No, really, it was just the other night.
I was fishing, down to the lake. You got to fish at night if you’re using quarter stick dynamites. It’s not like forty some, whatever years ago when I was a boy. Now a days they start talking about reckless endangerment or claiming you sunk their boat. But that guy was at least as drunk as I was and probably more.
So it was just me and my boat in one of the channels leading into the lake. I was close to the cypress trees, but not too close. You don’t want to accidentally blow up one of them and have it fall on your boat. Of course I had a cooler full of beer because I was fishing; that goes without saying.
It was a quiet, cool night with the stars out. Taking it easy, with my feet propped up, it was just me, my coveralls, a can of beer, and a pocket full of quarter stick dynamites. As long as no game wardens came along, it would’ve been a perfect night.
I almost fell asleep, but then I saw the light. It was in the sky, but kind of low. Game warden helicopter; had to be.
I hadn’t caught no fish yet, so he probably wouldn’t bother me. The ones in the helicopters is looking for serious offenders. They won’t bother you unless you make them notice you, but they may call in somebody else if you put on a show.
The light kept getting closer, but I couldn’t hear nothing. A chopper usually makes a big woop-woop noise out on the lake, but this one didn’t even make a whisper. I thought maybe it was a military helicopter, one of those stealth ones you hear about.
Sure enough, it came right over me as quiet as a drunk wants to be when he sneaks home to a sleeping wife. That light shone down and I couldn’t see anything. I almost dropped my beer, but instinct kept it in my hand.
Next thing I know, I woke up on a table. I figured I was in the hospital again, but things didn’t seem right. Instead of clean, white walls, it was all shiny metal. There were gizmos and gadgets all around. A lot of them had flashing lights and little screens. Some them looked a little, well, invasive. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
A bunch of these gray skinned dudes stood around the table. They was like you see in the movies, with big, black eyes and big heads all stuck on the top of a stick-thin body. Their tiny little mouths made high-pitched gibbering sounds.
I tried to get my fat backside out of there, because that seemed like the best possible idea. Something held me down. I couldn’t feel what it was, but I could not move nothing but my eyes. I could look around easy enough, but nothing else worked.
One of the little alien boys poked me in the forehead with a screwdriver-looking thing, then gibbered to his buddies. The others gibbered back.
It turns out I could still sweat. It ran down my face. That’s when I noticed the rest of me was sweating up a storm too. Man, them little aliens had me scared. I thought back to all the stories I ever heard about folks getting abducted by flying saucers. Parts of me clinched up real tight, if you know what I mean. My heart beat like an outboard motor on full throttle.
They were still gibbering when they walked away. I heard a shushing sound, like in the sci-fi movies when doors open and close. The gibbering went away. They left me alone.
The table still held me down, but figured I better try to figure out more about where I was. The table seemed to be metal or plastic; it was hard. There was something in my hand.
It was metal too.
It was cold.
It was my beer.
Them little critters left me my beer. That filled me up with something, and suddenly I didn’t want nothing more than to get me a sip of that beer.
Lifting my head didn’t work, but I’ve been raising a beer to by mouth since I was twelve years old. There was nothing going to keep me from my beer.
All my strength, all my brains, it all went straight to my beer hand. The muscles strained. I squeezed my eyes shut and got all tense as I forced the can to bring me my alcohol.
My hand shook a little.
That was it. I may not be able to move much at all, but it looked like I was going to eventually beat the table. As long as those kidnapping aliens didn’t come back, I would work until I drank my beer or until the table killed me.
I thought back to helping my pa working on the truck when it fell off the jack. We had to pry it up get it high enough to put something else under it. He told me, “Billy, boy, just take a deep breath, think about what you’re doing, and just do it.” That’s what I was going to do.
I took a deep breath and relaxed myself a bit. That was good, but I wanted another one. This time, I filled my lungs and held it while I thought good and hard about my beer hand. With everything thing I had, I tried to lift that beer.
My armed lifted slightly, shaking the whole time.
Then it slammed back down, losing its hold on the beer.
The metal of the can clanked against something as it fell. Then it made the gurgling noise beer makes when it’s running out of a can.
It don’t shame me to tell you I cried. Tears ran out of me as fast as that beer ran out of the can. It’s a bad enough thing to know space men are going to do unnatural things to you, but to spill your beer on top of that; it was just too much.
I put my hands to my face and I cried. That’s when I realized I could move my hands. I did a quick check and all of me could move. The spilled beer must have shorted something out. Beer was my savior after all.
Jumping up, I grabbed the beer can and found a little left. I slammed that down, letting it run down my throat and fill me with its goodness. I might get out unprobed.
It looked like there was a door where I heard the shushing sound before. I didn’t dare use any of the tools they had hanging there. I didn’t know how to use any of them and would probably just end up killing myself. Besides, you don’t know where something like that has been.
I put my hands in my pockets and found a happy surprise. Them little buggers left me with my quarter stick dynamites and my cigarette lighter. I might not know how to work their fancy gadgets, but I know how to go fishing.
The door opened up when I walked up to it. I looked through. There was a hallway made of the same shiny metal as the room. There weren’t no signs of anybody. I didn’t know where to go, but I knew I didn’t want to go back to the table. I lit one of the dynamites, tossed it in the room, and then ran like crazy down that hallway.
I didn’t get very far when another door opened. One of the aliens stopped in his tracks in the doorway. I don’t think he expected to see me. He really didn’t expect the loud bang that happened a second later.
The whole space ship rocked a bit. I fell against the wall next to the open door. The alien dude fell back into the room.
The room had a bunch of screens and lights, and, more importantly, a bunch of the aliens all falling over.
I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I lit another dynamite and threw it in. I ran again and heard the door shush behind me.
The hallway was just smooth metal, and seemed to be going around in a circle. A couple of smaller hallways joined it here and there. I didn’t have any idea where to go. I figured the ship was a saucer, so I took one of the side hallways leading away from the middle.
The aliens must have figured out what was going on. A pack of them showed up, running down the hall, each one had something in his hand, probably some kind of ray gun.
I turned at the first corner I could find and threw another dynamite back at the aliens. That was either a very good thing or a very bad thing.
The floor tilted up and I slid down the hall. I hit the new floor that used to be a wall. It hurt a little, but the spirit of the whitetail deer was in me and it meant to run as far away as it could.
Another explosion rocked the saucer, and that was no quarter stick. The wall in front of me broke open and I could see the night sky. I hoped it was the night sky, realizing we could be up in space. All the movies say opening up a spaceship in space is a bad thing. I got this picture in my head of my eyes swelling up and popping just before the rest of my body did the same thing.
The ship lurched again and slid me backward. I hit something and it knocked me plumb out.
I woke up on the bank of the lake with the sun just coming up. Chunks of twisted up metal stuck up out of the ground everywhere. Little fires burned here and there.
You know that cold, stiff, pain you get from sleeping on the ground when the ground leeches all the warm out of you? Well, I had that. I dragged myself over to the nearest fire. It looked safe enough, so I got warm.
My poor old boat was nowhere to be seen. I used up all my dynamites. My belly griped about being empty. There was a dead alien hanging off a fallen log.
A little while later, some government men showed up and explained to me about swamp gas and weather balloons. They thanked me for my cooperation while they cleaned up the wreckage. I didn’t mention breakfast to them, figuring I’d be safer if they didn’t know.
Anyway, that’s my story. Every word of it is true, just like it happened.