Unless you have a blocker, above are advertisements that were put on by Angelfire. Because this is a free site, you may also get pop-ups. The most disturbing new addition to this is a "whole screen" version of a pop-up. If you click to go anywhere on my site, and it suddenly turns into something very different, this is just one of these "whole screen" pop-ups. Leila

Well OK, like a lot of folks, I'm not really sure what season this is. I do know that everyone has been promised some new stories. This has left Chris Carter a little perturbed, as he now doesn't quite know from where he's going to get all the required stories, but oh! Good News! Fox has come through with the rights to use stories from The Twilight Zone. As with my other story ideas, Chris Carter and the X-File writers now have scores of episode plots which will seem new to a generation who has grown up without seeing the original Twilight Zone. Disclaimer: As usual, other people-Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Company- own the rights to these characters, and this is just for fun. That being said, here, for your consideration, is my re-working of one of that series' most famous episodes. I call it Are You Being Served? The story opens in the Press Room of the White House. Reporters and crews are moving around busily setting up cameras and mics. The camera drifts off "through" a window and quickly backs off. It stops when the White House, and a large "flying saucer" hovering directly over it, fill up the top and bottom of the frame. The shot cuts back to the podium. The Press Secretary introduces the President and everyone stands up. He calls her President Simpson, and she is played by someone who looks a lot like a "grown-up" Lisa Simpson, with spiky hair and a strapless dress, covered by a professional looking three-quarter length sleeve jacket. (I love the Simpsons but try sending your 8-year-old daughter to Anywhere Elementary School, USA, in a strapless dress!) She steps up to the array of mics. She smiles and says,"Thank you. Please be seated." She waits while people seat themselves, then continues, "As you know, I have been in conference with the Kanamits. They plan to visit our southwest deserts this week and transform them into lush gardens, just as they plan to do in several deserts around our planet. To answer any questions, here is the Kanamit assigned to that task." President Simpson motions to the side of the stage. A very tall guy in a shiny floor length robe strides from behind curtains at the side of the stage to the microphones. The scene is shot from behind so we cannot see his face, only the reaction of the Secret Service Agents and the reporters. They stare upwards, agape in awe and are struggling to control their fright/flight response. No one is thinking "fight". At this point the shot cuts to Chris Carter, standing in a bare room. Those following these stories know he has had a series of Botox injections to immobilize his face after the phaser accident on the set of the StarTreX episodes (see New Show Ideas, #2,) and that he had to choose a permanent expression. So, he sports a happy grin, and says, "Respectfully submitted for your approval, the Kanamits: height: a little over 9 feet, weight:in the neighborhood of 350 pounds, origin: unknown, motives? Well, therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment we are going to ask you to shake hands figuratively with a Christopher Columbus, but you have to think of doing that through the eyes of the indigenous population a few years after 1492 to see what I might mean, so let's not go there... anyway this guy is from another galaxy and another time, for this is... ...The Twilight Files." (Music: Wooo-eeee,Bada, Da, Da, Dum!) The scene cuts back to the Press Room. After President Simpson shakes the alien's hand, she steps away from the podium. The Kanamit turns and the scene cuts to a front shot, so we now can see his face. There had been rumors that the part of the alien would be played by "a popular former NBA star" and yup, there Yao Ming is, with a big bulgy noggin appliance added on to the top of his shaved head. (Children around the country laugh and clap and are told to pipe down.) Yao begins to "speak" by explaining that his thoughts will be transmitted telepathically. National radio play-by play announcer Kevin Harlan has been employed to provide the speaking voice for Yao. Anyway, he thanks the president and also the reporters, and says he will answer questions for twenty minutes, then he has to get back to the ship to go work on the deserts. Down in the X-Files office, Mulder and Scully watch this press conference. Scully says, "This alien race seems to be wholly unrelated to the Gray aliens we have met in the past decades. Frankly I'm skeptical of their motives. These "projects" to "help" us might be a way to lull us into complacency!" Mulder nods his head and adds, "Also, this guy sounds like Kevin Harlan. What's up with that?" In the days to follow, news comes about the wonderful things the Kanamits are doing all over the planet. People are told they will be able to visit the Kanamit home planet as soon as ships can be made available after they are finished delivering supplies to sites of the awesome projects now being done on Earth. Mulder and Scully are sent to confer with Erin Tammany and Isaac von Suppé, two U.S. government encryptionists working in an Encryption Laboratory at the State Department Building trying to translate a copy of a Kanamit book one of the aliens left behind on a table. For casting purposes, Erin Tammany is medium female height and slender, very very white, of Irish American ancestry. She dyes her dark hair L'Oreal's Preference "Dead Black" and has many tattoos and piercings. Her partner, Isaac, or 'S(Z)akky' von Suppé, is from European Jewish ancestry, is of average male height, and looks like a young Sheldon Adelson, that is, somewhat plump, with a very florid complexion and ginger hair. Both are late 20s-early 30s. Fortunately for them, explains Tammany, there is an FBI agent working at the Charles DeGaul Airport and he photographed two versions of Bills of Lading, one in French and one in Kanamit. "We're working off the photographs of those documents." says Tammany. "We hope they will provide enough of a letter to letter comparison to be useful to us like the Rosetta Stone." "But, of course," interjects von Suppé, "one of them is all in French." All four roll their eyes. Everyone grits their teeth and gets set to soldier on with the translation. It turns out that the title of the book is Are You Being Served? Even with the letter to letter translations, it is still very difficult to make any sense out of the rest of the book, beyond the title, which seems to be the type of question a clerk in a large department store in London might ask a customer, and thus, it does seem to mean that the Kanamits are here to help. Some pages have pictures, which doesn't actually help at all. While Mulder and von Supp are in another part of the lab studying video data of the Kanamits speaking in their own language, Tammany comes over to Scully. She has found a picture of what looks to be one of the Gray Aliens a few pages into the book. Neither one knows what to think of that, except that the Kanamits must be aware of the Gray Aliens. Yao returns from the World Garden Project to give a progress briefing to President Simpson. He gives a press conference. Mulder gets himself invited, but has to stand in the back of the room. Mulder asks some very skeptical questions. No, actually he asks some very rude questions. Yao is super cool about it. Then Yao asks Mulder to go back with him when he returns to his planet later in the day so he can report about his project to the leader of the Kanamits, a guy named LeBron. (Children all over the country begin to laugh and clap. They are told to pipe down, or else.) Mulder, rising to the challenge, accepts the invitation. (Yao knows all about that "ask a guy to do something risky in front of other guys and they can't back down" thing. He's done his homework on humans, OK?) This will be the first ship to take earthlings to the Kanamit planet. Countries are sending their most distinguished representatives, so this is obviously seen as a great honor, to be asked like that. On top of that, Yao promises Mulder a VIP suite aboard the ship. "And you'll be the first served!" says Yao's telepathic voice. Very soon after this, Mulder is whisked away in a White House limo to pack a weekend bag. He also stops at FBI Headquarters for some equipment he anticipates needing. Yao proceeds to board the ship above the White House, which has extended a long ramp down to the White House lawn, and the ship goes to Dulles Airport. At Dulles a long line of well-known people are waiting to board the ship. The Paparazzi are everywhere! As Mulder is taken to get his weekend bag and equipment, he tries to contact Scully. He tries several times. We cut to Scully in front of a TV, grabbing her purse and her copy of Are You Being Served? and running down a hallway from the Encryption Lab. She drops her phone and it breaks. She continues to run outside and hails a cab. She asks the cab driver if she may use his phone. She gets a busy signal. Meanwhile Mulder again is trying to call her to tell her that he is leaving immediately for the Kanamit's home planet. Of course she already knows that from watching the press conference coverage. Traffic slows. She tries calling a lot of people. No luck. Finally, she arrives at Dulles. The cab stops in the middle of the lane in front of the main entrance. She returns his phone, overpays, grabs her purse and the book, and proceeds to flash her FBI badge at every security point. At last she is at the gate. Right then, the White House limo pulls up in front of the ramp extended down from the ship. Mulder, with his weekend bag and a plastic bag in hand, is coming up to Yao to be escorted aboard ahead of everyone else by Yao when Scully pushes her way through the crowd. She is restrained by another Kanamit. "Mulder!” she cries out. Mulder turns. She yells, "Mulder! Don't get on board! This book? Are You Being Served? IT'S A COOK BOOK!!!!!!!" Mulder tries to escape but is overpowered by Yao who pushes him a little way up the ramp. At that moment, Yao's face contorts in a look of utter disgust. He holds his nose and yells, "EW!" And then shouts some word which sounds like "Kookeet". He then takes Mulder by the collar and the seat of the pants and heave-hoes him back onto the tarmac, near Scully and the second Kanamit. Yao rushes up the ramp holding his nose and fanning the air, yelling "EW, EW, EW!! Kookeet!" The second Kanamit eyes Mulder, crinkles his nose, throws off Scully, and he also rushes up the ramp holding his nose and fanning the air, yelling "EW! EW! EW! Kookeet!" The ramp closes and the ship takes off. Scully cradles Mulder as he comes back to a conscious state. He has a large abrasion on his head from where he landed on the the tarmac. She applies direct pressure with his handkerchief. Someone comments that the government is reporting that the ship has passed through earth's outer atmosphere. They hear another person say that all of the Kanamits the world over have boarded their ships and left. Back in the office, Mulder has his head bandaged, very tenderly, by Scully. As she does this, they watch the news. Footage of Mulder being given the bum's rush off the plane was recorded from several angles by the Paparazzi and all of them are being played. There's a knock at the door. Tammany and von Suppé come in. von Suppé says "We may have solved the puzzle of why Mulder was thrown off the ship. We were able to translate some of the religious dietary laws from the front of the cookbook. Look at this." He holds out a copy of the picture of the Gray Alien Tammany showed Scully before. "Apparently this sort of alien was not only on the dietary restriction list for religious reasons, but it would cause nausea and vomiting if eaten. From what we can understand," continues von Suppé, "they compare it to eating animal excrement." He makes a face, and continues, "When I watched videos of the Kanamits speaking in their own language and if they dropped something or had some other mishap, they would say the same word as on the ship's ramp. We think it's the word for the Gray Aliens. It sounds like ..." "Kookeet!" say Mulder and Scully, in unison. "Yes, exactly," adds Tammany. "And we think it's a swear word! It's like saying the "s-h" word. but they mean it smells like the Gray Aliens. So, y'know we figured you two might have handled a lot of Grey Alien remains in your line of work..." "But if we tell you about that, then we have to kill you, of course." responds Mulder in a dry-humor way, but y'know he does work for the FBI.... "Ha, ha, yes of course," says Tammany. She's pretty sure he's joking. "But we figure you must have had some alien blood on you-perhaps on some of the things you packed..." She laughs, "The other reason for their outburst would be that you actually do have some alien DNA in you." Everyone laughs heartily, and Mulder the longest until Scully puts her foot on the toe of his shoe. It goes unsaid that...No, wait, now von Suppé laughs and says, "And, Ha,Ha, if you, Mulder, had, like, Gray DNA, like, all those people at the gate would owe you their lives because to those Kanamits, y'know, you smelled like dog poop! So they ran off! Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!!" Mulder smiles broadly at this, and you can see what a great job he does brushing his sharp upper teeth. (He actually is one of those people dentists tell to stop brushing so very vigorously because they are doing damage.) Scully breaks his souring mood by stating, "Well, these are all interesting theories. Of course, Mulder is right." (She nods to him.)"We can't divulge anything about our work here..." She shrugs, suggesting that everyone, especially government encryptionists, should understand that they are sworn to secrecy, and switches topics deftly, "Hey, we've all had quite an adventure... I know I'm very grateful to you both for translating that book in the nick of time. You two are the Big Heroes! Would you be my guests for dinner at Angelo's? It's not far from here. Mulder and I go there a lot! We could all get to know one another and NOT talk about work!" she laughs." Then Mulder interjects, (not to be one-upped,) "Me too! Also, My Treat! Let's go eat! We promise, no gray food!" "Speak for yourself, I'm ordering oysters on the half-shell!" counters Scully, "or maybe the deep-fried mushroom appetizer ...Ummmm!" The light-hearted banter continues as they go down the hall. The shot moves back to Chris Carter, standing in the bare room. He sports a happy grin and says,"The lesson here is: Beware of Aliens bearing gifts. This has been... ... The Twilight Files." (Music: Wooo-eeee,Bada, Da, Da, Dum!) The End. Thanks for visiting my site. Leila Links to other stories are below.

You may contact me at leilafile@hotmail.com