Take Me To Your Leader

Suggested Audio Candy:

[1] Jeff Wayne “Horsell Commons and the Heat Ray”

[2] Denis King “Black Beauty”

[3] Does It Offend You, Yeah “Attack Of The 60 ft Lesbian Octopus”

[4] John Williams “Wild Signals”

[5] John Williams “E.T.”

I wish to let you in on a little secret. Pull up your chairs and huddle up as I’m not ready to go public just yet and would rather keep this between you and me for the time being. Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with my problems but I have no idea what to do with myself and nobody around me would believe me if I told them what I am about to tell you now. I’m going to need something from you; sorry to be demanding but it is imperative we establish two-way trust before I commence pouring my heart out as what I’m about to confess could see me dragged away by the men in white lab coats and I don’t relish spending the foreseeable bouncing off the walls of a padded cell thank you very much. That is invariably what would happen should our little tête-à-tête become public knowledge. Therefore, what I am about to say must stay between only us and the four walls. If, at any point, it becomes too much then please try and bear with me; you see there isn’t another person alive who I feel at ease enough to share this information with and, if you can’t help me, then I don’t know what I’ll do.

I believe I may be an alien. There, I’ve said it. It’s out there; can’t take it back now. Well…aren’t you going to say anything? Laugh, scream, run away with arms aloft like a gibbon…anything at all? Okay then, I shall take that as a positive sign. I knew I could count on you not to over-react. I guess I should elaborate some as that’s quite a large nugget of information to digest all at once. I haven’t always been an alien; three days ago I was flesh and bone like any other and the closest I had gotten to space was watching Battlestar Galactica as a child. Then I received…the visitation. You hear stories about Area 51 and the like, UFO sightings, alien abductions; it’s all most intriguing but, at no point, have I ever truly believed there was life outside of our atmosphere. Woe betide me for being such a doubting Thomas; at precisely 4:02am on Sunday my entire outlook on extra terrestrial life changed and it made a believer out of me. I’ve attempted to rationalize everything which occurred at that ungodly hour but a number of unexplained phenomena since have made it impossible to discount any further.

I remember my dream with alarming clarity. I was at a house party; surrounded by all the usual casual friends and small-talking drones. I’d endured a good two hours of their banal conversation and had become fully aware of both my wristwatch and fading resolve. Right now I was ensnared; cornered by Thomas Aldridge, potentially the most wearisome man in existence and winner of the Verbal Diarrhea Bi-Weekly’s man of the year award for the past three years running. I pondered whether he was actually aware that my pulse was grinding to a halt; surely he had noticed the diminishing color as it drained from my face or the light fading within my pupils. It appeared not as he continued to rattle on without so much as coming up for air. As well as having nothing notable to say, Tom also possessed a number of infuriating character quirks.

The first was his inability to allow his audience chance to slide a word in sideways. If you asked me for my top ten bugbears then this would definitely achieve top five status as it frustrates the living shit out of me. He would ask a question then, just as you begin relaying your answer, the conversation would swing back to Tom and he would go off on a tangent, leaving you feeling most unimportant. The second would be his unremitting one-upmanship; you could tell him your finest achievement in life and he would just have to go one better. It was like a tick; an itch he had to scratch and scratch it he did…until the scab fell off. I remember chatting to him about my first ever sports day at primary school. I won the egg and spoon race and came third in the three-legged race also that same afternoon. My little anecdote wasn’t to earn bragging rights; indeed I had been rather self-effacing when relaying the story back and I was working up to the real reason why my parable was significant; it was the first time I ever saw a fully extended horse’s penis.

It seemed like the ideal ice breaker as this was a celebration after all and it was sure as shit more interesting than whatever he had lined up. I remember the exact moment when I glanced to the field beside our school yard and there it was…Black Beauty. A beautiful thoroughbred stallion with regal mane, lustrous coat and horseshoes which may well have been Prada. My eyes glazed over and the broadest smile stretched across my dimpled cheeks and then, just as my heart began to warm, it unraveled. My goodness, I had never seen anything like it in my entire five years; this thing was thicker than an orangutan’s forearm and longer than a camel’s list of grievances. The belled end glanced across the daisies as it swung like a pendulum, gathering momentum with each revolution like the Mary Rose. My innocence was shattered that day and my childhood ambition of learning how to ride a horse dissipated. All was going well with my witty reenactment until I mentioned my victory on the track and Tom unceremoniously leapt in to inform me that he was egg and spoon champion five years running and swiftly changed the topic of conversation before I could get to any horseplay.

The third, and I could easily list a dozen reasons why he made me want to gouge the eyeballs straight from my skullcap, would have to be the fact that he was utterly oblivious when he was telling you about something you had absolutely zero interest in. Even if you spotted a brief opening and reminded him that you haven’t the vaguest clue about the workings of an engine, he would remain unruffled in his in-depth demonstration of how to successfully remove a timing belt and seemed to gain some sick amusement from giving a blow-by-blow account in as much detail as he could possibly muster. Of course, by this point I would be white as a sheet from annoyances one and two but, short of foaming at the mouth which I had no intention of stooping to at a well-to-do cocktail party, there would be no other way of stopping his relentless charge. Thomas had been totally passed over when it came to the distribution of social skills; for one so bright, he lacked awareness of his environment and his total lack of presence in it.

I’m rambling now; you see what happens when the Sandman provides me with a dullard like Thomas Aldridge to populate my dreamscape?? It’s actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things but I’m a little anxious about the whole “alien” thing and tend to run off at the mouth when I’m nervous. Anyhoots, just as my last droplet of lifeforce was draining away and consideration of the frothing mouth trick had become necessitated, a blinding light appeared at the window. I politely made my excuses to Thomas and his long-suffering wife Jeanie and wandered over to see what was causing such a bright nightfall sky. I could still hear him waffling on about spark plugs as I quickly shuffled out of earshot and this caused a faint shudder down my spine. This was followed by the customary chills but, this time, for an entirely different reason. There was movement out in the garden and I couldn’t be sure of what as other partygoers had congregated at the patio and there was no clear line of sight.

I remember growing increasingly frustrated as I attempted to see through the sea of people to no avail. Suddenly, one of them let out an almighty shriek and the crowd began to disperse in blind panic. I instantly regretted bringing up the rear as this meant falling foul of the stampede. I was particularly miffed that some inconsiderate so-and-so was wearing six-inch heels, one of which found a home in my groin of all places. My testicles looked nothing like a piñata so why she presumed they could withstand the weight of her child-bearing hips was anybody’s guess but thankfully the heel landed central of my balls as a few millimeters either side could have spelt catastrophe. On the plus-side I now had front row seats although once I squinted through the haze of light to discern the reason for the free-for-all I kind of regretted not sticking with Tom and finding out the intricacies of the cam shaft.

We all have our own idea of what an extra terrestrial should look like. Mine was halfway between E.T. and a xenomorph and neither were exactly a pretty picture. In truth, the alien stood before me, looked nothing like either. It was tall, impossibly so, maybe eight foot at a guess although it wasn’t its height which concerned me most. I counted seventeen eyes; all individually wired and hanging from the top of its head like an optical carousel. At least twelve of them looked furious and the other five just appeared ravenous. Moreover, its attention was firmly fixed on my rump. I’d heard all about the infamous anal probe and wasn’t particularly enamored about the notion of receiving a rectal examination so began to scurry away as best as I could, a task made more excruciating by the fact that both testicles had taken a knock as that fateful heel dropped.

Hamstrung by the sharp twinge in my nether region, I attempted to flee much in the same manner as a grounded sperm whale would clamor back for water. The beam was getting more luminous and was now accompanied by an assortment of eerie whispers, seemingly advancing behind me. Clearly any organism endowed with seventeen eyes would no doubt have at least eight mouths and each of them were insinuating their iniquitous intention. I’m not fluent in martian but I imagined something along the lines of “we’re going to slide it in now. You may feel a slight pinch as the Probomatic 5000 Deluxe is almost…FIVE YARDS LONG!” or something similarly daunting to be disclosed and I began to clench my buttocks in overbearing terror and, admittedly, vague curiosity.

The party was most definitely over. Virtually the entire populace had vacated the premises by any means necessary. Doors had been wrestled free from their hinges, tables overturned, and the industriously stacked Ferrero Rocher pyramid knocked skywards. However, one person was still very much in attendance…Thomas Aldridge. That reminds me, the fourth thing about him which really ground my gears was that he was an utter bastard. He remained true to form by giving a “ha ha you’re screwed” smirk, polishing off his cocktail sausage, and extending his spindly middle digit in my general direction. And to think I never even got around to telling him about the horse’s cock. With that, I felt an icy grip around my ankle which proceeded dragging me back toward the light source.

I woke up with a start and literally sopping with sweat. The first emotion to wash over me was relief. That was a close run thing; another handful of seconds and my eyes would most certainly have been watering. I had escaped my date with an alien dildo and, for that, I was duly thankful and, admittedly, a dash disappointed. My exuberance was tempered with furious whirling vitriol directed at bird flicking swine Thomas. Granted, it had turned out to be only a phantasm and he was merely a figment of my over-ripened imagination but it still didn’t excuse his antagonism. Thankfully, my memory is photographic; if he so much as dares to slide one of his crocodile skin slip-ons into another of my dream worlds then I shall pluck out both his eyeballs, wrap them in fiber glass and roll them down Kilimanjaro into a giant vat of treacle. Sound preposterous? Not in your dreams it isn’t. I am the architect there and, besides, I swiped his library card when he was harping on about oil changes so I know where to find him.

My next feeling was one of trepidation and mild discomfort. My threshold for pain is actually rather high but far less when it involves my sphincter. We’re not talking of that accidental one-fingered slip whilst bathing, this was five yards of anal probe and that would surely cite a week of intense belly aches. I felt numb which I’m guessing was a good thing but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been intruded without my knowledge. Even more disconcertingly, the tip of my index finger had began to glow and I had a sudden urge to dress up in my mother’s clothing. Nah, just kidding. I’m telling you though, something definitely didn’t feel right. Perhaps I had been abducted, whisked from my bed linen and subjected to unthinkable acts while out cold. I put all conspiracy theory out of my mind and settled back to sleep. No sign of Thomas Aldridge in my following dream; it’s hardly a surprise as he probably thought better of showing his face again but, when he does, I’ll be waiting.

That was last night. Quite an eventful slumber by all accounts; I woke this morning feeling irate and still uncomfortable around the posterior. I guess I should get to my point; explain why I’m convinced that I am in fact an alien. I just ran into Richard Dreyfuss in my local high street. He seemed to recognize me even though we’d only met on opposing sides of the television screen. At first I felt honored but, after a few minutes of listening to him blather on about a demo he wanted me to listen to, I began to feel somewhat badgered. I made my excuses and turned to walk away but, in a crafty final throw of the dice, he pulled a Casio keyboard from his rucksack and commenced playing the same five notes repeatedly with a gormless grin on his face. I would consider myself a kind and hospitable fellow but the words “fuck off Dreyfuss” just kind of fell from my mouth and I scuttled away clutching my ears in agony.

Not convinced that I’m an alien? Well, how do you like these apples? I missed my bus home by seconds due to Dreyfuss-gate and, just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, some pimple-faced brat on a BMX bicycle offered me a ride home on his handlebars. I shit you not…this snot-clogged little punk had a built-in basket and even a blanket for me to swaddle within. I told him thanks but no thanks and did the only thing left for me to do…I phoned home. So you tell me, am I an alien? Do I look any different from the last time we met? Be honest, don’t pull any punches, I’d rather know the truth. Tell you what, just do me a favor. Keep an eye on me, I should be popping up on Twitter over the next couple of days. If you notice anything untoward about my behavior then I’d rather you tell me directly rather than blocking or reporting me. Remember I come in peace. Holy shit shards, did I just say that?