Trampoline Dream

Elian wanted to go to the moon. He bounced on his trampoline and higher he went, so much so, that he was sailing up into the frosty night air, so high that he could feel like this forever. But Elian wasn’t at the moon yet, so he put on his game face and dug his heels into the trampoline.

Blammo! Elian shot up through the clouds and past the stars. He had his protective goggles on so he was safe from alien laser attacks. Elian took advantages of his situation and floated around freely, bouncing off of meteors and spinning Saturn’s rings. Elian went right up, all the way to the north star. He grabbed the Little Dipper and smashed it into the Big Dipper. He made all the noise he wanted to and nobody would yell at him.

But oh no, Elian! He flew straight past the moon and he was shooting out into the other direction. Elian sucked in all the air in his lungss and blew out until his face turned red. This was just enough to change direction, and Elian floated gently onto the moon’s surface. He was greeted by five million alien basketball players.

“Have you got game?” the aliens asked.

Elian narrowed his eyes, looking like one mean dude. “More game than yo mama,” Elian replied. This infuriated the aliens and all five million charged Elian on the court. He bounced way up into the air with the moon’s gravity helping him out. Elian grabbed the ball and slam dunked it. Even five million moon men had nothing on Elian. He dribbled the ball so much and dunked it so hard that they had to replace the ball two times.

Suddenly, Elian remember what time it was. “I should really get home. My parents like me to be bed before th eclasses are over. He ended the game by shaming the aliens with a shatterboard. He stuck his tongue out while doing it, because it seemed like the thing to do. The moon men bowed down to Elian and his crazy b-ball skills.

“Come back any time, Elian. You have a place among the moonmen.”

The moon men waved goodbye and Elian went sailing down to Earth, down through the stars, down past the dippers and the Milky Way. He flew into the sky and settled down on to the trampoline. Elian would have fallen asleep there if his parents hadn’t called him inside. He was so excited about his adventures in space.

Elian’s mother tucked him into his spaceship blankets and said she’d tell him a bedtime story.

Elian thought about it for a mmoment. “Tell me the one with man on the moon again.”

“Okay,” Mother said.

“And have him play basketball against space lasers.”

“We’ll see,” Mother said.

“Pew pew pew!” Elian fired an imaginary gun and then he fell fast asleep.

Mother kissed Elian on the forehead. “Tell me what happens with the aliens tomorrow, sweetie.”

She closed the door and Elian snored lightly amidst the glow-in-the-dark stars and moon scattered all over his ceiling.

The President’s Briefing

“Mr. President.” said the Colonel, a man with formidable eyebrows, who could have been in his fifties or eighties. The president took his hand, they shook, and the Colonel offered him a seat. “As you know, this briefing is purely routine but it’s also strictly confidential. Anything that gets out of this room will threaten national security. Any questions before we start?”

“Yeah,” the president gave that winning smile that got him in office. “Is this the part where you tell me about Area 51?”

The man let out a wheeze of a sigh. “Mr. President, if I had a bullet for everytime some smartass president asked me that question, I’d have enough to take out those Gook bastards that put me in that God-forsaken POW camp.” He squeezed his pen and broke it. “Aw! That was my killin’ pen, too! ‘Sokay. I got more.”

He pulled out another pen. It did look sharp, the president observed. He felt a lump in his throat.

“So, anyway, since we’re on the topic: yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, there’s an Area 51. And yes, we have an alien diplomat in the White House.”

“You’re joking.”

The Colonel cleared his throat of bile, seemed to chew it up and swallow it again. “Wish that I were. Those aliens can suck on my .45 and blow. They’re always inviting there friends over and talking in their alien jabber. If it were up to me, I’d declare intergalactic war on those assholes, but that’s why you’re commander-in-chief and not me.”

“I see.” The president wanted to inch toward the door, but he was afraid any sudden moves would alarm the man and send him lashing out with his pen or whatever other concealed weapons he had. He wished his secret service were allowed in the room.

“Don’t believe me, huh?” He yanks something out of his pocket and throws it on the table. The president flinches. “That’s a picture of me with one o’ those cocksuckers’ heads. We thought the ones that crash landed were a scouting party, so we took ’em apart. Had a lot of fun, then. Everyone got a limb or something as memorabilia. I got the head. And then they twitch around like a chicken after you cut them off, I tell you what! But that was a long time ago.” The colonel seemed sad. He was twisting his pen into the table, as if he were nostalgically digging it into some bygone enemy.

“So, you said there was a… diplomat?”

“Yeah. We call him Keith. He’s disguised as an intern, but he don’t do jack squat around here. Just sits around drinking our best booze. Only thing he and I agree on. But, you’ll get to know him better soon, I’m sure. Always around. Like a goddamn leech.” He put the pen up to his teeth. The president wasn’t sure whether he wanted whiskey or a cigar, but he was definitely itching for something. “But, yeah. Aliens. We should move on to the bigger stuff.”

“Bigger than aliens?” The president raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Yeah, bigger than aliens! You must be one o’ those sci-fi geeks or somethin’. You’d get along with our experimental weapons guys, I’m sure.” He started tapping his pen on the table. The president wasn’t sure why he even brought it into the room. He wasn’t even writing anything on the paperwork he brought in. “So, you know that Indiana Jones movie with that box that melts people’s faces off?”

“You’re not telling me we have the Ark of the Covenant, are you?”

“Man, you are one o’ them sci-fi geeks. I thought so.” He smiled, as if he’d solved some great mystery. “Naw, we’re working on a weapon that can do that. Really cool stuff, but strictly confidenchy-al, if you know what I mean?”

The president nodded.

“Also, we’ve already got people on Mars. Heck, we got ships all the way out to Alpha Cent-urry. They take off like ghosts, so nobody knows about ’em. Alien technology and all that, but we’re working on making ’em better, so they don’t crash land in the middle o’ the desert or nothing. Ha! Plus we got bases out there to spot any o’ them bastards breakin’ treaty and comin’ in to invade. Pretty soon, we just press a button and melt there faces off. That’ll show ’em what for!”

The president nodded again. He would have to get rid of this man somehow. Maybe he would accept a golden handshake of sorts. He wouldn’t want a man this crazy to jump off the deep end and start hurting people if he felt slighted. The rest of the briefing talked less about aliens and more about secret military operations. The colonel pulled out a world map and then a star map.

“Well, that about does it.” He ticked something off on the paperwork, the first time he’d used the pen during the entire briefing, and then stuffed the papers into an attache case. “Thank you for your time, Mr. President.” He saluted the president. The president saluted back. He was relieved when the Colonel closed the door behind him.

The president rubbed his temples for a while until he realized he needed a good, hard drink. He took a walk over to his liquor cabinet, only to find someone already rummaging through it.

“Excuse me. Who are you?”

“Oh,” said the young man. “I’m Keith. I’m an intern here.”

“And what are you doing in my liquor cabinet, Keith?”

“Didn’t the colonel brief you?” He turned back around and picked out a 50-year-old bottle of scotch. “Salut, as I believe your people say? Have a good day, President.”

Final Frontier

Gene Rodenberry’s ashes went hurtling through the empty vacuum, as they were wont to do given the laws of physics. But then, tens of thousands of years later, the ashes were suddenly acted upon by an unbalanced force! Gene Roddenberry’s airtight capsule shattered upon impact, exploding into the ground. The bacteria within the ashes grew and flourished in its alien environment. Roughly a trillion years or so later, Gene Roddenberry’s bacteria has sparked the life of hundreds of thousands of creatures, evolved from what may have been a piece of Roddenberry’s brain (or not… but wouldn’t that be cool and ironic?!). People walk the surface of this planet, though white and green and bumpy-foreheaded races tend to wage war from time to time. Maybe someday, they will live in harmony among the stars in cool-looking spaceships. One can only hope. I’m sure the shattered remains of his wife, broken apart in an asteroid field over a trillion years ago, is smiling down (metaphorically speaking—space has no “down,” of course!) on her husband and saying, “Good for you, Gene. You did it. Good for you.”