The Alien in my shed
Chapter 1 The Alien in my shed
I had to cut the grass. I'd left it a bit longer than I should. So I went to the shed. I found it unlocked. Funny, I was sure I locked it. I opened it. Everything seemed in place. I didn't notice the paint cans had moved. The mower was there. The Barbecue was there with its cover on. What a waste of money it was buying that. With only me in the house when would I cook up a couple of beefburgers just for me. I pulled the mower out of the shed. It was a good mower. Well worth paying a little bit more for. It had a metal blade. I didn't want one with plastic blades that are only good for 2 or 3 times. I reached back in and picked up the extension lead. Then I walked up to the garage pulling the mower behind me. I plugged it all in and began to mow the lawn. I didn't notice a small animal dart out of the shed. It would be back in before I finished. It took me about 40 minutes to cut the lawn. I had to empty the collector a few times. I unplugged the extension lead and reeled in the lead, then I made my way back to the shed. Pulling my mower behind me. When I got there I pushed the mower in and placed the lead in its corner. Something caught my eye. The cover moved. Could be a rat. I watched it for a bit then picked up a spade and approached the cover. It moved again. I grabbed the end and whisked it up. What was sat there looking at me wasn't a rat. I didn't know what it was. Large green eyes stared at me. They blinked sideways. Somehow I sensed it was friendly so I put down the spade. "Hello little fella," I said. It raised a hand with really long fingers up. There were three fingers and a thumb. It closed the fingers and left one up. Then it closed it and opened it. It was beckoning to me to come closer. So I did. It kept beckoning so I got as close as it was possible. Then it reached up and touched my forehead. I felt a fluttering sensation. What was it doing? After a few moments it pulled its finger back.
I had an overwhelming feeling of friendliness, and realisation. I made myself more comfortable and sat down. This creature was an alien. It blinked again and spoke. "Hello Tim." She said. The fact that it knew my name didn't surprise me. I knew her name. And that she was female.
Chapter 2
"Hello Arkan," I said. "Pleased to meet you," I added. She was small,, almost hairless, really big eyes and a large head. The top of her head was covered in fur, white fur, or hair. No it looked more like fur. Now I could see her clearer her body was covered in a very thin layer of fur. "Would you like to come back to my home?" I asked.
"Yes that would be nice," she said. "In case you are wondering. I connected with your mind just then, that's how I know your language. And shown you that I wasn't a threat."
I wasn't wondering, I just accepted it. I got up and she climbed out from under the barbecue. Her feet were large like her hands. But very like mine. I'd put her as the same size as a large cat. We left the shed and I locked it. "Do you lock everything like that?" she asked.
"I'm afraid we do." I said. "Can't be too careful."
"We don't," she said. "Not on my planet Synus."
Chapter 3
We walked up to my back door and went in. "Well Arkan, this is my home."
"It looks very comfortable," she said. "What have you got to eat? I'm hungry."
"Well I've got a few meats, and several vegetables," I said.
"We don't eat meat." We did used to thousands of years ago."
"How old is your civilisation then?" I asked her.
"We have been going now for thousands of years, and my planet is on the other side of this Galaxy. Which we call The Androled Galaxy by the way."
"We call it The Milky Way," I said. "So how did you get here?" I asked her.
"My ship malfunctioned and I crashed. I'm afraid it incinerated itself, but I managed to get off a distress signal. I shouldn't be stranded here long. I came to study your species. It's rather fortunate we met."
"Well that's good to know. What do you think of us?"
"I don't know yet. I haven't been here long." She hopped onto the chair by the table. Her little legs had some strength, like a cats.
"Well now," I said opening the fridge. "I'll just get out what I have and put it on the table for you." I got out tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, lettuce, carrots, onions, and from the fruit bowl I picked up apples, oranges, plums, and bananas. "Here you go. I don't suppose you need to know what they are. Maybe you have different vegetables and fruits."
"Yes, we don't have the variety here though." She started on a tomato, "mm lovely," she said. She at a banana, skin and all. She pulled a face. "Not so lovely."
"I should have peeled that for you." I smiled at her. She smiled back, When she did that her smile was very wide. Almost up to her small ears. She sniffed and tasted most of the items on the table. She didn't eat much though before she said she'd had enough.
"Thankyou for that. I think we are going to be good friends Tim."
"I think so too. Right well I think the best way for you to get to know us would be on the internet."
"Internet?" She asked. "What's that then?"
"Ah well stay where you are and I'll show you." I said. I got out the laptop and fired it up. "Everything we know is on it." I opened the browser and turned it towards her. "You can type in a query and in a second or two the answer comes up." I said. I chose the first topic 'Great Britain' this is all there is to know of my country. The page filled with text. "When you've read the page you can scroll it down to reveal more."
She grasped the idea readily. Her reading speed was phenomenal. Taking the whole page in just a few seconds. She was glued to the screen for the next hour. I made her some fruit squash, which she sipped occasionally. Pretty soon I realised she now knew more about my country than I did. She asked the odd question so I said that will be on there, showing her how to open another tab. She was there pretty much the rest of the day. I sat and watched for a while, like watching a child explore and find things out. It wasn't long before she started to explore everything else. She was very interested in Einstein, and Newton, and several others. Then she hopped off the chair and walked about a bit, holding her little button nose. "Ok. She said. That was all extremely interesting. I shall give you some of my knowledge later. She smiled at me. Then hopped onto the sofa where I was sitting.
"I show you some television," I said. Switching the tv on.
"Oh we have these," she said. And sat there with some interest. She'd lean forward if anything interesting came on. I put the news on. That caught her attention enormously. "Oh that is sad," she said when a piece on a war came on. "We've come a long way since we fought amongst ourselves."
"I know our wars are so terrible." I said. "But we abhor it, and try to help those affected. Yet people who die in them are held up as heroes."
"That is strange," she said. "And from what I gather, not a lot is achieved through them. We eliminated conflict and now have a police force to ensure peace. No system is fallible of course but ours works. I come from the largest country on my planet. But we have a council, and even the smallest country has equal say."
"We have such a council, but its powers are limited."
"Ah well that's how ours started," she said. "You seem to be well on the way to world peace. You just have to stick with it and iron out your conflicts. The next step for you would be to give your councils more power."
"I can see that. But everyone else needs to be on the same page."
"The same page?" she queried. "What does that mean?"
"Well everyone has to agree to the same thing. Be in agreement."
"Oh I see."
Chapter 4
It was beginning to get dark outside. Something Arkan found interesting. "We have a two sun system. So we get daylight all the time." She said. "We just sleep when we need to. Our planet orbits between the suns.
"That's interesting," I said. "Most of us sleep when it gets dark or soon after. We do have what we call nightshifts, where people work through the night and sleep in the day. I used to work nights myself. But I'm retired now."
"Ah you've stopped working." Said Arkan.
"You've got it." I said. "You've learnt quite a lot about our planet now. When were you expecting to finish, and when do you expect to be rescued."
"Ah I don't know when I will be 'rescued' as you say. But I'm not the only one here. They should have picked up my distress signal so it could be anytime. I have a beacon inserted under my skin so they will find me wherever I am. We have been visiting your planet for a while now, learning all about you. Our policy is not to interfere though. I'm breaking it being with you but when I relay all that I have learnt I should be forgiven for actually making contact."
"Wow. I hope to be able to answer all your questions and queries. But the computer will tell you everything. Do you have something like that on Synus?"
"Yes we do have a library of information, accessed from terminals like yours."
We talked for most of the evening. When it became time for me to go to bed. Arkan said she would to as she has been awake all day. I showed her the spare room. But she looked puzzled.
"Couldn't I sleep with you?"
"Yes if you want to," I said. We went on into my bedroom. I was thankful I kept the double bed so there would be room. I took off my clothes down to my underpants and got in on my usual side. She got in on the other.
"You've got covers?" she observed. "On my planet its so hot we sleep on the bed."
"Yes well we get what we call seasons, some parts of the year its too hot so I do the same. Today wasn't so hot although it is the warm season now."
We talked some more then I'm afraid I dropped off to sleep. Arkan stayed awake, thinking about all that she had learnt. This was better that observing. She resolved to go home and tell them all about making contact with a Cervian. Cervis was the name they had for this planet. Eventually she slept.
In the morning. Tim woke up to find Arkan had left the room. He dressed and went downstairs. She was on the computer. "Good morning Arkan," he said.
"Hello Tim, or good morning as you said. I've been on here awhile now. I've gleaned lots of information about your world. You have some countries that are quite rich and some that are very poor. That must create conflict. And famine. I've learnt about famine. I see the richer countries do give some help to them but not enough. And you have some individuals that are a lot richer than some countries. It's all been very illuminating. Very different from my world.
"That's good," said Tim. Making himself a bowl of cereal. "Can I get you something to eat?"
"No I'm not hungry. You seem to eat a lot," said Arkan. Eying up Tims bowl as he joined her at the table. "You sleep a lot too."
I looked at Arkan as I started eating. "What's your planet like Arkan?
She looked up at me. "I was wondering when you'd ask me that. It's smaller than your world, and smaller than your Mars. We call that Phenlo by the way. We don't have as much water, no big oceans like you have. We don't have seasons as you do here. We live mostly underground though as it can get very hot on the surface. But we do have dansaksh, that's like your villages and towns on the surface. We revolve as you do naturally, but our suns also orbit each other. That's why we are in daylight mostly. Each day lasts 20 of your hours. As a species we have evolved to not carry children. We raise them in bustraphas, from when the egg joins with a sperm to full term, about 5 months of your time. We have inchatos, which are like your insects, but only cold-blooded animals live totally on the surface, they are like your lizards but can be very big. They are dangerous so we have to be careful when we come to the surface. We have farms where we grow our food. They are on the surface. We have forests too, but they aren't as dense as yours can be. And we don't have polar ice.
"Wow that was not what I expected. I thought your world would be much like ours," I exclaimed. "Have you been to other worlds?"
"Oh yes, we are a very curious race. Some worlds bigger than yours have some terribly fierce uncasils, big reptiles to you. Other worlds smaller than yours have no animals at all, only vegetation. They are often very windy. But we are very similar. You class yourselves as mammals. You feed your very young from nipples, we have those and also feed our young that way, when they are still very small. Then we wean them on the puree like you but ours are from vegetables.
"Well your world sounds fascinating. So do all the others too. We used to have giant lizards but they died out millions of years ago. Well before man evolved."
"Yes I read about them," said Arkan. "Now, I'd like to go out. How shall we solve the problem of my appearance?"
"Oh do you? I don't know. You need a disguise. Or a wrap. I have a pair of sunglasses somewhere. If I wrap you up and carry you we ought to be able to pass you off as my baby." I looked around for my sunglasses. I know I have a pair somewhere. I looked in some cupboards and drawers. Then I looked in my junk drawer in the kitchen. There they are. I gave them to Arkan. Then I relised he'd never seen anything like them I said, "here, let me show you. I took them back, opened them up fitted them in front of her eyes and over her ears.
"Wimotesha!" exclaimed Arkan. "Everything is darker."
"They suit you," I said. They just about cover your eyes completely." Now all I need is a blanket. I took the throw off the back of the sofa. "This will do nicely. Now where would you like to go?"
"What do you usually do when you go out?"
"Well a coffee shop, maybe a food shop. But the first thing I should do is get a baby carrier that I can wear."
Chapter 5
So we left the house with Arkan wrapped up so she could see around us. I got in the car and Arkan moved to the seat next to me. I drove the short distance into town and parked in a multi-story car park. Then I picked up my bundle and held her close to me as I set off. First stop was Mothercare. Arkan was fascinated. Turning her head this way and that. I found a harness for carrying a baby which looked like it should fit. Then we left the shop and went to the coffee shop. I made straight for the loo, so I could fit the harness and carry Arkan more comfortably, facing me. That done, we exited the loo and queued up at the counter. The lady who served me knew me from coming in here so often. "Hello," she said. "You looking after a baby today?"
"Yes, she's my sisters." I said nervously.
"What's her name?" I knew that was coming. I decided to use Arkans real name.
"Arkan," I said.
"Oh that's unusual, pretty though. Can I see her."
"Oh I'm afraid she's not well. They had to operate on her eyes so she has to wear shades. Arkan turned her head and smiled.
Slightly alarmed the assistant just went "Oh!" then recovering, "hello sweetheart."
Arkan turned away, concerned she might have shown too much of her face. Although the wrap covered her very well.
"A regular latte please," I said as unconcerned as I could make out.
We sat down and Arkan sneaked a peek about us. Luckily it wasn't too busy. "This is fantastic," she said breathlessly.
"I'm glad you think so. It's slightly alarming for me." I drank my coffee with Arkan turning her head this way and that, observing what customers there were. One of them was a mother and baby. She was wearing a similar harness to me. She smiled at us and I smiled back. I hope that won't encourage her to come over. When I had finished I made for the opposite entrance to avoid passing her. Out in the street I felt a lot less conspicuous. We walked around for a bit. I went to the park and sat on an empty bench. Arkan used the time to have a good look. There was someone playing catch with their dog. She watched them for a while.
"I read that you keep what you call pets," she said. That's a dog isn't it? A King Charles Spaniel it believe."
I was surprised she could recognise a dogs species, but then she had been on the laptop a while. She would have found the idea of pets interesting. "Yes it is. I think."
"We don't have pets on my world," said Arkan.
"I used to have a cat. But they don't live very long." I said. "Well if you agree I'll make for home."
"Ok," said Arkan. I thought she would plead to be out longer, but I was already thinking of her as a child. I quickly dispelled that thought.
"I'll walk around a bit more though, on the way back to the car. Ok."
"Yes that's fine Tim." If only I had a child happy to do whatever I thought we should.
We walked around town a bit more. Trying not to notice fellow walkers with and without a baby. Eventually we found ourselves back at the car. Arkan slipped onto the seat beside me. I then drove home. Before I got out she got back into my arms and I adjusted the blanket around her.
Oh Crumbs. Next door had arrived home at the same time. "Hello Tim. She said. "What have you got there?"
"Hi Jane. This is Arkan, she has to wear shades to protect her eyes." Arkan looked at her. She was more extensively covered this time.
"Hi sweety," Jane said. Arkan didn't answer. I was relieved at that.
"I'm just looking after her for a bit." I explained. "For my sister."
"Aw, lucky you. "Can I have her for a bit?" I took that as a joke, whether or not it was.
"Sorry. Strict instructions." My door eventually opened. "See you soon though."
"Bye bye. Looks like she's hungry."
"Yes. I said and went in. Jane shut her door before I managed to shut mine.
"That was exhilarating!" Exclaimed Arden.
"That was exhausting," I sighed. As Arden jump down from my arms. She surprised me. For her size that was quite a drop. But then I think her legs are very springy. I'm glad though that we went out, even more so that we got away with it. I think its time for some food so I went into the kitchen and made myself a drink. "Are you hungry Arkan?" I asked.
"Actually, no. But you go and feed. It's a while since you had food isn't it?" She said.
"Ok," I said. I just made myself a sandwich." When I took it into the lounge Arkan was sitting on the sofa. Her little legs were straight out in front of her like a child.
"What did you make yourself? Can I see?" said Arkan.
"Just a sandwich. I've got 2 slices of bread with sliced ham in between."
Arkan made a face by squeezing her forehead and mouth together. "Euugh. Not my sort of food. She laughed then. A high pitched sort of wail. It's the first time I saw her make a face like that. I was amazed at how small her mouth went when I've seen her express happiness and make her huge mouth open. She had very even teeth, no incisors like we have. I looked at her and smiled.
Just then she sat bolt upright. "I've been found," she said. My fellow explorer is outside in your garden."
"So this is goodbye then? I asked her.
"I'm afraid so. I'm very glad to know you Tim."
"I'm glad you sheltered in my shed." I said. "I'm sorry we didn't have more time together. You've taught me a lot." I said. And I meant it. What a lovely race. As you call your planet Synus, would you say you are a Synusian?
"Yes that's right, er Earthling? Is that right?"
"It sure is. I'm a human, from the country of England. And I am a human."
She got up and went to the back door. I opened it for her. Outside was the mirror image of her. It raised its hand in greeting. I did the same. Behind it was a ship. It was like a very large rugby ball but it gleamed silver. She took one look back at me and gave me a wide smile. Then they turned and went into an opening in the side. It paused for a few seconds then noiselessly rose into the air. It amazed me by being totally silent. I wondered what the power source was. Soon it was gone as it rose higher and and higher. I went back in and sat down to my sandwich.