Short Stories and Nonsense. W.R. Lacy
fit. We went outside, and Tink was ready to be put down. She smelled and ran all over the place. She felt comfortable here, and so did I. When she came back, ready for her breakfast, it was already in a bowl on the floor, and she went right at it. It must have been her regular food because she did not smell or refuse it. We walked outside, and a table was set with every breakfast food available, but first, coffee. Even the creamer I liked was there. No one else was about, so I helped myself. The food was delicious! I could really get used to this. When I finished eating, the table and chair disappeared.
Nice. No dishes to wash.
We wandered around the cabin and found another trail that looked nice. Tink seemed to like it but stayed close. As we walked, things started changing. At first, just minor things, but the further we walked, the changes were more noticeable. The trees seemed to change color, not green, more blue. The grass was also changing to red. When I glanced up at the sun, there were two suns! Surprise!
Surprise! I glanced down at Tink, and she was still sniffing and walking around. She didn’t seem scared or anything, just very comfortable. The further we walked, the more changes we noticed. Now the sunlight seemed to be more purple and the terrain had slowly been changing, more rugged, rough mountains. We came to a pool, and the water was bright orange. Tink went to smell but did not drink. I felt we should turn around, but when I started to leave, the trail was gone! Again, nothing seemed the same; maybe we were beginning to get the secret of this place.
Suddenly, a small childlike creature appeared! It came up to us and looked us over. “Human person and creature,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Come with me,” it said. We followed her down a path I did not see earlier. This time when we came to a clearing, there was a dilapidated building; it looked like it belonged in a ghost town.
“Follow,” the creature said, so we did. Inside the building, it was dark, damp, and cold.
Tink stopped and looked up at me. I reached down and picked her up. She looked at me and whispered, “I’m scared.” I almost fainted! I thought I misheard her, but no. She said, “Let’s go home. I don’t like it here. It is not like the other place.”
I said, “Okay, we will in a little while.”
The childlike creature stopped and looked at Tink. “You want to go home? What if this was your home?”
“I don’t like it here,” replied Tink.
“Well, you don’t have to worry, because you will be going home soon.”
We proceeded further into the house, down a long hall. Soon we came to a large hall with lots of other people and machines in it. The creature spoke some foreign language, and the others came toward us. Tink started barking. “Be quiet!” I said.
“They are going to hurt us,” she said.
Surely not. But they did seem to have harm on their minds. “Do not be afraid” said the child. “We do not intend to harm you.”
Apparently, Tink did not feel that was the plan. She continued barking and growling. I was trying to get her to be quiet. “No,” she shouted.
The child creature raised her hand. Immediately, Tink quieted down. Not harmed. I asked if she was okay. “Yes,” she answered. The child motioned us to come forward. The big man was sitting on a big chair. He raised his hand, and everyone stopped what they were doing. I was surprised to see him. He smiled and motioned me forward. Tink quit barking and settled down. “I told you, some of your people are selected to learn our secret, and you are the one. Can you guess what it is?”
“Well,” I started, “everything is certainly different here. The colors are beautiful. Everyone that we have met has been very nice, and we have been treated very well. I guess your secret has something to do with that, perhaps?”
“You are right,” he replied, “but that is not all. We have taken humanoid features so as not to scare you. If we appeared in our normal state, you would die from fright! As you may have noticed, your animal is able to speak. This is a delight for you humans. I understand you have always wished this.”
“Yes,” I answered, “I was shocked at first, but now I find it delightful. Now I will have someone else besides me to talk to.”
He chuckled, but this time, it sounded different than the first time he did it. “The biggest part of our secret,” he stated, “is that we walk among you and have for many years. You don’t recognize us as anyone other than another human. We haven’t tried to change anything about you or your habits. Some of them are very pleasurable. We have never intermarried with your kind. We only observe. When your people landed on our planet, the moon, we didn’t want them to see the best features our planet has. So we made it impossible for them to come to the dark side. We haven’t been able to show you the better parts of our planet because you could not believe it. We have only shown you a small part of our planet. Some of the things, we probably take for granted. We will return you to your planet shortly. First, we would like for you to understand how we live. We do not eat food as your people do. We do not need to drink water.”
Wow, I thought. “That was a big drink you took at the other cabin.” He smiled.
“We do not have pets. Although, I wouldn’t mind having a Tink. We don’t need clothing. Our skin protects us. If we need something, we just think of it, and it happens. We thought if we lived among you, we might be able to teach you how to do these things so your lives would be better. But alas, you were not able to comprehend any of our thoughts. So we have moved to the other planets and have had some success. Still, occasionally, we try, as we did with you. Your animals are much better than your people are at thinking things through. That’s why your little dog can talk. We will return you to the present, and you will not remember any of this ever happened. However, your little creature will continue to talk, as you seem to enjoy it.”
I was so shocked. I couldn’t speak, but Tink did. “Come on, let’s go!” she said.
The next thing I remember was standing on the trail at the roadside park where I had stopped for lunch. I shook my head to clear it. I was still holding Tink in my arms. She was wiggling. “Please put me down,” she said. I still couldn’t believe she talked to me. It took me a while to reconstruct where I had been or thought I had been. Could it be real or just a weird dream? But still, Tink was talking, or was this just a figment of my imagination. I guess I’ll never know. The alien said I wouldn’t remember any of what I had been through, but some small bits and pieces of it came back to me. I tried to put it out of my mind. I turned and headed back to where the car was parked. Tink was walking beside me. I looked down at her, and she looked up at me and said, “Where are we going now?”
Since then, we have had lots of interesting conversations, not all of them about dogs. She seems to remember most of what happened to us and doesn’t mind filling in the details. We don’t often talk about what happened, but we do talk about everything else. She doesn’t speak when other people are around. This is just our secret from the dark side of the moon.
Red Eye
Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered if what you saw was real or if you just imagined it? That happened to a friend of mine. She was a young woman, well educated, had a good job, and seemed very settled. One day she called me on the phone and said she was having a problem. She seemed very disturbed and shook up. She said a big red eye had been watching her. She said this had just started, and she didn’t know what to do about it. It seemed to follow her, wherever she went. She could be shopping, and suddenly, there it was. She said sometimes it blinks and then goes away. It almost winks at her in a sly manner. One night, she woke up suddenly to see it sitting by her bedside. “Go away!” she screamed, but the eye shook no. She doesn’t know where it came from or why it has chosen her to harass. She has never been crazy or dingy. She has always been levelheaded and stable.
This actually started one day last summer. She was sitting outside enjoying the weather when suddenly a big boom startled her. At first, she