A Close Encounter

I was kidnapped by aliens yesterday. Well, I say that. It was more a case of me imposing on their hospitality than anything else. Allow me to explain. I was walking back from the pub when I heard a low humming. The hair on my head stood on end, as if I had rubbed a balloon against it, and I was suddenly bathed in a bright light. Then, right in front of me, a saucer-shaped craft landed on three extendible legs.

I was indignant. Stevenage New Town has an extensive network of pedestrian and cycle lanes that run along side the road. You can get from point A to any other without ever having to see a car. I have read that this system is the envy of towns and cities around the world. Apparently, while Barcelona has its Gaudi cathedral, Rome the Forum and Paris its glorified communications mast that attract millions of Euros in tourist money each year, what they really want is a network of tiny roads where they can bury gas, water and electricity, thus avoiding disruption to traffic when they have to be dug up.

(On this subject, the town I used to live in, Waltham Cross, relaid the main road a few years ago. They added a pedestrian island in the middle to help people get from one side of it to the other and they also built a bus stop. The thing is, they put the island adjacent to the stop, so that whenever a bus pulled up to take on passengers, the cars behind could not go around it and a long line of traffic built up. This was later fixed at a high cost to taxpayers. My point is, the guy who drew up those plans (he had to have been a man) was almost definitely educated at university, had been given the job ahead of dozens of other candidates and was, you’d think, not completely stupid; yet he goes and does something like that. Each time I am turned down for a job I think of that cretin and wonder how we, as a race, ever got to the moon.)

But I digress. The point is, the alien spacecraft had no business being there. And if there is something you cannot make a true-bred Englishman do it is turn back when he has every right to walk on. I pulled myself upright, employed my ‘enraged customer’ walk that I usually reserve for marching into shops to return something that doesn’t work, and tapped on the side of the craft with a knuckle.
With a hiss of escaping air, a door appeared in a previously seamless expanse of metal and slid back. A head popped out.

‘What?’

I am not sure what surprised me more: the bulbous, grey head with giant, almond-shaped, charcoal-coloured eyes, or the fact that not only did the alien speak English, his accent revealed him to be local.

‘You’re blocking my right of way,’ I said.

‘Look, mate,’ he said, ‘Walk around. You could get a bus through there.’

‘Not the point,’ I replied.

At that moment a second head emerged.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘This geezer reckons we’re obstructing his right of way or something.’

The second alien was apparently far more reasonable than the first.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re lost and we pulled over to read the map.’

‘Don’t you have a SatNav?’ I asked.

‘It’s useless. The earth’s not even on it.’

Here is something else the foreign reader might want to know about the average Englishman: if you want to ingratiate yourself with him, find a mutual bugbear and you’ll be friends forever.

‘Oh, don’t get me started,’ I said, starting anyway. ‘At least with a map you remember for next time.’

The alien remarked that that is what he always says and, after a brief moment staring into each other’s eyes, a sort of kinship was struck up between us.

‘Do you want to come in?’ he asked, after a few minutes spent chatting.

I climbed in, rather awkwardly, and found the interior to be rather sparse but comfortably snug.

‘Do you want to go for a spin?’

I slid down into a seat and watched as my new friend pulled back on a stick. A few seconds later he pointed to a window. I leant over and looked out. We were already in orbit around the earth.

‘That was quick!’

‘Well,’ said the alien, ‘there’s no point hanging about.’ Then he added, ‘Do you want a go?’

My friend’s companion, who had until then only barely contained his irritation behind silence objected on the grounds they were already running late, but he was given short shrift.

I took the control and, after a few false starts – like when I went backwards instead of forwards and stalled the engine – I found it really quite easy. Guided by my friend, I did a few quick laps of the solar system, found a great big empty spot where I could loop-de-loop without being in any danger of hitting anything and then cruised at a leisurely pace back home.

‘Here, give me the stick,’ said my friend after apparently spotting something ahead.

It turned out to be the space shuttle. As we pulled up along side it, the astronauts on board pulled their overalls down and pressed their arses up to the windows. Well, if you let Americans lead us into space then that is exactly what you’re going to get.

After some horseplay with the shuttle, we dropped down through the upper atmosphere and, by golly, the planet looks beautiful from there. There is a quality of light that is so difficult to describe. And it isn’t until you see it from that perspective that you realise just how thin the veil between us and outer space really is.

‘Where’s your house?’ asked my friend, ‘I’ll drop you off at the door.’

I pressed my face against the window, looked for the park, and followed Fairlands Avenue up from there to where I live.

‘There,’ I pointed.

We set down in the garage area behind my house and said our goodbyes. Even the moody one was polite enough to shake hands with me. I assume he was conscious of causing a diplomatic incident and sparking an inter-stellar war or something.

I stood and waved as the saucer rose to a high altitude then darted off leaving a white streak behind it only to stop, hover for a few moments, then fly back the way it came, in search of a party they were now more than fashionably late for.

I’d tell the world of my experience, but who’d believe me?