The Alien Invasion

By Ali Suleman

It is said that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and Mr Barner’s case was no exception to this. The links of the chain for his reaching his office in time were all firm, well, almost! He used to get up early to reach his office well in time; he had an arrangement for a quick breakfast in his kitchen; he had a habit to ready his attire a night before the working day, he owned a decent vehicle that could take him to his office in practically no time. The weakest link in his chain was his habit of dawdling in the morning shower, about which he was quite notorious in the office, too. And this was actually the link that caused the chain to shatter almost everyday! His arriving late at the office was like a second habit now, yet his urge to get rid of this habit was really admirable. He worked for the Salekia City Police Department and was an astute, dedicated and above all a sincere officer. Appointed at a post equivalent to the SHO in our country, he was the boss of the Police Station and hence there was no one in the office to admonish him for arriving late, but his honesty and acumen had really put him above all the other officers the Police Station had seen, leaving behind only one reason for the juniors to quench their thirst of backbiting -- his long-lasting morning shower!

On 25th of August, 2208, Mr Barner was once again late! He came out of his bathroom scurrying and turned towards the kitchen to fix an instant breakfast. After hurrying out of the kitchen, he went to the garage. After seating himself in his car, he said: "Office, hurry!" A computer answered "Yes sir." With that, the vehicle raised up into the sky vertically (his garage roof slid off), and after leaving the roof premises, sprinted, with the speed of light, rightwards. Inside, Mr Barner could hear the computer saying "Would you like to listen to the latest news, sir?" "Yes," answered Mr Barner shortly. He had programmed his vehicle to ask for the latest news every morning. The next moment he was listening to the news bulletin from the usual newsreader. "Hello, I am Marker Sprout with the latest news. The breaking news since the last two hours has been, of course, another Alien Invasion. Three spaceships have been reported to land. The first was captured at the North Pole, the second in the Zamey Desert, and the third is rumoured to have landed somewhere in the Salekia City. A team from the Alien Rescue Department has been sent to Salekia and they are still searching for the missing spaceship. ‘It’s quite hard to locate the ship there without creating a panic amongst the people of the heavily populated locality,’ said an Officer from the Alien Rescue earlier we talked–"

Suddenly Mr Barner heard a shriek saying "HALFWAY." Half the distance for the office had been covered. "Silence," he said slowly and the voices disappeared abruptly. "Ah … these aliens!" Mr Barner exclaimed and fell in deep thought. The next voice he heard was of his car shouting "OFFICE!" He ordered it to land on the roofless parking and when it did, he came out of it, locked it and strode towards the Police Station. He was terribly late.

Mr Barner entered his office, answered the salutes from his subordinates and went to fit in his seat.

"Anything new, Staster?" Mr Barner asked his sub-inspector casually.

Staster blurted, "Oh, yes sir! We caught an alien!"

"A what?" Mr Barner asked after a moment, thinking whether he had heard correctly.

"An alien, sir! Didn’t you listen to the news? Aliens have again tried to invade. And this time they have themselves come, instead of sending those funny machines. Two spaceships have been taken in. The third fell in the jungle near Mount Blisk. We had a phone call from the people living in the region. They were very scared, sir! I thought I should imprison the alien and his ship as a protective measure for the people. The ship is in the backyard of our Police Station!" Staster claimed proudly.

"Why didn’t you inform me?" asked Mr Barner furiously.

"Well, I thought you’d be busy taking your shower."

"I what?" Mr Barner sounded more wrathful than ever.

"Err … I … Sir I think you should inspect the alien now. It’s in the lockup." Staster tried to cover up his blunder.

"Yeah, okay!"

They both went to the lockup where Staster claimed to have captured the alien. "Here it is, sir." said Staster pointing at the lockup.

"This?" asked Mr Barner, flummoxed. He could remember the time when he was a child and his mother used to tell him bedtime stories from a book. His favourite one was ‘The Alien Invasion’ in the illustrations of which the aliens, from another galaxy, were shown as perilous and brutal creatures. Since that time, his mind had always pictured an alien as a huge, creepy, amorphous, ugly creature, with shapes and colours varying from alien to alien. But this one was nowhere near to what he had imagined! It was…handsome, and he admitted it. It was neither huge nor creepy, and was quite symmetrical, too. In a word, it was a well-groomed alien!

"It doesn’t move, sir. I tried. Maybe it’s dead or just pretending," said Staster.

"Hmmm… Did you inform the Alien Rescue Department about it?" Mr Barner asked.

"Sir, I thought we should wait for you. After all, there’s no sympathy this alien deserves, sir. I wonder why they’ve created a department for their rescue!"

"It’s for our rescue from the aliens, you fool! And as we’ve caught one, it’s our obligation to inform the government about it.

"Let’s do it after I’ve seen the spaceship." Mr Barner suggested and started sauntering towards the backyard. Staster followed him.

Mr Barner couldn’t observe anything odd from the door of the backyard during his walk towards it, but just as he entered the door, the thing that lay in front was something he had never expected to see. It was an enormous metallic oval, with strange huge characters imprinted on it. A small door was present at the backside of that oval, from which a staircase was emerging.

"Sir, I think it’s not safe going inside it," Staster recommended, but Mr Barner, apparently in deep thought, didn’t answer him. He was staring at the strange machine.

"What are you thinking, sir?" Staster finally asked.

"Idiots!" Mr Barner said slowly.

"What, sir?"

"These aliens." Mr Barner paused for a while and then continued in a slow tone. "You know what does it take to travel from one planet to the other? It’s not child’s play you know. It’s not like sitting in your car and asking it to take you there. You have to have the technology and innumerable expenses for that! I can’t understand why these aliens are yearning for more when they have a world of their own! Their emperors seem to me like those pitiless kings who were indifferent to the problems of their public, but always eager to capture more land. Why don’t they try and invade social evils and revive good things that are doubtlessly alienated from a society like theirs? If they spend all this technology and expenses they are wasting on reaching our world for the welfare of their own people, they would be more successful indeed."

Staster was used to nodding at Mr Barner’s long and boring lectures like this one. He replied with a: "Yes sir, I agree."

Mr Barner murmured, "Insane aliens!" and started moseying towards his office. Staster stood there facing the mammoth space-shuttle, staring at those strange characters that glimmered in the bright sunlight:

The FHOMM

(First Human on Mars Mission)

A project of NASA

[http://jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2009-weekly/us-06-03-2009/p25.htm#1]