Extraterrestrials: Black Tears

PAGE ONE

USC-SESO

Alamdag | Alampat

Science Creativity Writing Contest

People's Choice Award

October 2014

The Author’s Note:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

[The original and/ or unedited version during submission]

ONE

It was August 2020.

One humid Friday afternoon, when the sky was about to be darkened, Shawn Rodriguez was still on his Science class discussion. He was talking about Things beyond the Galaxy. He was a newly hired teacher in the known university of the Philippines, particularly in Cebu. In fact, it was his third month of teaching.During his discussion, the students were very attentive for a reason that Shawn was using a very attractive and interesting power point presentation. They never felt bored because he hada sense of humor and also he had the ability to control jokes that made the students put their keen eyes to him.

When the discussion was about to end, one of his students raised her right hand. Shawn responded, “Yes, dear?” then he added pleasantly, “Please stand.”

“I have a question,” said the veiled one, who was a Muslim. “Do aliens exist? Are they real?”

Shawn was amazed to her question because it was her first time to participate in the class. Then he replied, “To be honest with you, I don’t believe with aliens. Although many articles that are found in the internet, but I still don’t believe because the discoverer has no enough documents to prove that aliens really exist – or maybe because of our new technologies like; Photoshop, wherein we can edit any photos according to our desired design and –”

Suddenly, the back door swung open. The students looked back and they saw a woman wearing an eyeglass. It was Dorothy, who was a former Science coordinator and also Shawn’s girlfriend. She was handling her twelve inch red laptop and brought it in the table in front of the class.

“Aliens are true,” she began, turning her gaze to Shawn and she whispered, “Don’t worry; it doesn’t harm your dignity.”

“Class, please excuse us for a minute,” said Shawn, dragging Dorothy to the corridor beside the doorway. Then he began to speak, “What are you doing? Suppose to be you’re in the faculty.”

Dorothy began to explicate, “Yes but I heard that you’re telling a lie to your students,” then she added, taking a slap on his shoulder. “We are teachers, right? No matter what happen, we should be true to our duty. Remember our principles when we were still in collegethat we should be a role model so that we can be effective.”

Shawn nodded, “Yes, but the fact is – they are very inquisitive, how can I dismiss them on time?” then he peeped in, looking straight to his students and said, “Just for a minute, class.”

 “I know that feeling, but they are students, don’t worry, I can take care of this.”