The Book of Ralph

by Christopher Steinsvold

Of course, I had not.

  “When we are ready, you will come to my home planet, as you promised. And then you will be the alien. You must become what you have resisted the most. Like a human child on Halloween, you must become the monster, the one you’ve always feared. This will bring you closer to illumination.”

  The preparations for interstellar travel have lasted over two years on the moon. I have no technical understanding of how the voyage will occur, but my body is undergoing a transformation that will allow me to survive the journey. I’ve been eating a delicious crystalline substance to which I became instantly addicted. Like Ralph, it smells like fresh celery.

  “If I told you what it was, you wouldn’t eat it.”

  The red, crunchy substance is transforming my body. I feel healthier and quicker all over. I look and feel as if I were twenty years old again, albeit with a neon pink sheen. My mysterious new diet also allows for helium respiration, and I should be fully acclimated by the time we leave. I can’t explain it, but instinctively, I know I will live for thousands of years.

  When I wasn’t reading the news online or talking to Ralph, I spent my time writing down my experiences, with the understanding that this report be left on the moon.

  “By the time it is discovered, humans will already understand.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “Centuries. Remember, the Kardashians couldn’t even find this place.”

  The moon base is difficult, if not pointless, to describe, as Ralph constantly changes the interior decoration. One time I woke up and the place looked like an old European hotel with antique furniture and a floor made of large, glowing white tiles, and the next time I woke up, everything was plaid. The strange programmable substance, which the Kardashian ships were made of, also composes the walls of Ralph’s secret moon base. According to Ralph, the material was injected deep into the moon and then programmed to expand as he saw fit, creating a catacomb labyrinth of rooms and halls.

  “Luckily, no one noticed the moonquakes.”

  Along the way, we’ve discussed my personal history of events. Ralph’s been helpful with my questions, but not all of them.

  “What was the anagram that the queen mentioned? I never figured that out.”

  Ralph’s golden glow brightened.

  “Stop being a trickster. Tell me,” I said.

  Ralph paused.

  “I . . . tricked . . . Dekon,” he said, his glow nearly white.

  “That’s the anagram? ‘I tricked Dekon’?”

  “Yes. I got slightly lucky with the spelling, but yes. That’s it.”

  “I don’t get it. I mean, just as ‘God’ is an anagram of ‘Dog,’ an anagram is always an anagram of some other words. What are the original words?”

  “When you are done writing, I will tell you. And you will laugh,” he said.

  “I can’t know until I’m done?”

  “But you do know. You are closer to the answer than you’ve ever been before.”

  No government ever officially claimed responsibility for the destruction of the Kardashian fleet, but it’s widely believed the United States was secretly responsible. Samantha, of course, never denied it, and was happy to have the world believe it.

  The commission report on the alien invasion, which took over a year and a half to appear, made only insubstantial references to me. Of course, I didn’t read the whole thing. It was only interesting when it was mistaken, and when it wasn’t, the investigators admitted their ignorance in the face of inexplicable details.

  I don’t know what happened in Ralph’s house when the Kardashians raided it, but I assume they let Lieutenant Barber live because he had the mark of a convert. In any case, with a quick appointment from Samantha, he became the first openly gay vice president of the United States.

  Alice Higginbotham will go down in history as one of the most courageous reporters that ever lived, up there with Edward R. Murrow—because of her aggressive questioning of the queen. And interest in her led to interest in me. Alice had confided to her boss about me going insane over the name ‘Ralph’ when I first talked with her. This strange fact became even stranger when President Shepherd uttered ‘Ralph’ with her dying breath. Because of this, many journalists have been investigating me, though they believe I died in the attack on DC. My name is even engraved on the memorial.

  Almost everyone on Earth had believed President Shepherd and I were covering up Coca-Cola’s involvement in the lunar advertisement. I wish I could’ve seen their faces when the lunar advertisement was shut off, by Ralph, seconds after the Kardashian fleet incinerated. Naturally, this led people to wonder if the Kardashians were responsible all along.

  Shortly after arriving on the moon, I realized two things, which are related. First, Ralph’s usual pink glow had turned golden and remained gold every time I saw him. Second, though Ralph often joked and made me laugh, he had stopped laughing altogether. I suspected he was depressed or ill.

  “Laughter is just a funny way of breathing,” he said.

  “But why have you stopped? I’m actually worried.”

  “Actually, I haven’t stopped at all.”

  “But I haven’t heard you.”

  “I never stopped laughing. I’ve only improved the rhythm of my laughter. Right before you came to the moon, I had a realization. I realized that every single breath is a laugh . . . We laugh with every single breath we take.”

  His glow grew bright like the sun, and I smiled.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I thank Marie-Juliette Riot for everything and forever.

  I thank my parents, John and Virginia Steinsvold, and ma belle mère, Daniele Brison, for all their love and support over the years. I thank Mike Regan for being a good friend in a terrible time. I thank Jay Riggio, Chris Kent, and Courtney McKay for aiding me with social media and self-promotion. I further thank Courtney McKay for being a strange light in an all-too-familiar darkness.

  I thank my literary agent, Mark Gottlieb, at Trident Media Group for discovering me. I thank everyone at Medallion for making the book real. I thank the people at Audible for the audiobook deal and Landscape Entertainment for the film/TV option.

  Finally, I thank the /r/writing subreddit of Reddit for being a great source of information, help, and encouragement. You are my writing community.