Just before dawn on a balmy Sunday
morning, a mile outside of a festive looking shanty town, a spaceship landed.
It resembled a dilapidated, lime green Ford Pinto station wagon with startling
accuracy, save for the gull wing doors. With a click and a hiss the passenger
side door opened, spewing white clouds of pressurized air from the seam. A
figure stepped out, its eyes wide, round and glowing white. It was actually just
the goggles; the rest of him wasn’t all that impressive. Spindly limbed with
messy black hair, he wore a dusty red smock and black rubber galoshes. His
mother certainly hadn’t dressed him that day.
“Where’s the town, Todd?! You said you’d
land near a town!” he yelled, brushing off his clothes.
“I did land near a town. Honest I did.”
“Well where is it then?”
“A mile, uh…” Todd raised his arm like a
divining rod. “That way.”
“Ugghhh.” The little one groaned, his
shoulders drooping as he threw his head back in frustration. “That’s not close
at all! And take off that dumb gas mask. The air’s fine.”
“Stop yelling at me, Tim. If I landed
closer somebody woulda seen. And I’ve seen their movies, Tim. If I take this
off-“
Tim waved away Todd’s superstitious
worrying. “Whatever. Now I gotta lug my stuff the whole way.” He stepped back
to the ship and leaned inside, fumbling around. After a few moments of rifling
through empty take-out containers and soda bottles he got what he needed. He
gripped a leather strap connected to both ends of a large pipe with flared ends
and an aiming reticle...
He has a bazooka, apparently. I did not
know that. Todd took something of his own from the ship, wrapped in a tarp, and
strapped it to the top of his backpack. In direct contrast to his slim friend,
Todd had a wide, stocky frame that held up quite well to Tim’s ineffectual
physical abuse. His arms were like marble pillars and his hands were the size
of frying pans, but his legs looked like they would buckle at any time from the
weight. He wore a burnt orange robe and a full face gas mask with goggles that
glowed just like Tim’s.
Tim slung the bazooka over his shoulder
and fidgeted with the strap, squirming to get comfortable under its weight. He
watched as Todd closed the door of the ship, causing the whole thing to rock.
Tim closed his door with all his might, and succeeded only in closing it.
“Whatever. It’s time to go.” Tim
readjusted the strap again and walked toward the village.
“It’s over there, Tim.” Todd said,
pointing and looking at the ground.
“Whatever! Let’s go!”
“Okay, yeah. Sorry.”
~~~
continued in Stranger and Fiction Anthology 2
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| Crash Site by Tang Kheng Heng. Inspiration for this story. |
