(Insert Appropriate Name for a Slightly Humourous Alien Story Here) Part 1 Read online



  (Insert Appropriate Name for a Slightly Humourous Alien Story Here) Part 1

  by Adelise M Cullens

  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, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental and to be honest would be completely mad. As someone so kindly pointed out, this story does bare resemblance to Douglas Adams’s work. To this person I say thank you! I love Mr Adams’s work and for my work to capture some of his brilliance, is a true compliment, but none the less, unintentional. Maybe I should tag it as Fan Fiction!

  Copyright © Adelise M Cullens 2013.

  But feel free to share it with friends or enemies alike.

  Part 1

  The day Phillip met an intergalactic space alien started out as a seemingly normal and average morning.

  Phillip sat. Dejected. Sunken. Swallowed up by his single seater armchair. He had been house bound now for at least a month. It was not due to any disfiguring disability or even some strange obsessive compulsive trait; it was simply because he had nowhere that he felt was worth going. So, he sat.

  His armchair was one of the last remaining things that his, soon to be, ex-wife had left him. The only other things that she had left behind were the dog (a terribly old Yorkshire terrier named Gravy), two single beds (without linen), the kettle, a teaspoon, and two mugs. Not the good china, mind you, she definitely took that!

  She had decided to leave him, quickly and without notice, while he was out buying tea, last month. He returned to find her gone but with a note in her place. The note had simply said that it was nothing personal, she just didn’t like him any more, and she couldn’t cope with their unsuccessful Bed & Breakfast venture. It was all just too much for her.

  So Phillip sat. In his Single seater sofa, in his empty, failed B&B and did nothing, except occasionally pondering how he could possibly not take the note “personally”.

  He had thought seriously about taking up alcoholism, but he had never been much of a drinker and in fact, just the thought of being drunk made him feel horrible. Every morning, waking up with a hangover and having to do it all over again! Rubbish!

  He had also considered suicide, but he thought that would be even more depressing because there would be no one besides a priest and his depressed ghost to show up to the funeral. Maybe the dog, if old Gravy had not carcked it by the time his corpse had been found by some passing by Mormans.

  He had also thought about drugs, hookers or trading in Gravy for a bunch of cats, but none of them seemed appealing, so he gave up.

  Their Bed & Breakfast had not had a single customer in eighteen months. Christine always seemed very stressed about it, but Phillip didn’t mind as long as she was there.

  Phillip rubbed his hand back and forth through his thinning brown hair and got up with a heave. He walked to his quaint kitchen to make his third tea for the morning.

  He flicked on the kettle and stood by the bench staring at the wall. He was just about to start filling his cup with sugar when the doorbell rang. Phillip looked around the corner at the door.

  Gravy got up from his resting place at the foot of Phillip’s armchair. The old Yorkshire terrier stood bolt upright. Tail stiff and nose high. He scuttled off across the floorboards, sliding across the slippery surface atop toe nails that were in desperate need of a trim. This was more action than the little Yorkie had displayed in months, years even.

  Was Phillip hearing things?

  Despite the dogs reaction he went back to his mug.

  DING-DONG, DING-DONG. The doorbell rang twice, quickly.

  The kettle began to whistle but he left it and headed for the door. He looked out the stained-glass pane next to the door. A strange tall figure stood outside. It was difficult to make out through the red rose petals and black lead of the glass. ‘Allo? Allo?’ said a strong accent. ‘Are you there? Are you open? I need a place to stay for the night.’

  Phillip looked down at Gravy who hoped around his feet, excitedly. The dog looked back up at him with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Phillip shrugged and opened the door.

  The natural light of the sun burned his eyes, blinding him for a few moments. He shielded his eyes. ‘Yes we are open, but we are lacking in a few …’ Phillip’s eyes finally focused on what he could see past his hand. ‘…necessities…’

  Two Long thin, toe-nail-less feet with greyish blue mottled skin was the first thing he noticed. Lean long legs with back-wards facing knees. Long body with arms bent at an odd angle at the sides. Square-jawed head with large eyes and small nose and ears (almost just the corresponding holes) but with feathery fine black fuzz on the top of a large head.

  ‘There was a sign out the front said Bed & Breakfast, so I assume that you either supply both bed and breakfast or possible your name is Mr Bed and you reside with a Mr or Mrs Breakfast. Or even vice versa.’ The alien finally stopped talking.

  Phillip didn’t know what he should do. He stood frozen. He considered screaming, or slamming the door or even falling to the ground and curling up into a small ball and crying for his Mummy. Instead he said, ‘Eeerr … yeah … Eerrr … come in, make yourself at home.’

  The alien walked past Phillip and sat down on his only sofa chair. Phillip ran to the still whistling kettle, refilled it and placed it back onto the stove top. Never taking his eyes from his guest. He rubbed his head with his hand, back and forth. ‘Eeerrr … Tea?’

  ‘Yes, yes please,’ The alien said. ‘You don’t have much furniture,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yeah we are … redecorating. So what brings you to …’ Dorset? England? Europe? Earth? He went with, ‘Here?’ Phillip picked out the spare mug and started wiping it out with a tea towel.

  ‘Well, my wife and her sister wanted to stop by Pluto to do some shopping and I asked her to drop me at Earth first, she can pick me up on their way home,’ The Alien said.

  ‘Pluto? But Pluto is not even a planet, it is a big ball of rock, actually I don’t think it is even that big, planitarily speaking,’ Phillip said, still in shock.

  ‘Oh well the Plutonians will be very upset to hear about that.’

  Phillip thought the alien was being sarcastic, but he couldn’t be too sure. The alien’s face was very hard to read, without eyebrows. ‘Sorry what was your name … Sir?’

  ‘Henry, and yourself?’

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Oh fancy that, two Henrys!’

  ‘No, no my name is Phillip, why is yours Henry?’

  ‘Why should it be anything different? Is Henry not a common Earth name? Have I picked the name of a cheese or something?’

  ‘No, no, it is a perfectly good Earth name, but you are not from Earth, are you?’

  ‘Well no, but my original name roughly translates to something like Henry, so that is why I picked it,’ said Henry.

  ‘So what is your original name?’

  Henry the alien made a series of squeaks, growls and low whale-like noises that, there was no way, a normal human could mimic. ‘I was named after my father,’ he said.

  Phillip was still a little stunned, ‘Eerrr … so did I. Phillip George Reynolds the third, that’s me,’ Phillip chuckled nervously. He also realised that he was still wiping the mug with the tea towel. He put it down and heard the mug chatter on the bench top as his shaking hand put it down.

  As Phillip filled the mugs with water he could hear the scattering of Gravy's excited
little paws as he jumped at Henry's feet. Phillip watched as the alien's expression changed. The fluffy down like hair on his head seemed to waver, like an anemone in the ocean. When Henry looked down at Gravy, the dog yapped once at him in greeting. The black down stood up straight in alarm and Henry's face went stark.

  Phillip continued to fill the mugs.

  Gravy sat in front of Henry and let his tongue out the side of his near toothless mouth. He turned his head on an angle and his tongue rolled back inside his mouth and out the other side. He yapped again. Henry's hair turned back to wavering slowly.

  Henry did something of a smile, turned his head like Gravy and then yapped back.

  Gravy yapped back a couple of times and then Henry continued the conversation.

  Phillip stared, mouth open. Was he really seeing an intergalactic space alien having a conversation with his Yorkshire terrier? Had he finally and completely lost his marbles?

  Suddenly he felt a sharp searing pain in his hand and feet. 'Owww!, Oww! Bugger, Crap!' He threw the kettle down on the bench and jumped around the kitchen, blowing on his hand, hoping from foot to foot. He had overflowed the boiling water in one of the mugs and it