Dear diary,
Now a pink spaceship having the shape of a uterus descends to the earth and parks next to my Ferrari. A tribe of alien females emerges from the craft to greet me. I close The Complete Poems of Robert Frost and note that these damsels are human in every way except, instead of having a single tone, their skin is striped like a zebra. And when I ask why they are wearing no space-suits, their leader explains that “Earth’s atmosphere tastes A-OK to our palate.” (Tho they attempt to hide it, they speak English with a noticeable French accent.) Now, the reason I cannot tell you the color of the stripes of these alien women is that not only do they keep shifting from hue to hue, but the tinctures displayed are like none known on any planet that I’ve ever conquered. So I lack the vocabulary to articulate their splendor — I’d need to coin new colors, like Cezanne-pear, or Matisse-drapery-North-Northwest, which might leave your heart dangerously aflutter.
So the alien femmes and I exchange contact info and discover that we’re already friends on Facebook, tho we all use pseudonyms. It actually turns out that multiple of my own fake accounts have been connected to various fake accounts of theirs, since the early 2010s. We then share a laugh about the fact that, unbeknownst to each other, we all chose to use still frames from so-called noir films for our profile images. A welcome coincidence is that the leader of these extraterrestrial damozels, who shares my female pseudonym “Angela Willsher” online (tho she adds the honorific Alien, for obvious reasons) does, in real life, look exactly like Cyd Charisse — the actress whose headshot represents us twain in cyberspace.
“Sorry to interrupt your reading,” sez the leader, Alien Angela.
“No, you’re not interrupting,” I say; “I’m happy to see you. I’ve been reciting this poetry all day and night anyway, so your visit is a welcome diversion.”
“You read at night? When it’s dark? But how?” the leader’s catlike eyes narrow sexily.
“By the light of the silent moon,” I explain.
“Ah,” sez the extraterrestrial Angela Willsher, “I forgot that your planet has a reflective satellite that, when fully visible, can be used as a desk-lamp by scholars, which requires no whale-oil.”
“True,” I say, “but I still have whale-oil in abundance, if you need some.” And I gesture toward the kegs beside my Ferrari.
The alieness’s eyes widen, and she gasps: “You will share?”
“Of course!” I say. “Is that so unlike earthlings?”
“O yes!” she nods vigorously and sincerely.
So I help the space-ladies haul fifteen kegs of whale-oil onto their spacecraft. They offer me bon-bons as a friendly recompense, and I accept them graciously.
“I don’t believe I caught your name, by the way,” I say to the alien leader; “not your Facebook handle; I mean your legal name, the one that’s on your birth certificate.”
“Well,” sez the goddess (if you could see her, you’d understand why that term is an appropriate synonym for this alien minx), “I had no mortal birth, but my real name — the one that I use when not online — is Tula Finklea.”
“Well, as you know, my own birth name truly is Bryan Ray, with two whys and no I,” I kneel and bow; “it is an honor to gain your acquaintance, Ms. Finklea,” I now kiss her outheld hand.
“Please, call me Tula,” she sparkles, which is the alien equivalent of blushing.
So Tula and her space-girls invite me to accompany them to the nearest Dessert Paradise, where we order strawberry malts. And since we’re in China at the moment, this means that the Paradise that we stop at is very high quality. It’s interior is shiny and looks futuristic.
“I bet this place reminds you of home,” I say.
“No, not really,” sez Tula Finklea the alien goddess.
Then we play noughts and crosses, and she wins all three rounds. (“It’s cuz your planet isn’t burdened with Christianity,” I venture this excuse, hoping she catches the likeness of the letter X to a standard-issue crucifix. But she replies: “No, Bryan, you’re just really bad at this game.” Which is admittedly the truth. “Just for that, I vow to convert you,” I say, mock threateningly; but I do end up enslaving poor Tula and her whole harem into our cult at the end of this chapter.)
Then we all go and get our hair and nails done, which is always a fun activity. After which we visit a tanning salon, because the booths apparently give the alien females a sensual thrill — I politely participate, yet I experience no similar bliss; most likely because my skin is unstriped.
Then the alien women help me to solve all poverty on the earth, so that the poor are no longer with us. They do this NOT by killing everyone who’s impoverished, as was the plan of the evil rich until now, but by handing out free stuff to everyone. They give some people money trees, and other people they give trees that bring forth edible fruit. Tula Finklea explains their modus operandi:
“We noticed that some earthlings are impoverished because they are short on cash. For these, the money tree does the trick — it helps them pay their bills and various debts. Still others we noticed were literally, physically starving: for these, the trees of life paid off. It’s not at all complicated.”
Then we go bowling, and Tula’s initial attempts are all gutter-balls, which yield a score of zero. But then, every single one of her remaining efforts ends up as a strike; which means that all the pins get knocked down, yielding the topmost possible score.
“What is your secret?” I say, seriously shocked at how good of a bowler the alien Tula Finklea just became, right before my eyes.
“I simply learned from my mistakes,” she smiles and sparkles. “I was bad at first, but then I made changes to my faulty technique so as to align it with the dictates of physics.”
I shake my head. “I need to introduce you to Jesus.”
“Jesus the Christ?” sez Tula; “I already know him well. He and I are siblings in this universe.”
“No, not the real Jesus,” I correct my brilliant-but-naïve goddess; “I mean the Jesus that churchfolk worship here on earth.”
So I bring Tula Finklea and her congregation of striped female extraterrestrials in my silver Ferrari to see the Earth-Church Jesus. We pull up outside of a giant wooden cross, and I slip some coins into the parking meter.
“I hope that’s enough,” I say.
“If it’s not,” sez Ms. Finklea with utmost sincerity, “I can freeze the sun and moon in their orbits of travel, thus bringing time to a halt, so that the meter will be prevented from showing an expiration, and therefore you will not receive a beating from your police.”
I smile and laugh, “No, Tula, the police will not beat me to death for an expired parking meter!” I then laugh even harder, upon overhearing my own statement.
“Yes, they will,” Tula’s eyes are wide and brimming, “indeed they will!”
I sigh and retrieve my other cat-purse from the marsupium of the cassock that I stole from Leo Tolstoy: “Here, I’ll add three more caesar coins. That should last us through another Holy Inquisition…”
“No, it will not! for that could take ages—” Tula cries; but I grab her arm and lead her and our girly gang into the base of the cross. (There is a thick, old, wooden door at the bottom of the crucifix.)
“Jesu!” I shout into the musty darkness, “sheathe your sword, it’s just me, Bry, your pal, the Evil Antichrist. I’ve brought some more alien damsels for you to convert.”
So the animatronic Christ proselytizes all the female extraterrestrials into joining the Church of Planet Earth, and they become certified U.S. Christians. Their paperwork is ratified by the large cursive signature of Officer Paul, the Chief Executive. END OF CHAPTER THREE. (Sorry this concluded so abruptly, but I’m out of time this morning. If you want more engaging stories, you should pay your artists more. As it is, you offer them zilch. Garbage in; garbage out.)
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