The Alien in My Pocket

By Dan Daetz

In my defense, when the aliens have the size and consistency of ketchup packets, it’s very easy to forget one in a flight suit pocket.

You know, that little bicep pocket where you stash the neural-connection ear buds?

On top of that, we’d been celebrating Zenibrian New Year—which is a pretty big deal, considering their home planet takes something like twenty-nine years to complete one orbit.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, there I was, in our secret underground bunker in Area Pi-R-Squared—sure, Area 51 gets all the hype, but at least we’re close to fast food and a bowling alley.

I rolled up my flight suit sleeves, acting like the Z-men’s cool big brother. Okay, the sibling reference probably doesn’t work, given they reproduce by division—in fact, I’m pretty sure the one we call Mobo split in two behind the stack of pizza boxes. Guess we have Mo-Mobo now.

Anyway, given the special holiday, we gifted our interstellar guests a true delicacy: gummi bears.

Now, if you’ve never witnessed a Zenibrian ingest anything, it’s proof God has a sense of humor. Especially when five Z-men scoot at their version of double-time toward their hapless Haribo prey. Imagine gelatin linebackers piling onto a fumble and poking through each other’s membranes with chubby, hangry limbs.

Chuckling, I just sipped my diet soda and placed bets with my wingman, Dagnabit, on who would get the green bear.

Ah, yes, let’s talk colors for a second. Our “little green men” only fit the first description consistently. (If I have to explain to you that they’re not really men, well, perhaps Dagnabit can enlighten you later. As a single fighter pilot with overcompensation issues, he loves discussing manhood. Trust me.) When Dagnabit and I first encountered the Zenibrians—huddled inside their stranded ship that resembled a junkyard hubcap—their neon coloration surprised us: pink, lime, mango… It was as if the disco era had met science fiction.

Turns out our intuition wasn’t far off: they’d intercepted Earth TV broadcasts from the 1970s and thought they’d blend in with the natives. You should see Mobo strut and moonwalk.

But back to the gummi bear follies.

My contender, Little Limey—Lili for short—plunged toward the prize. Lili set its tentacle on super-suction, fending off Mobo, Ralf, Squeege, and Pepe-Peeyoo—it has a Parisian’s ill temper and a smelly slime trail to match. As my grin widened, the green gummi jiggled in Lili’s grip. Then it leapt into Lili’s belly—which means its entire being—with a subtle yet satisfying pop.

“Yeah, Lili!” I cheered, slapping Dagnabit on the back.

The champion oozed away from the pack as my wingman fed the melee with a misshapen purple gummi that resembled conjoined twins.

Setting down my soda far from the frenzy, I took a risk only a battle-hardened veteran might do: I reached for a Z-man in the middle of its meal. Their defense mechanisms resemble my granddad sneezing with Jell-o in his mouth. But I relied on my alien diplomacy handbook.

Unlike jet checklists, it had but one entry.

“High five!”

At first, Lili flinched away from my upturned hand. To its full-body sensor array, the obstacle must have resembled that towering monolith from 2001. But I held my ground. The lime-green blob settled on its indeterminate haunches, the ingested gummi bear bobbing inside it. Its tummy bulge made me wonder if extraterrestrials were less concerned with fad crash diets than us insecure hominids.

Finally, ripples across Lili’s surface evolved into nubs, and my excitement grew with them. Soon, five tiny sausages crept toward my palm. I’d like to tell you it felt like that Michelangelo painting high in the Sistine Chapel—a moment of divine spark where the higher being transformed the lower one. But I’d guzzled my soda too fast, so the spark erupted as a belch.

Lili’s reaction to the sudden reverberation was unprecedented. It leapt. That’s right, even weighed down by its body mass in sugar, somehow Lili managed to pull a Neo and fly. Well, if you consider a one-inch hop into a belly flop true flight.

Hey, when takeoffs equal landings, that’s good piloting in my book.

“Excuse me,” I said, covering my mouth like any good ambassador of Earth culture. My sympathy for splayed-out Lili took my courage to a new level. Yes, Scout’s honor, I actually wedged my fingers under its quivering body and scooped the universe’s answer to invertebrate evolution into my hand.

I lifted Lili beside the light warming our stale popcorn. The gummi inside my jelly friend jostled like a baby ready for prime time. I didn’t know if Zenibrians could puke, but unwilling to watch, I unzipped my arm pocket and carefully set Lili inside. I figured if sleeping off a headache worked for humans, a spooked Z-man could use a nap, too.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s when I forgot the alien in my pocket. No sir. I might forget my galactic manners on occasion, but this pilot remembers to lower his proverbial landing gear and finish the mission.

Which, in this case, involved putting our overdosed sugar fiends to bed. You see, they’re very particular about their sleeping environment. That mini-saucer of theirs? Well, apparently it spun in flight not for propulsion or stability, but to help our sensitive squishy types to catch Zs. Think of it like an extraterrestrial weighted blanket.

Thus, Dagnabit and I scooped our Z-men into their E-Z Motel, aka, a tabletop centrifuge.

“Happy New Year,” I whispered to Lili as I gently plucked it from my pocket and settled it inside.

Then, to the machine’s hum, my wingman and I threw darts until it was time to surface and fly home.

So, you ask, what was in my pocket?

Well, if new years are times for new beginnings, that’s exactly the wriggly gift Lili left.

I had to crank my jet into a nine-g turn to lull Lili-Lili back to sleep.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Daetz is a former fighter pilot and test pilot. He’s pulled over nine Gs, flown faster than Mach 2, and eaten dozens of gummi bears in a single sitting. When he’s not writing (and reading) sci-fi, he coaches leaders, enjoys the outdoors, and spoils his Australian shepherd. Dan lives in Colorado with his family, where they’ve stored enough junk food to outlast the zombie apocalypse.

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Author Website