Park Bench
by Doug Hawley
Joe took his
newspaper out to read on a fine spring day.
As usual he sat on what he thinks of as “his”
park bench by a stream in the forest. He
was mildly upset to see a stranger on one end of
the bench. Because he didn’t want to
cede his place, he sat down and greeted the
stranger.
The front page of his paper has a headline “Army
suggests flying saucers may be real.”
Without thinking he said to no one “How can
anybody believe in alien spaceships?”
The man at the other end of the bench replied
“I know what you mean. Little green
men, disk shaped flying machines. What
nonsense.”
Despite himself, because he believed he has
encountered a rare rational soul, Joe said “Right.
Nothing inhabited could be close enough to earth
to travel here.”
“That only works in what we call the
tachispace where speeds are faster than the speed
of light. There we can travel between
galaxies in seconds.”
Joe stared at the stranger for a few seconds and
after blinking for a while appropriately asked
“Huh?”
“You see, we can easily get from the
universe to tachispace.”
“You mean a place where women wear big
shoulder pads and the floors are linoleum?”
Joe laughed at what he thought was a clever joke.
After mumbling something under this breath about
stupid humans “It’s ‘tachi’
like fast. In this sense we mean fast, not
tacky as in bad taste.”
Now Joe is irritated “I took you for a
reasonable man. Now I see I’ve run
into another crazy. Who are you?”
“Just a guy from planet Umlaut in another
galaxy hanging out for a while on this bench.
You can call me Duke. We don’t usually
use names where I’m from.”
“But earlier you said flying saucers were
nonsense. Now you say they are real.”
“True, I said there are no flying saucers.
We travel in displacement ovals. There’s
a little jolt going from universe to tachispace
and back, but it’s not too bad. As you
can see, I’m brown not green. We come
in all colors, but only send out people who match
the place they go.”
“OK, is there any way you can prove all this.
Can I see a displacement oval?”
“Sorry, you cannot sense one of our machines.
Your senses don’t work that way. I
could walk into it and you would just think that
I had disappeared without seeing the machine.”
Duke looks around and doesn’t see anyone.
“I can do something that might make you
believe.”
“You can try.”
Duke grabbed his forehead just below his hairline
and pulls back. Inside Duke’s head
where a brain would be expected there appeared a
spaghetti-like mess of translucent tubes carrying
fluids in a multitude of colors.
“Did you hypnotize me? Did someone
slip me some drugs? That’s not real.”
“Joe, I can’t think of anything that
will convince you if this doesn’t. I
will give you some advice – if you tell
anyone, you’ll be called mad, so you
probably shouldn’t tell this to the news or
anyone you know.”
“How did you know I’m Joe?”
“Hey, you didn’t believe anything else
I’ve said, I don’t think you would
follow how I know about your birthday, marital
status, and occupation.”
“Then you must know I’m a writer.”
“Indeed. You could turn this into a
story.”
“Before you go, why are you here?”
“We visit different planets for vacations
and science. I’m studying primitive
societies.”
“Joe you must want to know what humans
always want to know. I’ll show you
mine if you show me yours.” Duke
started to unbuckle his belt.
“Uhh, no I’m good.”
“I see. You would be shamed by the
comparison.”
With that Duke walked about fifty meters away
while projecting a multi-color aura and
disappeared.
Joe stared at the spot where Duke disappeared for
about five minutes and then said to no one “Maybe
I will write this story. I’d better
call it science fiction instead of memoir.”
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