Dingus Part II
There was originally going to be more to the ending - involving some miscommunication and cross-purposes - but frankly it was rather obvious and even I loss interest. Hope for something I'm more connected to tomorrow.
Any topic suggestions most welcome - as I am more than halfway in, no where near the halfway mark, and floundering...
The ship hummed like the old generator in the back yard.
The tall one waved the little one away with a spindly arm; the little one ran off with Randy’s rifle, and joined the group of average sized ones standing closer to the mother saucer. They frequently pointed at him, making erratic gestures with their hands.
Randy was pretty sure the little one was laughing at him. Randy never did trust folks who talked foreign around him; in American, you should speak American. Anyone who didn’t was clearly up to no good. Or talking trash about someone standin’ near ‘em.
Randy was fairly certain they were talkin’ about him.
The tall one stepped closer to Randy - bringing his smell with him. He moved quickly, but with great care, keeping his hands folded in front of him. The alien looked at Randy, and opened his mouth. The noise that came out was the most jumbled bunch of gibberish Randy had ever heard. The noise stopped, and Randy found all the aliens were staring at him. He could feel his muscles relaxing; he felt like something was expected of him. He could try to knock the big one down and get his gun of course – but they’ d like put him in that sleeper hold again – so he did the only thing he could think to do – what he did anytime Edna ever bothered him about something he couldn’t understand.
He shrugged.
The tall one regarded Randy for a moment and then repeated the gesture. Randy watched those bird-like shoulders lift up to that solemn look on the alien’s face. Yes siree, it was funny. And yet somehow it made Randy homesick for just about any other member of the human race.
Randy grinned, and shrugged again.
This set off an explosion and shrill conversation from the group that went on a good five minutes (the small one shrugging from time to time. Looked like a monkey making fun of tourists at the zoo.)
Just when it seemed they had forgotten all about him and he might be able to go in and get some of the coffee he set percolating on the stove the night before, the tall one turned to him and said something again. Randy still didn’t know what he had said, but he had heard the language. It was something foreign. German maybe. Or French.
Randy shrugged again. “Sorry, friend,” he croaked, his throat surprisingly sore and dry. “I don’t understand that Frenchie talk.”
The tall alien shrugged. Randy shrugged again. This was getting ridiculous. “English,” Randy said. “EN-GL-ISH. THIS IS AMERICA. WE SPEAK ENGLISH.”
“This you understand?” the alien asked. His accent was strange and heavy. It reminded Randy of the man who ran the station where he got diesel for his tractor. He was some kind of foreigner too.
Randy nodded. “Yes. English.” The group by the saucer began chirping again but the tall one silenced them with a wave of an arm.
“This…land,” he asked, slowly, “it is yours. Belongs to you?”
At last, Randy thought. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Yes, this is mine. My farm, my land. You trespassing. Must go. Fly away.”
“Call me Maghart. I speak for my land. Do you speak for this land?”
“Like I said, Mugwart. It’s my land.”
“You speak for it?”
Randy was beginning to suspect that although they spoke the language, they didn’t really understand it.
“Yes. Whatever you like. I speak for it.”
“You and I, we must talk.”
He just wanted them to leave – to get off his land – so he could get back to bed. Back in the back of his head he could hear Edna’s voice telling him that it wasn’t everyday visitors came out that way – alien or no – and that he should try and be more neighborly.
So he did the neighborliest thing he could think to do.
Randy sighed. “Alright, then. Why don’t you fellas come in and have some coffee?”
Edna would have about bust a gut to see the five of them sitting their on the sofa (the little one and the four regular fellas) – their pencil-thing fingers splayed over their boney knees. The sat almost perfectly still, like chastized children; still except for their eyes, which darted all around the room. Randy didn’t like that very much. He felt like they were sizing up the place, like maybe they were planning to move in or something. And that would happen over Randy’s dead body. This was the Brauson place; it always was and always will be. Well – it would be as long as there was Randy. But just because he didn’t have any young’uns to leave it to didn’t mean he was just going to surrender it to some skinny aliens who couldn’t even shrug properly.
The tall one, Mugwart, sat in Randy’s leatherette recliner (the thing he held most dear) holding the red and white checked ice pack on the back of his oblong head. (He originally tried sitting in Edna’s old rocking chair; one rock and he managed to flip the thing clear over.). Randy put a tin mug down on the coffee table in front of Mugwart.
“Here ya go, Mugwart. Drink up while it’s still hot.”
Randy took a sip from his own tin mug; show it wasn’t poisoned. It went down hot and thick; strong, the way coffee was meant to be (not like that jarred crap Edna liked to keep around). “Now,” Randy said, pulling up a kitchen chair to the coffee table. “What’s so damned important that you needed to crush my wheat, spook my animals, and wake me up in the middle of the night.” Randy liked to be direct whenever possible. His daddy raised him to believe this ways the best way.
“Ran-dee. We want this land. Your land. Our planet is dying. We are need a new place to start again. Already, so many old. So few young. Soon, none left.”
Randy swallowed his coffee, hard. “Are you tellin’ me you folks are coming here to invade the Earth?”
Mugwart put the icepack down. “No, Ran-dee. We want to no war. Peace. My people and your people are almost same. Breathe same air. ” Mugwart picked the tin cup up and cradled it in his long fingers. He took the steaming mug to his face, and drank the whole cup down with a gulp. “Eat same food. See?”
“Hrhn,” said Randy, and took a long pull from his mug. The coffee was still piping hot, and it burned his tongue going down. He looked at the five aliens whispering to one another on his flowered sofa – and the one on his recliner, his recliner, scratching the white lump cresting on the back of his head. “Hrhn,” he said again. He knew he couldn’t run, that much was certain. He could excuse himself and try and use the telephone, call Sheriff Johansen…and tell him what? That he had some aliens in for coffee and they were planning on taking over the Earth – yes, that was him up on Creek road you can recognize it by the giant flying saucer on the front lawn? Oh, no – they already thought he was a crackpot. They’d laugh as soon as listen to him.
It’s not that he didn’t appreciate their problem – he did. He knew what it was like to watch your line die out. It wasn’t easy. It made a man (and, Randy supposed, alien) feel the weight of his mortality – and that was a heavy stone to bear. Without a next generation, who would remember you when you were gone? Visit your tombstone and put flowers on it when the weather got cold? Look at pictures of you and smile sadly.
No one, that’s who.
Randy stood up and walked to the stovetop. He watched the coffee pot bubble – still scalding hot. A man had to be careful with a pot that hot. Someone might get hurt.
Moments later he was back in the living room, coffee pot in hand. He sat down and lifted the pot gently with a potholder as he poured Mugwart another cup. “So tell me, Mugwart, how many of your people have you got on that ship of yours?”
The first thing Randy noticed about the interior of the ship was that the smell was seemed to be gone once he was inside the ship; or it was so overwhelming that his nose had gone on permanent strike. Other than that the interior was a real a disappointment. He expected flashing lights and dials set among sterile linoleum floors. Instead the inside was dark, dingy, dull, and crowded with slumbering aliens of all shapes and sizes – maybe twenty in all. One or two looked to be children…and although Randy did not know what they looked like when they were healthy – he was pretty certain these children were not.
And the women – he noticed the women. Unlike the men, they had long strands of silver hair, that caught and reflected the light when they moved and breathed. Like the men - they wore no clothing. Also unlike the men, they seemed to have all the right privates, in all the right places.
He felt stirrings in places he thought life had forgot.
“Hrhn.” Randy had said again. “Hrhn. Mugwart, I think you and I can make a deal.”
That had been nearly a year ago, and Randy had done a lot of work on the farm in that time. He paved over the one of his fields – building a barracks in place of fallow. He had been amazed how cheaply you could get bunks and other things through military surplus. Oh, sure some government suits came out and asked a bunch of question – probably afraid he was building an army or something. But in the end – in the end he had told them the truth – that he was building it to house the remains of a dying alien race that was green, smelled bad, and really liked their coffee exceptionally strong.
After that they pretty much left him alone.
He had done some work in the house too. After all, he was going to need that spare bedroom now.
He looked at the ship sitting there on his front lawn once again – the sunrise glinting against it, washing it in an iridescent rainbow. Mugwart stood looking solem at the bottom of the ramp. A nervous flutter gripped Randy’s stomach. “Hello, Ran-dee. Shall we have some coffee?”
Randy smiled. “Business first. Then coffee. How is she.”
“They are fine, Randy.”
“They? You mean?”
She came down the ramp sheepishly, holding a small bundle. Randy’s heart skipped a beat. She handed the bundle into Randy’s waiting arms. It looked like a normal human - tiny hands, tiny fingers, tiny toes – a more olive complexion than most people in these parts, and the fine fuzz on his head was more silver than blond – but he’d just have to tell people his mother was foreign. After all, it was true.
A boy. His own boy.
After all – it was the Braunson farm. He couldn’t very well let folks live here if they weren’t family.
Any topic suggestions most welcome - as I am more than halfway in, no where near the halfway mark, and floundering...
The ship hummed like the old generator in the back yard.
The tall one waved the little one away with a spindly arm; the little one ran off with Randy’s rifle, and joined the group of average sized ones standing closer to the mother saucer. They frequently pointed at him, making erratic gestures with their hands.
Randy was pretty sure the little one was laughing at him. Randy never did trust folks who talked foreign around him; in American, you should speak American. Anyone who didn’t was clearly up to no good. Or talking trash about someone standin’ near ‘em.
Randy was fairly certain they were talkin’ about him.
The tall one stepped closer to Randy - bringing his smell with him. He moved quickly, but with great care, keeping his hands folded in front of him. The alien looked at Randy, and opened his mouth. The noise that came out was the most jumbled bunch of gibberish Randy had ever heard. The noise stopped, and Randy found all the aliens were staring at him. He could feel his muscles relaxing; he felt like something was expected of him. He could try to knock the big one down and get his gun of course – but they’ d like put him in that sleeper hold again – so he did the only thing he could think to do – what he did anytime Edna ever bothered him about something he couldn’t understand.
He shrugged.
The tall one regarded Randy for a moment and then repeated the gesture. Randy watched those bird-like shoulders lift up to that solemn look on the alien’s face. Yes siree, it was funny. And yet somehow it made Randy homesick for just about any other member of the human race.
Randy grinned, and shrugged again.
This set off an explosion and shrill conversation from the group that went on a good five minutes (the small one shrugging from time to time. Looked like a monkey making fun of tourists at the zoo.)
Just when it seemed they had forgotten all about him and he might be able to go in and get some of the coffee he set percolating on the stove the night before, the tall one turned to him and said something again. Randy still didn’t know what he had said, but he had heard the language. It was something foreign. German maybe. Or French.
Randy shrugged again. “Sorry, friend,” he croaked, his throat surprisingly sore and dry. “I don’t understand that Frenchie talk.”
The tall alien shrugged. Randy shrugged again. This was getting ridiculous. “English,” Randy said. “EN-GL-ISH. THIS IS AMERICA. WE SPEAK ENGLISH.”
“This you understand?” the alien asked. His accent was strange and heavy. It reminded Randy of the man who ran the station where he got diesel for his tractor. He was some kind of foreigner too.
Randy nodded. “Yes. English.” The group by the saucer began chirping again but the tall one silenced them with a wave of an arm.
“This…land,” he asked, slowly, “it is yours. Belongs to you?”
At last, Randy thought. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Yes, this is mine. My farm, my land. You trespassing. Must go. Fly away.”
“Call me Maghart. I speak for my land. Do you speak for this land?”
“Like I said, Mugwart. It’s my land.”
“You speak for it?”
Randy was beginning to suspect that although they spoke the language, they didn’t really understand it.
“Yes. Whatever you like. I speak for it.”
“You and I, we must talk.”
He just wanted them to leave – to get off his land – so he could get back to bed. Back in the back of his head he could hear Edna’s voice telling him that it wasn’t everyday visitors came out that way – alien or no – and that he should try and be more neighborly.
So he did the neighborliest thing he could think to do.
Randy sighed. “Alright, then. Why don’t you fellas come in and have some coffee?”
Edna would have about bust a gut to see the five of them sitting their on the sofa (the little one and the four regular fellas) – their pencil-thing fingers splayed over their boney knees. The sat almost perfectly still, like chastized children; still except for their eyes, which darted all around the room. Randy didn’t like that very much. He felt like they were sizing up the place, like maybe they were planning to move in or something. And that would happen over Randy’s dead body. This was the Brauson place; it always was and always will be. Well – it would be as long as there was Randy. But just because he didn’t have any young’uns to leave it to didn’t mean he was just going to surrender it to some skinny aliens who couldn’t even shrug properly.
The tall one, Mugwart, sat in Randy’s leatherette recliner (the thing he held most dear) holding the red and white checked ice pack on the back of his oblong head. (He originally tried sitting in Edna’s old rocking chair; one rock and he managed to flip the thing clear over.). Randy put a tin mug down on the coffee table in front of Mugwart.
“Here ya go, Mugwart. Drink up while it’s still hot.”
Randy took a sip from his own tin mug; show it wasn’t poisoned. It went down hot and thick; strong, the way coffee was meant to be (not like that jarred crap Edna liked to keep around). “Now,” Randy said, pulling up a kitchen chair to the coffee table. “What’s so damned important that you needed to crush my wheat, spook my animals, and wake me up in the middle of the night.” Randy liked to be direct whenever possible. His daddy raised him to believe this ways the best way.
“Ran-dee. We want this land. Your land. Our planet is dying. We are need a new place to start again. Already, so many old. So few young. Soon, none left.”
Randy swallowed his coffee, hard. “Are you tellin’ me you folks are coming here to invade the Earth?”
Mugwart put the icepack down. “No, Ran-dee. We want to no war. Peace. My people and your people are almost same. Breathe same air. ” Mugwart picked the tin cup up and cradled it in his long fingers. He took the steaming mug to his face, and drank the whole cup down with a gulp. “Eat same food. See?”
“Hrhn,” said Randy, and took a long pull from his mug. The coffee was still piping hot, and it burned his tongue going down. He looked at the five aliens whispering to one another on his flowered sofa – and the one on his recliner, his recliner, scratching the white lump cresting on the back of his head. “Hrhn,” he said again. He knew he couldn’t run, that much was certain. He could excuse himself and try and use the telephone, call Sheriff Johansen…and tell him what? That he had some aliens in for coffee and they were planning on taking over the Earth – yes, that was him up on Creek road you can recognize it by the giant flying saucer on the front lawn? Oh, no – they already thought he was a crackpot. They’d laugh as soon as listen to him.
It’s not that he didn’t appreciate their problem – he did. He knew what it was like to watch your line die out. It wasn’t easy. It made a man (and, Randy supposed, alien) feel the weight of his mortality – and that was a heavy stone to bear. Without a next generation, who would remember you when you were gone? Visit your tombstone and put flowers on it when the weather got cold? Look at pictures of you and smile sadly.
No one, that’s who.
Randy stood up and walked to the stovetop. He watched the coffee pot bubble – still scalding hot. A man had to be careful with a pot that hot. Someone might get hurt.
Moments later he was back in the living room, coffee pot in hand. He sat down and lifted the pot gently with a potholder as he poured Mugwart another cup. “So tell me, Mugwart, how many of your people have you got on that ship of yours?”
The first thing Randy noticed about the interior of the ship was that the smell was seemed to be gone once he was inside the ship; or it was so overwhelming that his nose had gone on permanent strike. Other than that the interior was a real a disappointment. He expected flashing lights and dials set among sterile linoleum floors. Instead the inside was dark, dingy, dull, and crowded with slumbering aliens of all shapes and sizes – maybe twenty in all. One or two looked to be children…and although Randy did not know what they looked like when they were healthy – he was pretty certain these children were not.
And the women – he noticed the women. Unlike the men, they had long strands of silver hair, that caught and reflected the light when they moved and breathed. Like the men - they wore no clothing. Also unlike the men, they seemed to have all the right privates, in all the right places.
He felt stirrings in places he thought life had forgot.
“Hrhn.” Randy had said again. “Hrhn. Mugwart, I think you and I can make a deal.”
That had been nearly a year ago, and Randy had done a lot of work on the farm in that time. He paved over the one of his fields – building a barracks in place of fallow. He had been amazed how cheaply you could get bunks and other things through military surplus. Oh, sure some government suits came out and asked a bunch of question – probably afraid he was building an army or something. But in the end – in the end he had told them the truth – that he was building it to house the remains of a dying alien race that was green, smelled bad, and really liked their coffee exceptionally strong.
After that they pretty much left him alone.
He had done some work in the house too. After all, he was going to need that spare bedroom now.
He looked at the ship sitting there on his front lawn once again – the sunrise glinting against it, washing it in an iridescent rainbow. Mugwart stood looking solem at the bottom of the ramp. A nervous flutter gripped Randy’s stomach. “Hello, Ran-dee. Shall we have some coffee?”
Randy smiled. “Business first. Then coffee. How is she.”
“They are fine, Randy.”
“They? You mean?”
She came down the ramp sheepishly, holding a small bundle. Randy’s heart skipped a beat. She handed the bundle into Randy’s waiting arms. It looked like a normal human - tiny hands, tiny fingers, tiny toes – a more olive complexion than most people in these parts, and the fine fuzz on his head was more silver than blond – but he’d just have to tell people his mother was foreign. After all, it was true.
A boy. His own boy.
After all – it was the Braunson farm. He couldn’t very well let folks live here if they weren’t family.
