Author’s Note: This first tale comes from 43 year old Miguel Seaver*, who currently resides in Tree Falls Asylum* in Death Valley, California. He has been in Tree Falls since he broke into a neighbor’s apartment in 1993, claiming it was his own, and then tried to commit suicide by flinging himself off the second-floor balcony.

*- names have been changed to protect the patient.

It’s not easy, being the only of your kind on a planet so far from the nearest intelligent life, most of its inhabitants don’t even admit we exist. It’s not easy to hide who you are, what you are, from all their prying, beady little eyes. It’s not easy to keep your secret past a secret from their governm- never mind…It’s not easy, but it’s doable.

Doable, that is, until you FINALLY hear from your “superiors”…telling you there’s “no help currently available,” but to “try to stay hidden, in the event help becomes available in the near future”. And then that annoying, middle-age, alcohol-ridden man from next door, with his DAMN POODLE, comes to tell you to “get out or [he’ll] call the cops.”

It’s then that something inside you just snaps…You find yourself again four and one half feet tall, with large almond shaped eyes, and a green skin colour. And does poodle-man listen to your “shhhh…shhhhh’s”? No. He just keeps shouting “Get out! Get out!” and calls the police!

No more than ten minutes later (though no less than five…slow police) I found myself, standing there on the landing pad, staring over the edge at the sea of blue below me. The officer prepares to fire, with a large conic-shaped fire arm. HA! as though their puny-humanoid weapons could harm ME! So, I chose to ignore them and search for an escape rout.

The conic-weapon (which I deduced, was, in fact, a new-age blow-gun) was aimed straight for me. I could hear behind me the cheaply-made door shatter into thousands of tiny splinters under the force of the officer’s kick.

I looked over the landing pad’s railing, and saw that what had been a sea of blue, had been dotted with the many colours of those who had become onlookers. Faces gasping at me, laughing, crying…even those who cheered. I knew these looks, for they haunted all of my people.

I knew, way down deep in my hearts, that my quiet life of almost pleasant, near solitude was over. They would never again let me fade into the simple-minded oblivion of Earth’s people…nor would they cheer for me, and push me into their hearts, and onto the red carpet as they had that IDIOT E.T. (pshhh….”Phone Home”…like ANYBODY cant do that….HA!...never deserved an Oscar)…no, they would ridicule me, follow me, and do horrendous experiments on me.

Finding no escape rout, and an officer between me and the railing, I did the only thing left for me to do…I broke down into heart-wrenching sobs of sorrow and remorse. Obviously, this shocked and confused the officer’s tiny mind, and allowed me to leap over him and into the air.

I was falling, falling out of control….To my left there was a swimming pool, to my right, a garden…Directly below me there were men dressed in blue, and a large metal gate.

I fell the right, in vain hopes that the fall would kill me, and I would die dramatically between roses, dandelions, and large over hanging weeds. But, this was not my fate.

Men in large white coats and pants came and seized me from my pollen-soaked, allergy inducing deathbed. They put me into restraints and loaded me into their automobile.

Though I originally believed that my fate was to be as those in the horrifying Roswell crash (which, by-the-way, would never had happened if Rolph hadn’t been flying), it seems as those fate has again twisted my life.

My life, apparently, is to live in a hideous white-wash housing facility with bad food, bad entertainment, bad guards, and company that’s even worse. Can you believe it, there’s actually a man here who believes he is Han Solo? And, another that believes she is a squirrel? Fools…but, no matter…I won’t be here for much longer.

You see, human, that my incompetent superiors have FINALLY found a vessel that will take me back to my home planet. This is the reason I have allowed you to interview me on this day. For, on this very evening, I shall return to my people.