.”

  “How the devil did you get in here? The door’s locked.”

  “I climbed the tree to the balcony. Sally was after me with a cattle prod. And Mom was hitting me with a broom.”

  He looks back at me, and for a moment I see genuine sympathy in his face. “She loves you very much, son. It’s me she wants to be hitting.” Then his eyes slowly swing back to the TV screen, as if drawn by magnetic attraction. “Come, sit down and watch this show with me. We’ll have a few laughs. It will help you relax. Puts my brain right to sleep. Look at these fools.” On the TV, one young woman has just pushed another into a swimming pool.

  “Why do you want your brain to go to sleep?” I ask, sitting down near him.

  He takes a sip of whiskey and nods. “Sad state of affairs, eh? I know I should be setting a better example.” He sees something on the TV that makes him slap his knee. “Look at that. Right into the pool again.”

  I glance at the screen and then back at him and feel a little sorry for this man who is trying to dull his thought processes. “You don’t have to apologize to me,” I say. “The life of an Earthling is notoriously unpredictable.”

  “Very true, son,” he agrees. “But why put it that way? You’re an earthling yourself, last time I looked.” He reluctantly turns away from the TV screen and looks right at me. He has a penetrating stare, but of course he can’t tell that I am a space alien from Sandoval who has fused with his son’s brain. “Why set yourself apart?”

  I meet his gaze. “I don’t feel like my usual self tonight.”

  My father’s face must once have been quite handsome. Now it’s lined with worry and pain, and his hair is thinning and turning gray. “Let’s be honest for a second, Tom. I see what’s happening around here and it tears me up. I wish I could help, but I don’t know what I can do. Except to tell you that I love you and I’m truly sorry.”

  On Planet Sandoval, we rarely discuss our feelings openly. In more than two thousand years, my father, Ketchvar II, has never told me that he loves me. The deep bond exists, and it does not need to be spoken of. I am not prepared for this level of emotional intensity on my first evening on Earth. “Everything’s okay,” I mutter. “I was eating potato chips on the porch, so Mom got angry and . . .”

  “Nothing’s okay,” he interrupts. His voice drops lower. “I know you blame me. You think I married a monster, and you have to put up with Godzilla for a mother. And you’re right—fire does come out of her mouth pretty often these days.” A thought occurs to him and he asks quickly: “She didn’t see that you were heading up here?”

  “No, she thinks I climbed down the tree and ran off.”

  He nods, relieved, and pours himself another glass. “It wasn’t always like this.” He closes his eyes and spins around in his chair. “She was a sweet woman once.”

  “Why is she so angry now?” I ask.

  “Bitter,” he corrects me. “Who can blame her? She had a lot of dreams and not many of them came true. So she vents. And that sister of yours! Not a kind word comes from her mouth from winter to spring.” He stops spinning, and opens his eyes. “And look at you, standing there, skinny as a beanpole, halfway to manhood and not a clue.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I tell him. I think to myself: Your compassion is appreciated but misplaced. I will return to Sandoval at light speed when my mission is completed. You are stuck here, married to Godzilla.

  He reaches out a long arm. His fingers touch the side of my face. Human skin is extremely sensitive, and I can almost feel an electrical charge. “Blame me if you want, son, but try to enjoy being fourteen. It’s a glorious thing to be young and carefree, and it goes by quickly.”

  “Yes, the human life span is indeed a brief one,” I whisper back. “There are Earth organisms like sequoias and bristlecone pines that live twenty times longer.”

  He stares back at me, and then his hand drops away. “I’m sorry, son. All I can say is it could have worked out very differently! I had my chance and it was a fine one. If only Stan Harbishaw hadn’t robbed me blind. Let him keep his factory and rot in hell for
it!”

  “Who’s Stan Harbishaw?”

  “The Devil!” he says, and coughs into his palm.

  “Dad, maybe you should stop drinking, turn off the TV, and go to bed.”

  For a split second anger flashes in his face. “You talk to your father that way?”

  I back up, wondering if I’ll have to make another escape to the high branches, but he heaves a sigh. “No need for the tree again, Tom. Down the steps to your room. Quietly, softly. They won’t bother you. Lock yourself in. That’s all we can do now. Lock ourselves in and wait for Judgment Day.”

  He spins away, back to the TV, and takes another drink. His eyes focus on the screen and someone else’s supposedly real life. Soon he is completely lost in his show.

  I unlock the door and creep out of the attic.

  6

  To: reveredelders@galacticconfederation.com

  Subject: Old Hip-Hop Songs That Sucked

  Revered Galactic Confederation Elders, I write this from Tom Filber’s bedroom, at midnight. He has what is known as a “laptop computer,” a primitive but functional device, and I am encrypting this entry and uploading it to a link our spaceship will be able to scan. In case the communication is intercepted, I am assigning it the code name “Old Hip-Hop Songs That Sucked.” My research shows that no Earthling will be remotely interested in trying to unscramble a coded file with such a name.

  Esteemed Preceptors, let me begin by thanking you again for the honor of being chosen for this mission. It is a weighty responsibility to decide the fate of 6.8 billion life-forms.

  In case I am discovered in the act of writing this, I am simultaneously pretending to play a computer game that Tom Filber enjoys. It is, believe it or not, called Galactic Warrior and portrays the human race flying off on spaceships with laser weapons to subdue inferior, threatening, and hideous-looking life-forms. Tom apparently plays this game for several hours every day, and even with my inestimably superior intelligence, I cannot yet match his record point total.

  Tom Filber’s room is small, with posters of musical entertainers and professional wrestlers decorating the walls. The one tiny window looks across a tangle of branches at a house that belongs to the Peabody family.

  Tom is apparently attracted to a young female member of that family named Michelle. Human hormones exert a powerful effect as youths of the species approach mating age. They have invented a complicated construct called “romantic love” to explain and control these primitive urges.

  As long as I inhabit Tom’s body, I will be subject to all of his strengths and weaknesses, including his chemical impulses. Of course, given my advanced GC training, I can easily control the effects of such a simplistic chemical as testosterone. Nevertheless, as I write this I find I have glanced several times toward the Peabody house, where a light is on in the third-floor window and a female form appears to be moving around behind some drapes.

  Now, on to business. I would like to thank Mission Engineers for all their hard work. The extraction and insertion were a complete success. I have been accepted as Tom Filber and have made the acquaintance of every member of his immediate family.

  The Filbers are violent and unhappy, perhaps representative of the entire species. My first impressions confirm GC conclusions dating back three thousand years that the human race must never be told of the existence of the Confederation. Their limited intelligence, extreme egotism, xenophobia, and bellicose nature make any such direct contact impossible. Humans simply could not handle the information that they are a small and unimpressive race, nor do they have the wisdom and humility to accept our guidance.

  My initial research also tends to confirm projections that their cruelty and violent tendencies will lead them to destroy themselves. I am now using Tom Filber’s computer to scan what they call the Internet, a vast garbage can of human knowledge. It is clear that the end point is not far off. I would conservatively estimate it at ten years.

  They are within a decade of permanently wrecking their magnificent global environment. Their brightest scientists are laying the groundwork for new and devastating nuclear and biological weapons. GC ethicists may be right that we owe it to weak and vulnerable Homo sapiens to euthanize the species quickly and painlessly before such nightmares are unleashed.

  Of course, the Lugonians would then be free to take possession of this planet as their own. The Lugonian emissaries are probably correct—this may indeed be the best course for all concerned. But I will not prejudge. Tomorrow should provide me with crucial information.

  During our extensive orbital monitoring, we observed that nearly all of the bad habits manifested by adult humans can be traced back to their early development and were acquired and reinforced during a twelve-year period of voluntary daily incarceration known as “school.”

  We further discovered that the preponderance of destructive behavior, illogical thinking, and counterproductive tendencies develop in Homo sapiens during their fourteenth year, when their bodies hit a growth spurt, their hormones flare, and their voluntary incarceration reaches the highest stress level as they become “freshmen” in “high school.”

  Tomorrow I will experience this for myself.

  I will be going to high school as a freshman!

  Signing off now. Your humble evaluator, Ketchvar III.

  7

  At first I think they are saying, “Ask him.” It is hard to make out the words clearly because it is a windy day and they are hissing at me from across the street. I hear it faintly as I walk up Maple Drive with my backpack bouncing with every step. “Ask him,” they hiss.

  I smile and remain calm. “Ask who?” I call back. “And when I find out who he is, what should I inquire?”

  Then it’s “Ass slim.” Many of them are younger kids on their way to the elementary or middle schools, which are nearby. I have no idea why they are following me. They are making me self-conscious. We have observed young Earthlings extensively from orbit, so I know I am correctly groomed and attired. I have chosen blue jeans and a flannel shirt from the selection in Tom Filber’s closet. They laugh and call out to me, and the howling wind swallows their words: “Ass slim. Ass slim.”

  “No slimmer than the norm,” I tell them. “Perhaps you mean it as a compliment. Thank you. It’s kind of you to pay such attention to the contours of my buttocks. But let us focus on other things. Is it not a lovely, blustery morning? I can smell the late-flowering hibiscus.”

  My words only whip them up to a greater level of excitement. They laugh and shriek. “Did you hear that? The contours of his buttocks! Late-flowering hibiscus! He’s so weird! Ass slim, ass slim.”

  It’s only when we leave the road and cut across a leafy shortcut that the wind dies down and I hear it clearly. One boy—he can’t be more than ten years old—runs very close to me, opens his mouth wide, and yells out “HEY, ALIEN!”

  I freeze, terrified. Can all my advanced GC training have been for nothing? Has my insertion been discovered already? What possibly could have tipped them off. I am, after all, inhabiting a human body, dressed and behaving appropriately, and consulting with Tom Filber’s consciousness when necessary.

  “LET’S SEE IF YOUR BLOOD IS GREEN, ALIEN!” the boy shouts, and throws a stick at me.

  I dodge and it misses me. “My blood is red,” I tell him, “as is true of all mammals. Please leave me alone.”

  A bigger kid hurries over. Based on their facial resemblance, I guess that he is the older brother of the boy who hurled the stick. He has hit his growth spurt and stands nearly six feet tall. Muscles ripple on his arms. “Who gave you permission to speak to my bro, Alien?”

  I look back at him. “I meant no harm. Why do you call me that?”

  “Because it’s your name, you freak show. Always has been. Always will be. Do you have a problem with that?”

  I realize the remarkable truth. I have randomly appropriated the body of an outsider, a boy who never fit in and was nicknamed Alien by the other children of the neighborhood!
This must be why Tom Filber claimed in the spaceship that he had things in common with me. Perhaps this coincidence will make my masquerade on Earth much easier. “Yes, I am an alien,” I say. “You’re right, I always have been. I have no problem with admitting that.”

  “Get him, Scott!” other kids encourage. “Git the alien! Slap him upside the head! Kick him back to Venus!”

  They start to form a circle around me.

  Scott looks around at them and then back at me. He’s grinning, but his black eyes have sharpened. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get him.”

  I attempt to run away, but a little kid in the circle sticks out his leg and trips me.

  I stumble and start to go down, and before I can get up Scott is on my back. He rides me to the ground, folds his hand into fists, and hammers me.

  “You win,” I say, desperately recalling all that I know about violent male pack behavior. “I lose. You are an alpha male, far stronger and better equipped than I am in the battle for survival of the fittest. You will mate and have progeny. I will be alone and cast out.”

  The circle of kids hoots at this. “You hear that? Survival of the fittest! Alpha male! What an alien!”

  Scott draws back his fist. “Show us you’re an alien. Eat dirt.”

  Dirt is, of course, not a substance that the human body can digest.

  I quickly access the consciousness of Tom Filber. How should I handle this?

  Do whatever he says. Otherwise he’s going to bash your head in.

  Scott’s right fist is poised to strike. I stick out my tongue, hesitate, and then lick the ground.

  Kids laugh. “How does it taste, Alien?” Scott demands.