Trick or treat?

The resident of number 27 sat in his house watching repeat episodes of Quantum Leap, eating pot noodle. His neighbours were drawing the curtains, but he didn’t need to bother with such a menial task. His curtains had remained closed all day, which allowed him to enjoy his latest game-playing purchase without suffering any glare from the television.

He hadn’t ventured out since the day before yesterday, which was Monday. On Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he had a part-time job at the local supermarket, collecting trolleys and stacking shelves. Sometimes he managed to last the whole of his shift without talking to anyone. This wasn’t entirely his fault. Although he was shy, and his personal hygiene acted as a repellent, he had the misfortune of a huge birthmark on his left cheek, which sometimes evoked sympathy, but more likely repulsion. As a result, his natural tendencies towards ‘lonerism’ became exaggerated.

He was known locally as an oddball and by some as potentially dangerous. Rumours circulated that he was once imprisoned for shooting someone in the leg, which was born out of a sign on his door that advocated the ownership of firearms. Little did they know he had a collection of 37 guns in his basement, such was his unhealthy fascination with the weapons. He was also an ardent royalist and had pictures of the first thirty in line to the throne stuck to his fridge.

His only true friend was his cousin who had suffered the shame of serving time both in jail and at a mental institution. He had been in and out of the latter for the last six years and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

**

Little Johnny, who was five accompanied his ten-year old sister Chloe, as they left their house, which was number 69. It was Halloween and they were given licence to knock on doors and shout ‘TRICK OR TREAT’ to their generous neighbour or willing victim (delete as appropriate). They had harangued their mother for weeks. ‘Everyone else is allowed’, claimed Chloe, until her mother finally relented, thinking it would be a good substitute for the week’s pocket money. So far, they had received two pound coins and a 50p piece, a packet of Maltesers, a polo mint each, a pen with the words ‘Westminster Abbey’ inscribed and a signed elastic band from the local postman. They had only tricked one person into having water squirted in their face, eight houses gave no answer and five people refused to take part (two of whom with raised voices).

Their efforts of dressing up and looking terrifying were half-hearted at best, having spent just £1.50 on masks of a witch and a ghost. Their father’s thinking behind this simplistic approach was that they would remove the mask, and ‘cutify’ their neighbours into giving them money. Johnny’s round face, blonde hair and cheeky grin had certainly helped sway number 35’s heart.

As Johnny and Chloe opened the gate at number 27, the darkness obscured the paintwork peeling from the door. It also hid the overgrown shrubbery, although a stray leaf brushed against Chloe’s hair. The doorbell didn’t work so they tapped loudly on the door instead.

They waited around thirty seconds for a response. Had there not been lights on inside signifying an apparent presence, the children would already have left for the next house. The door opened and there stood a hunched giant of a man, around six foot six, but it was difficult to tell. He had dark longish hair overhanging his forehead and looked sixty, but was probably nearer forty. The street lights captured him in silhouette, but perfectly revealed his most despicable quality – the birthmark on his cheek.

Chloe tugged at her younger sibling’s cuff. It was apparent that she had seen enough. The terror on her face was masked by the mask of terror that she wore herself. She wanted no part of this anymore, and was about to scamper home, taking Johnny along too; the words of her mother to ‘look after your brother’, ringing in her ears. Before she made her first footstep away from the monster, her brother broke the eerie silence. “TRICK OR TREAT”, he screamed as loudly as he could muster.

Chloe’s feet were now planted firmly in fear.

The children could smell the man’s breath, as he bent down even further. It was a potent mixture of cigarettes and coffee and they could barely concentrate on his muffled whispers in their ear.

“I’m sorry children”, he said, “but my mother taught me not to talk to strangers” and with that the door slowly creaked shut behind him.

The Eighteenth Day

There was a strange scratching noise at Dr Smythe’s front door.

“Go away”, he shouted, “I don’t want to speak to you!” He was referring to the Jehovah Witnesses, who he had seen off two minutes earlier and was still seething at their line of questioning. But this wasn’t the Jehovah Witnesses; it was the aliens, a different breed entirely.

The world was in the grip of an invasion, the first in its history. Media coverage of the event was excitable, to put it mildly. Footballer sex scandals, the Middle East conflict… it all paled into insignificance. The question on everyone’s lips was ‘What do they want?’ The hawks shouted ‘shoot to kill’. But as it turned out, the aliens wanted nothing more than to carry out some fieldwork to understand the human race – and then be on their way.

The scratching continued. The aliens, it seems, didn’t know about doorbells.

“Hello”, shouted the alien, because they could speak English. No-one knew why or how. “May I come in?”

The doctor looked out the window and saw no-one. He opened the door and looked down, intrigued and slightly scared, as you would be. Standing no more than four inches high was one of them.

“We are here to understand your species.” The alien stepped inside and shuffled through the hallway with an electronic clipboard that looked like a tiny baking tray. “My name is unpronounceable in your language but you can call me Sam – it’s short for Simulated Agitator Module.”

The doctor waved Sam in. That’s all he could do. The existence of these aliens was a shock to him and his ideology. He needed to understand this unexpected occurrence and weave it into his thinking. “Would you like a cup of tea?” was all he could muster.

“That would be lovely”, replied Sam, “Lots of sugar, please.”

The doctor watched Sam closely while he was preparing in the kitchen. The alien, meanwhile, did a thorough audit of the doctor’s house, walking officiously from bookshelf to cabinet, scrawling incomprehensible dots and squiggles on his ‘baking tray’ with what looked like his tongue.

The doctor presented the mug of tea to his extraterrestrial guest, who took an unusual approach to the beverage. He jumped straight in. The tea engulfed him (if indeed it was a ‘he’) for around five seconds, before he-it sprang back out and droplets of tea spilt on the carpet. “Thank you very much”.

The doctor looked at Sam, the tea, the carpet, and back to Sam. “But you haven’t had any”.

“I may not have consumed the liquid, but I enjoyed the flavoured sugar.”

Sam was now ready for the business he came for.

“My first question is about that screen over there. We have seen these before in your homes”. Sam pointed his antennae towards the television in the corner of the room. “Is this a god that you worship?”

The doctor had his own question. “How come you know so much about us, can speak our language, but don’t know a television when you see it?”

Sam ignored him. “A television, you say?”

“Yes”, said the doctor, laughing at the naïve innocence of his extraterrestrial friend, “That is scientific progress, synonymous with the achievement and innovation of our species.” He was playing Sam’s game.

“How does it work?”

“Well, it displays images and sounds, and we sit here watching them for our own entertainment and education. For some people, not long at all, but for others up to four hours every day, maybe more.”

 “That sounds a lot like worship to me. I’ll tick the box marked God”

The doctor groaned inwardly in exasperation, but the alien with its greater senses picked up on this.

 “Have I offended you?”

“What? – No, not at all. It’s just that you’re not listening to me. The television in not a god! Most of us don’t even have gods! We have realised more and more how the world operates through our own inventions and discoveries. Many of us have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as God.” The doctor was with his own self-professed majority on this.

Sam scratched his receptacles in bemusement. This statement was beyond his comprehension.  “But everyone has a god… Can you show me how it works?”

The doctor turned on the TV and started flicking between channels, explaining each one. A variety of programs appeared on the screen. There was a news item about the aliens. Sam got very upset by the ‘lies’ spoken against his species. Next was Eastenders. Sam began to raise his voice at the Doctor to change the channel, in what sounded like a cockney accent. Then came wrestling, not something the doctor would normally watch (it was outside of his demographic), but in his panic he began pressing numbers at random. Suddenly, Sam, with his tiny hands leapt forward and picked up the doctor, whirled him round his head and slammed him down, all the time shouting ‘Turn the screen off, turn the screen off, I don’t want to hurt you!”

Dr. Smythe groaned as he lay on the floor, but managed to do as he was told.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”, Sam kept repeating.

“Then why did you do it?” moaned the doctor from his prone position.

“We can’t help it. We are a species sensitive to our surroundings. We absorb what we experience and cannot always resist against it.” He waved at the screen. “That thing is powerful – it intensifies the interaction.”

Whether the television was ‘entertainment’ or ‘education’ as the doctor put it, it was dangerous.

“You mean you can’t resist temptation?” It was a cynical question, but Sam didn’t take it as one.

“Yes, that’s right. We are clinically wired that way. We’ve been trying to find ways of overcoming our inherent fault.”

This was the reason for the mission, for all the missions. The aliens hoped that by looking outside of themselves they would find the cure they needed. This was their last desperate chance. The doctor reflected on humanity and was thankful for no such fault, but once again Sam read his mind.

“All species have a weakness. You can’t see the flaw in your species, can you?”

The doctor sat up. He thought, but despite the thinking, he couldn’t see it. Perhaps he was over-thinking.

“You’re a selfish species!” was Sam’s rather direct opinion. “We have been monitoring you for years and were afraid to come. No other species is like this.”

The doctor didn’t know what to say. This was too much to take in and he didn’t really believe. Instead, he resorted to, “Do you have any further questions?” in an effort to rid his house of this turbulent beast.

Sam pointed to the screen in the other corner. “Is that a television as well?”

“No that’s a computer”. It was to be a long evening.

Sam eventually left the house, with answers to all of his questions. He joined the rest of his team back at the alien base, where he was met with terrible news. A US military unit had surrounded the alien vessel, situated somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. They were unable to leave until a meeting with the president was granted.

“We need to understand their intentions”, said the president in a live global address. That was the reason. That was the excuse.

The diplomacy went on for days; the humans realising their understanding of the universe was not as good as they thought and wanting to know more. But the aliens were desperate to leave, fully aware of the consequences if they did not.

It only took seventeen days.

By the eighteenth day, the aliens were indistinguishable from the humans. Sam had evolved into Mr. Samuel Hunter, an investment banker, and a successful one at that.