I always brought a first aid kit with me when I went hiking. I never dreamed I’d get to use it the way I did when I went hiking in the Obo Chobi mountains near the small village I live in. The sun shone on the land. Daisies swayed in the spring breeze. Clouds shaped like flowers floated in the sky.
I heard something moaning, like a wounded animal. The sound came from behind a pine tree near me. I edged toward the tree and cautiously peered around it. What looked like a space alien child lay before me trembling and gasping for breath. It had a small, gray body with spindly arms and sinewy legs. I saw fear in its large almond-shaped, black eyes. A dark liquid gushed out of the side of its head. I guessed a bullet had grazed it, and the dark liquid was its alien blood color.
Seeing a wounded species that I thought would die if it lost more blood, my need to help it overshadowed my fear. I spoke softly to it, staring into its large, worried, black eyes with a look of concern.
Stretching my hands slowly toward the alien child, I said, “Don’t worry. I’m here to help you. I’m here to fix that wound. It’s okay. I’m going to help you.”
Somehow it understood me. A calmness replaced the fear in its eyes. I wondered if it spoke English. I wondered what it was doing by itself in these woods. Maybe, like earth kids, it had run away. But, from where?
I stopped the alien’s bleeding with a gauze pad. I applied antiseptic cream to the wound and wrapped bandages around its head. I offered it some water, not knowing if it drank water. Its eyes met mine, and I heard a thank you in my head, as it drank some water.
“Who wounded you?” I asked, thinking a hunter might have been spooked by it and started shooting in fear.
I saw a burly, bearded hunter in my mind, like when I imagine things. The hunter chased the alien child and shot at it. I saw a huge, black bear leap on the hunter, bite and claw him, and drag him away with the hunter screaming the last screams of his life. The scene vanished, and the alien faded away right in front of me. I wondered where it went, to another dimension or maybe an alien craft, like beaming up into a Star Trek space ship.
After the alien child’s mysterious exit, I was exhilarated. Excitement burst in me, like I’d inhaled a drug and become mind-blowingly high. I wanted to tell everyone in my village about the alien child and my experience with it. I jogged out of the forest with thoughts of that racing through my mind.
After I got in my old Chevy Pick Up and motored down the road to the village, I remembered how a guy named Howie Noones told everyone he’d seen aliens. And everyone said he’d had his tin hat on when he drank the I-see-aliens Kool-Aid. I remember saying he must have been drunk or on drugs and hallucinated. He became the laughing stock of the village, and nobody believed him. The village folk were not surprised a few months later when he got committed to a psychiatric hospital and never came out.
I realized if I told my alien story I’d meet with derision. The village folk would call me the second coming of Harry Noones and make jokes about me behind my back. They’d lose respect for me. They’d think I was just another raving lunatic. I wondered if I would get committed to a psychiatric hospital for telling the truth about an alien and get locked in there for the rest of my life. I decided to keep my mouth shut and not risk being labeled a looney.
Bob Boyd