by Dwayne Phillips
December 21, 2008 - 2008-051
Go to
Dwayne's Home Page
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Darkness. Gray, then light. Something on his face was wet and thick. His head throbbed. Then it went dark again.
Darkness gave way to a different type of darkness. It was cooler. What was once wet had dried. Then it went dark again.
Bright. A brilliant blinding brightness. Del squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness, but it was no use. He tried in vain to put his hands on his eyes to battle the brightness. Something was between his hands and his eyes. Del moved his head back so he could put his hands between the object and his eyes. His head kept going backwards until all was dark again.
The blinding brightness returned. Del kept his eyes closed and placed his hands on them. He was able to open his eyelids a tiny amount as long as he kept his hands on them. Slowly, he opened his eyes and forced his hands away from his face.
His brain told him to close down again. The brightness was too much, but something else kept Del's eyes open until they adjusted to the brightness.
Del was sitting in the driver's seat of his Jeep. The top was down, and that was alright as Del remembered putting it down yesterday. Well, he remembered putting it down some time in the past. Perhaps it was yesterday, perhaps it was two days before or two minutes before. The time was confused in Del's mind.
The Jeep wasn't right. It was horizontal, but the front hood was crumpled down towards the ground. The windshield was twisted and lying on the hood. The front passenger seat was gone leaving behind twisted metal and torn wiring.
Del's body seemed to be right. His hands were cut and caked with blood and dust. His fingers worked. Del felt his toes moving inside his boots. He could lift each foot, so his legs must be working as well.
Del stepped out of the Jeep. He wasn't on the "road" anymore. That was more of a trail in the desert than any road, but it was marked as a road on the map. Del remembered driving on the road yesterday or two days ago or two minutes ago. The Jeep was in the dirt off the road.
"You don't look too good," said Del as he looked at the Jeep from his vantage point a few steps away.
Del turned around 360 degrees to see where he was. He couldn't stop his turn when he wanted. His body stopped at some point, and his brain kept turning. It was an odd feeling. The mind going in one direction while the body in another. Del laughed. It just seemed to be the thing to do. He considered sitting back in the Jeep and taking a nap. Something convinced him that he should walk away and find help for the Jeep.
Del started walking.
Darkness. A faint light, cool air, and a low humming noise. Darkness. Water was flowing across Del's face. It was a comfort until some washed into his mouth and nose. Del was drowning. "I have to wake up and clear this nightmare from my sleep," thought Del. "Then I can go back to sleep and get some rest."
Del jerked himself up to a seated position to clear his mind. His head was soaked with water. He coughed to clear what was still in his nose and throat. Pain dominated his head. Del closed his eyes and held his head in his hands to chase the pain. He opened his eyes as he turned his head from side to side. Two forms were in front of him moving towards him. Del waved his arms to chase the nightmares.
Darkness. A faint light, cool air, and a low humming noise. Voices murmered in the near distance. Del was sitting up leaning against a rock. Beneath him was cool dirt. Del focused his eyes for the first time in, well he didn't know how long. Maybe a day or two or two or three minutes.
Del stood. He didn't know why, but standing felt better than sitting in a strange place. He could move and run away if something threatened him. Del's brain told him that was a good option; his body disagreed. He was trembling. Del grabbed one had with the other to try to stop the shakes, but that did no good. His legs shook as well.
"Walk, damn it. Walk," said Del.
One foot moved, then another, then he repeated the act. Del was in a cave. It was cool here. It was supposed to be cool in caves, but this cool was clean, almost sterile. That wasn't right.
Del walked towards a corner of rock. Light glowed from behind that rock, and the hum grew louder in that direction. He slowed as came to the corner and peered around it.
Two figures were facing away from Del and leaning over something that had blinking lights. Del stepped back a few inches and slowed his breathing. He tried to study the two figures and decided that they were men. They were wearing silver jump suits with black boots and a thick black belt around their waists. This was out of a 1950s B-grade movie. Del smiled and fought off a chuckle.
One of the two men glanced back and saw Del peer around the corner. That man nudged the other with an elbow. Both men turned towards Del.
"So," announced one. "You are with us again. That is good. We have worried about you."
"Yes," said the other. but said nothing else.
Del blinked and looked about for an escape route. He turned back to the two men in comic-book outfits. The chuckle came out. "Uh, yeah. Where am I? Who are you? What is this?" Del fought of the urge to ask, "Halloween?"
The two men moved away from one another and walked towards Del. "We found you wandering about in the desert. We were surprised to see you. You were dazed, confused, unable to speak to us in any way we could understand. We tried to assist you, but you fell to the ground and would not awaken. We felt the only recourse was to bring you here."
"Where is here?" asked Del.
"In a cave," answered the second man in the silver suit.
"Yes," added the first. "A cave not far from where we found you."
"What are you doing in a cave?" asked Del.
"Well," said the second, "we, uh we..."
"We come here to escape your, uh the sun, the heat of the day," finished the first.
Del stared from one of the men to the second and back. They were standing far enough apart that he could not see them both in one glance. While shifting his eyes from one to the other and back, Del noticed a flat panel with colorful, blinking lights. He lost track of the two men and concentrated on the panel. Then he noticed more unusual objects behind the panel.
"What is that panel? What are those things behind it? What is making the humming noise? How did all this get here? This doesn't make sense. What..." said Del in rapid succession.
"You have many questions," said the first man.
"I told you we shouldn't have brought him here," said the second man to the first.
"What should we have done? Let him expire outside? He is such a good specimen, and unexpected in this area." answered the first.
The two then stepped towards one another and spoke in gibberish. Del strained to hear and understand, but couldn't.
"Wait. Wait, hold it, wait a minute." said Del. "What are you two saying? What is that language? I don't understand you."
"Pardon us," said the first man. "We are from..."
"From Romania," finished the second.
"Yes, from Romania," added the first.
"I've been to Romania," said Del. "You aren't speaking Romanian. Those aluminum foil outfits are not native to Romania. And those things over there aren't from Romania."
The two men looked at one another and exchanged more gibberish for a moment. They turned back to Del, and the first spoke. "Yes, you are correct. We are not from Romania. We are not from this planet of yours."
Del could not longer resist and laughed out loud. "These guys must be UFO nuts," he thought.
"Guys, you don't look harmful, but really. The Three Stooges had better space suits in their movies. What is this? I mean, thank you for finding me and getting me out of the sun. I guess I lost control of my Jeep and crashed. For some reason I started walking instead of staying with the Jeep. I don't know how long I was out there, but thank you for finding me and saving my life."
"We are not sure what 'Three Stooges' are," said the first man.
"We tried to appear in a form that would not frighten you. This dress is what our research into your world told us you would expect," added the second man.
"Well, yeah right," said Del. "Do you have a cell phone? I would like to call my office, my mother, my friends, someone who could come out here and get me."
"We can return you to your people," said the first.
"At the right time," said the second.
Del walked to the two men and put his hands on one shoulder of each man. "Guys," he said. "Thanks for saving me. I'm probably still a little out of my head and not making good sense here. I need to tell someone that I am okay instead of petrifying out there in the desert, so if you could loan me a phone."
"You don't believe us, do you?" asked the first man.
"Believe you? What? That story about being from outer space or something? I thought you had dropped that story by now."
"That is not a 'story,'" said the second man.
"Let us show you," said the first man as he turned and walked to the panel of colorful lights. He turned to Del and motioned him to follow.
"Well, what else am I going to do?" asked Del as he followed the man. "I can take a joke."
"We control all the systems from this place," explained the first man. "We cool the air in this cave, add moisture, move the air and such. That is why we were able to save your life."
"That explains the hum I hear," said Del.
"Yes, that hum is the motors that move the air. We also control communications with our world from here. We had just finished a transmission when you woke."
"Oh," said Del as he rolled his eyes. "Transmissions to your world."
"You perhaps do not believe us," said the second man.
The two men looked at each other and then at Del.
"Perhaps a demonstration will suffice," said the first man. "Step into this area here."
The man pointed to a place were the ground of the cave was covered with a shiny metal circle. The two men stood on the circle and looked back at Del.
"Oh, why not," said Del as he stepped onto metal circle.
One of the two men reached back towards the panel and moved his hand about in the air. Del's feet tingled. He tried to step off the circle, but his feet were stuck to it.
"Hey, this isn't right. What is happening?" asked Del.
"A demonstration," said the first man. "Look over here." He pointed to a sheet of glass that was hanging, well Del couldn't see what it was hanging from. It was suspended in air from a few inches above the cave floor to a few inches from its ceiling.
Del saw through the glass and viewed the dirty, gray rock wall. "Okay, I'm looking through a piece of glass and see the wall behind the glass. Am I supposed to be impressed?"
"Perhaps you will be," answered the first man.
The rest of the cave turned black behind Del. Points of light streaked through the glass. A sky flashed for a second and then it darkened. Del was looking down on planet earth. "You guys have some pretty good footage of the earth, you know?" mumbled Del. Del crouched down an inch and reached his hands out for something to steady himself.
"Pretty good demonstration so far?" asked the second man. The first man cut him off with sharp gibberish.
The glass flashed several bright colors and settled on a landscape scene. "Here we are," said the first man. "This is our home planet."
"What, Romania?" chuckled Del.
"No, our home planet," said the second man. "Please be patient. Please study what you see. It will soon convince you that we are from another planet."
"Yeah right," thought Del. "Stuck in a cave with Larry and Curly. When will Moe show up?"
Del stared into the glass. In a few moments he stopped breathing and opened his mouth slightly. Words didn't come. He had never seen the colors, the plants, and what he surmised were animals.
"Wait," said Del as he glanced back and forth between the two men. "This is really..."
"Another planet?" finished the first man. "Yes, it is our planet."
An out of focus form appeared in the corner of the glass. The "Romanian" gibberish came from it and was returned by the two men standing next to Del. The conversation ended in a few minutes, the form moved out of the picture of the glass, and the view of the other planet flashed blank. Bright colors flickered again, the earth appear for a few seconds, and the dirty gray rock wall was once again behind the glass.
The two men stepped off the shiny metal circle and returned to the colorful panel. Del stood motionless, staring at the cave wall through the glass. In a moment, he walked to the two men.
"That was some sort of video radio or something. Right?" asked Del. "You were communicating with some...uh some person on your planet, right?"
"No," said the first man. "We traveled to our planet. You were looking through a window of our vessel."
"No, what. You mean."
"He means what he said," said the second man. "We traveled to our planet on that disk where we stood. You were not viewing our planet through a transmission. You were standing on that disc on our planet."
Del's legs grew weak. He reached out and caught himself on the colorful panel.
"Perhaps you should rest again," said the first man. "You were dehydrated and burned by the sun. We did what we could for you, but we are not learned in your physiology."
Del walked away from the panel and sat on a bench made of something he didn't recognize. The two men brought him cups of water and some solids. He ate them slowly and gulped the water. The solids were tasteless and smelled like grass.
Del's eyes were heavy. He would close them, count to ten, and open them again. He didn't want to miss anything. Close the eyes, eight, nine, ten, open them. Close the eyes, eight, nine...
Darkness. Gray, then light. Bright. A brilliant blinding brightness. Del squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness, but it was no use.
The blinding brightness returned. Del kept his eyes closed and placed his hands on them. He was able to open his eyelids a tiny amount as long as he kept his hands on them. Slowly, he opened his eyes and forced his hands away from his face.
Del was sitting in the driver's seat of his Jeep. The top was down, and that was alright as Del remembered putting it down yesterday. Well, he remembered putting it down some time in the past. Perhaps it was yesterday, perhaps it was two days before or two minutes before. The time was confused in Del's mind.
Go to
Dwayne's Home Page
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org