Of Maralites and Men

In the middle of an ebony void with scattered grains of light tossed across it like glitter and moving passed large round chunks of rocks and gas, Virox continued his journey through time and space.

The glitter was the stars and the chunks of rocks and gas were planets, but they went unheeded by him. The shimmering nebulas and glowing galaxies rich with colour and spangled with stars had no effect on him. The luminous planets, some strange with thousands of icy rings, didn’t even catch his eye anymore. Not even the Plytromalex Asteroid - an asteroid of such size and colour that we as humans cannot even comprehend it - not even that could grab his attention. Why, you ask? Well, it was probably to do with the fact that Virox wasn’t a human, but a Maralite and a very old Maralite at that. 25 billion years, in fact. He was a Maralite (which is, by the way, a rather small, pink squid-like creature with wings) on a mission, albeit not a very important one.

Virox was in fact traveling to the Baltex Galaxy where his sick aunt lived. He had visited her 450 million light years ago, gave her a get well card and some flowers and left, starting the next 600 million light years-long journey home to his planet Bob (it’s a coincidence that it is a name on Earth). He was about three quarters home when he realised, much to his dismay, that he’d left his wallet. With much swearing and cursing, he’d turned his ship around and started to go back. Now, you may think that traveling for another 450 million light years is a bit too long and tedious, but as I said, Virox was a Maralite and they have a lot of time on their hands, seeing as they live, on average, 20 to 50 billion years. So although a little annoyed, and although he had to sign a lot of cheques when he stopped for fuel (countless time, of course) it wasn’t that much of an effort. It only became and effort when he took a wrong turn off the Galactic Highway and got lost somewhere in the Spinning Nebulas. Because they spin it was a very long and confusing time before he got out, and when he did, he was totally lost. He had no idea which galaxy he was in, and he was a well-traveled Maralite.

"Confound this aunt of mine! Confound my forgetfulness!" he cried. He proceeded to look out the window of his ship and stare at the planets, and then look on his computer and try to get his bearings, but he simply couldn’t.

"Confound the size of this Universe! Where in the Seven Spirals am I?"

He had slowed his ship down from hyper speed (which is 4000 times the speed of light) to a slow cruise, so he could have a good look at the planets that surrounded him and hopefully find out where he was. It was no use.

With a heavy sigh he decided, as unsociable as he was, that he was going to have to land somewhere - on a planet with intelligent life forms, and ask for directions. He passed a couple of planets, but they were deemed useless when he found them to be either very hot, very cold or very windy. One planet in fact had an especially large hurricane on it that was the size of his moon back home. He eventually glided up to a blue planet with splotches of brown on it (which he presumed were continents.) It looked peaceful enough.

"Ugh, what an ugly planet. Looks like my dog Wilfred yacked all over it. But beggars can’t be choosers," he sighed, and proceeded to home in on its atmosphere.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Virox didn’t realise until it was too late that he’d picked a very bad planet. Not only were the creatures very unintelligent, but they were very unsociable too. He’d landed in a place called Roswell [he’d used his powerful binoculars from just outside the atmosphere to try and find an Alien Landing Station, and he’d spotted a green alien emblem on a building (which was, unfortunately for Virox, a restaurant). The green alien looked rather like his cousin Cud so he thought it might have been a badly painted Alien Landing Station logo.]

His ship landed with a gentle thud, and two light bulbs that had needed changing for two million years smashed to the floor. With a groan he got up from his seat, swept up the broken glass and put on his sodium sulphate tank. Who knew what disgusting gas the creatures on this planet breathed? With that he opened his front door, the ramp slid down and he began to walk outside of his ship for the first time in one hundred years.

He didn’t get very far. He was suddenly blinded by beams of light and the noise of sirens, loud engines and other unidentifiable sounds that filled his ears and there was a loud roar which sounded like many voices all gasping at once.

"Remain Standing! Do not move! I repeat, do not move!" was yelled at him through a large speaker, although to him it sounded more like "Garble garble, garb garbgarb, garble garble!" Cursing his forgetfulness again, he switched on his Universal Languages Translator, which would allow him to understand them, and them to understand him.

"Um," he said and suddenly everyone hushed. The lights were still on him and he blinked in annoyance. He could make out in the distance great green hovering machines with cutting, spinning blades on top of them to keep them afloat. There was a large gathering of people in front of him and on land, in the distance, a never ending stream of metal...metal... well, they looked like cars to him, if cars were indeed the same here as they were on Bob. A thousand pair of curious and frightened eyes stared at him. Despite the incessant choppa-choppa-choppa of the green hovering things, it was quite uncomfortably quiet. He was beginning to think this wasn’t an Alien Landing Station.

"Um," he continued, "Is this a bad time?"

There was a stir among the many creatures before him and standing in front of the crowd three of these creatures were assembled, one with a loud speaker.

After a long and thoughtful pause from the creature he suspected was their leader, or someone important since he had the loud speaker, he got a reply.

"Er, no. Welcome. To. Our. Planet," the creature said slowly.

Virox stared at him.

"Um, thanks. Er, is this the Alien Landing Station on your planet, or don’t you have one?" he asked.

There was another stir of voices and the leader looked confused.

He sighed. Great. Trust him to pick a planet without an Alien Landing Station out of the entire Universe!

"Look," he said, "my name’s Virox. I’m not here to kill you all-"

He was interrupted again by a sudden murmur through the crowd and the sound of guns loading was heard. He eyed both warily and wearily a couple of tanks lurking in the distance. They’d just pulled up and were looking very menacing. He knew about tanks. He’d landed on a planet once that was inhabited by various breeds of tanks, and he knew them to be very short tempered. These tanks were obviously working for these creatures as defense units.

"Drat," he mumbled, before continuing.

"I’m simply lost. I flew into the Spinning Nebulas and got tossed out the wrong side and ended up in your galaxy, and I was wondering if you could give me directions."

More murmurs and someone yelled "It’s the messiah! Hear his holy message!" And someone else yelled "No way, dude, it’s Elvis!"

Virox sighed. He wasn’t getting very far.

The creature with the loud speaker spoke up again.

"Welcome. To. Earth. Whyrox. My. Name. Is. George. I. Am. The. Leader. Of. These-"

"Oh speak faster for goodness sake! I consider myself a patient Maralite but this is just ridiculous. And it’s Virox, not Whyrox."

There was a gasp and the clinking of weapons in the hands of a vast number of creatures was becoming ever louder.

The main creature was looking flustered.

"Sorry," he said eventually.

Virox awaited more but none came.

"Well, can you give me directions you...you...what are you anyway?"

The main creature looked happy that he could now do something useful.

"We. Are...oh wait, you want me to speak real fast. We’re humans and this is Earth. We’re not a violent race. We come in peace."

"Come in peace? You’re already here and what do you mean ‘not a violent race’. I have about ten tanks aimed at me and a lot of nasty green hornet like things shining terrible bright lights on me. Now please, just answer my question, can you give me directions? I want to get back to Bob."

There was another hum in the crowd and all the humans started talking to each other excitedly.

George smiled and turned around to look at his ‘race’.

"I think we can help you there," he said.

He looked at the large crowd.

"Are there any people by the name of Bob here?"

There were a few shouts.

"No, put up your hands. Put them up!"

There was a show of hands and it seemed there were a lot of people eager to be Bob, though Virox could see they clearly weren’t.

"Uuuuh, you there! Yes you with the blue shirt. No, that one there! No you, the man next to the lady with the red hat, er, hair. Yes, you. Come on up, son," George said, summoning with what Virox presumed were his hands for a sun who thought he was planet Bob, to come on up.

Virox was utterly confused and irritated now. The humans weren’t catching his drift.

George brought forward the man who was a sun who thought he was Bob though he looked like neither, and offered him to Virox.

"Here," he said, "is a Bob. We have done what you have asked and hope that we remain on peaceful terms. If not, as you can see, I have a lot of tools at my disposal that I was saving for another purpose, er, Iraq, but I can and will use them on you if you shoot at us."

Virox blinked, took a deep breath, slapped a hand across his forehead and sighed.

"I am not going to shoot at you, and that is not the Bob I was looking for. And I am certainly not having him ‘come on up’ with me, and I have no use for a human who thinks he’s a sun who thinks he’s Bob."

"But I am Bob!" the human protested.

"Shh," said George and he turned the sun who though he was Bob around and sent him back to the crowd.

"Er, sorry. We can’t help you. But we were wondering if you could help us?" he asked.

Virox shuddered with disgust. He really wanted to leave now, but for fear of angering them and being stung by those nasty hornet looking things he stayed on and answered.

"Very well. What?"

Another long pause and he watched as George scratched his left nostril.

"Um, let me think a while...."

Someone from the crowd yelled, "Mr. President, ask for the answer to World Peace!"

George perked up.

"Y-yeah! Um, what is the answer to World Peace? Oh and, are we alone in the Universe?"

"Who made God?" someone else yelled.

Virox listened intently to George, who was also called MR. President it seemed, (stupid to have two names, he thought) and he also listened to the other human.

"Well," Virox said after a little thought, "the answer to World Peace is simple. It’s like my mother always used to say, ‘stop fighting and behave yourself or I’ll give you a whack on the tentacle, you hear?’ Although in your terms it’d be a whack on the hand. To put it even more simply, we can make an arrangement that if you don’t stop fighting, I’ll get some mates from my planet to whack you. You understand? That way everyone will have to behave because everyone will be terrified of what we might do to you if you don't behave. Trust me, you don’t want to be whacked."

There was stir and some of the humans were dumbly nodding their heads up and down, although Virox had no idea why. He just hoped he’d got through to some of them.

"As for the answer to you second question. DUH! You’re not alone. I just came to visit you, which is a clear indication there is life outside of your sad little watery planet that you stupidly named ‘Earth’. Arrogant and ignorant you all are. There are a lot of much smarter creatures out there so be humble and accept your stupidity and lack of importance."

He heard nothing but the chirping of crickets after that one and George was looking particularly confused. He looked as if he couldn’t get to grips with the idea.

"And Finally, as an answer to your third question," Virox said and noted that everyone seemed to perk up at this.

"Who made God? Well, God is very powerful and knows a lot," he said and there was a general noise of agreement from the crowd. Some were smiling with tears in their eyes.

"God is good and very easy to talk to."

More bobbing up and down of heads which Virox guessed now was a sign of agreement, although it looked rather silly.

"God," he continued, "was made by...by...oh drat. I forgot."

The expectant silence was broken by the sound of people hissing, whispering and a few of them, fainting.

"Confound this terrible memory of mine. Oh well. Unless you have anything else to ask, I’ll be on my way now," he said, edging away from them and up the ramp, slowly getting closer to the entrance of his ship.

"Uh," George said rather desperately, "um, er..."

"Will you be back?" another human in the crowd shouted.

Virox was very nearly inside his ship and he turned around sharply.

"With all due respect and meaning no insult to your ‘race’ of people who think they are suns who think they are Bobs who want to come on up, I very much hope not."

With that he went back into his ship, closed the door, started his engine and rose up, up and out of the atmosphere, leaving the dazed humans behind him. He sped away from their planet and when he was a thousand light years away he kicked himself for not asking for two light bulbs while he was there, although he very much doubted they would be the right kind.

He drove on for another 20 thousand light years and then suddenly remember who made God and, coincidentally, that it was his birthday, although he wasn’t sure how old he was because he’d lost count of his years after he turned 20 billion and something.

"Drat," he said, and sped off into the distance.