HELLO
Is it me you’re looking for?. . . ‘Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do. Are you somewhere feeling lonely? . . Hello, is it me you’re looking for?—Lionel Richie
Wait a minute. Wait just one frickin’ minute. What’s going on here? Someone has to be pulling my leg. BIG TIME. It’s not like I was born yesterday, you know. Reality has to be around here, somewhere, I’m thinking while staring at the mysterious being in the dome.
No one is pulling on your leg, Tom, I suddenly heard.
The words, clear as a bell, reverberated within my mind.
I am quite real and aware of when you were born, the words continued to form in my mind.
Suddenly, I’m hearing a voice in my head.
“What the hell is going on!” I shouted.
You do not have to shout, or for that matter, you do not even have to speak. I can hear your thoughts as well as your voice, my mind said.
What’s with this voice in my head?
I remembered reading that some abductees reported hearing voices in their heads. They were folks who were usually sent to a funny farm. Was I losing it, too?
The being standing inside the dome was looking straight at me. I never noticed any lip movement, but somehow I knew that was where the voice was coming from.
I looked back at whatever it was and thought, Are you talking to me?
Of course, Tom. The helmet enables us to communicate through our thoughts, I heard.
You don’t say. Okay, that’s pretty cool, I thought.
The room temperature can be adjusted, if you are chilled.
“Oh, no. I’m fine. That was just a figure of speech,” I said.
Whoops, I kept forgetting I didn’t have to talk. This was going to take some getting used to, speaking without talking. I’d always heard that it was wise to think before talking. This would be a good time to put it to use.
Tom, let me introduce myself, I heard.
Yeah, please do! I have been anxious to meet you, I thought.
I’d started to get the hang of not having to talk. I was dying to know who the little guy was and where it came from. His answer will blow us away.
I am Monroe Hay, number VI. I am your great-great-great-great-great grandson.
What the...?
That was the last thing I would have ever suspected him to say.
It took me a moment to gather that thought, and when I did, I figured maybe there was something wrong with the helmet. This Monroe thing surely hadn’t said what I had just thought I heard. I tapped on the helmet, in case there was a bad connection.
Finally, all I could think to think was, what did you say?
My name is Monroe Hay. I am number six. I am your great-great-great-great-great grandson.
That’s what I thought I had heard. Apparently there was nothing wrong with the helmet. Had to be some sort of mental problem with this being.
Really. You don’t say! You’re my great-great-, uh, how many greats was that?
Think of it as five generations, Tom, came the response from the being calling itself Monroe and claiming we were related.
“BULLSHIT! AND I’M PETER PAN. You expect me to believe this crap?” I shouted, to no one in particular.
I turned and looked at the two NASA officials and said, “You guys hearing this shit?”
They just stood there with blank looks on their faces.
My shout must have hurt Monroe’s ears or mind or whatever, because I saw the abductor’s face recoil, as if he were in pain.
Please do not shout. I am unfamiliar with bullshit, Peter Pan, and crap, but I can assure you, there is nothing wrong with your hearing. At least not for a few more years, Monroe said.
I completely understand your skepticism, since your government has eviscerated our existence.
Are you still with me folks? I bet you’re thinking what I’m thinking, huh? This can’t be real! It’s got be an elaborate hoax.
At this point I began to think that I must have had a brain fart, had blacked out, or maybe was hallucinating, because I was pretty sure that I’d lost touch with reality.
I surveyed my surroundings, noting that I was still in the same room. I also noticed that the little being still stood there inside the dome. It didn’t seem like it could be a dream, but I pinched myself just to be sure.
Okey Dokey, I felt the pain from the pinch.
I told myself to take a deep breath and calm what rattled nerves I had left. I figured it wouldn’t hurt none to play along with this masquerade and find out where it led. As if I had a choice at this point.
I recognized the name Monroe as a family name, but I had a hard time seeing a family resemblance. The abductor’s nose certainly wasn’t anything similar to the Hay nose. It was looking more like Michael Jackson’s surgical nose.
Okay, if what you say is true and we are related, let me think, now that would make me your great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Right?
Yes, Tom, you are correct. I will explain the nose at a proper opportunity.
Christ, how did I get so frickin’ old all of a sudden?
My thoughts were going a mile a minute and had left my mind in the dust. How could mankind’s future descendants be aliens and we be related? Not even a redneck from Arkansas could have achieved that feat. The maze was getting more complicated by the minute and I had a feeling I might be lost and never find a way back.
We are not aliens, Tom. We were born here on Earth. We are humans who have evolved to what you now see. We are mankind’s future generation.
Yeah, right. Now that totally makes sense, aliens claiming to be humans, I jokingly thought.
I began to think that maybe I should take what money I had earned and excuse myself from this fiasco. This had gone on long enough. But Monroe interrupted my doubts.
Let me explain further, he said.
Advanced human technology, in your future, conquered time travel. What you call UFOs have never been alien spacecraft visiting Earth, as most people suspect. The crafts we use for time travel are mistaken to be alien flying saucers. There never has been extraterrestrials visiting the Earth. That is mankind’s most improbable myth. The ET’s or so called aliens have been human descendants, traveling back in time.
Through the years, we experimented with human gene splicing. Genetic manipulation has caused humans to evolve to our current appearance. Your descendants are what you call the abductors.
Well, I’ll be darned, I thought. Now don’t that beat all. Who would have ever believed?
This puzzle was starting to come together. You got to admit, it made sense.
Besides my help with the communications device, what would you want of me now? I asked.
Don’t get the wrong idea here. I still was not falling for all this science fiction crap. I figured I might as well keep playing along, though, and see where all this led.
It is your brother, Monroe replied. He requires your assistance.
My brother!
Now why am I not surprised? I should have known Mike would have something to do with all this. If you remember, my brother and I didn’t really get to know one another until after high school. That’s when we started running around together and getting to know one another. I saw him step in a lot of shit, but somehow he always came out smelling like a rose.
He’d tell me, “You may have been born ready, Tom, but I was born lucky.”
Now I wondered what shit he had stepped into this time. Hopefully Fiza’s family hadn’t made repressions with him. I worried that maybe his luck had expired and he was in dire straits.
The last I knew, he was doing quite well in Saudi Arabia, I thought to Monroe.
I am not referring to your brother Mike. I am referring to your other brother. He is called Tom-Tom.
My other brother? What other brother?
Shit! The milkman must be involved after all. I never knew him, but I did know that he was always coming around. He had to have been one brave SOB.
If not the milkman, then the only other explanation must be that new popular stunt show called Candid Camera. So where is the camera?
Tom-Tom? Now how in the world did this Tom-Tom get to be my brother? I asked.
He is your clone, Monroe said. That is why he is referred as a brother.
“That’s it,” I said. “ I’ve heard enough. I’m out of here.”
As I turned to leave, however, the two NASA officials blocked my way.
“You might want to stick around and hear him out,” one told me.
It seemed that I had no choice but to adhere to his advice.
This is so fracking nuts, I thought.
Do you require nutrition? I heard from Monroe.
Now why would he ask that? I wondered.
No, I do not require nutrition.
I require some common sense that would make good sense. A good yoga class might come in handy about now.
Okay, just in case I’m not understanding you, I finally said, you’re saying that I have a cloned brother, whom you call Tom-Tom. Right?
That is correct, I heard.
How could this be? I asked.
We used your DNA and cloned you, Monroe explained. You now have a replica, who has now matured to your exact age.
The abductions and Monroe the great grandkid I had started to believe, but now a clone? An exact replica?
Come on, man. That might be reaching for the stars a bit, don’t you think? Last time I checked it wasn’t April Fool’s day or Halloween. All this has got to be some kind of a joke, I thought.
It is no joke, it is not April Fool’s day, and I am certainly not wearing a Halloween costume, Monroe replied.
I kept forgetting that he could hear my thoughts. I probably should exercise a little more caution, because I sensed that he might be getting a little irritated with me.
Let us return to the subject, Tom. Unfortunately, cloning has not gone as planned, he continued.
Excuse me? Certainly it didn’t have anything to do with me or my genes?
No, Tom. There was not anything wrong with your genes, except maybe your eyesight, but we fixed that, along with some other enhancements.
Originally we had not planned to abduct you, he said. You happened to be at the right place at the right time.
I’m thinking the wrong place at the wrong time.
So, it was you who caused my car wreck?
No Tom, you hit a pothole, remember? At least that is how you informed your father, Monroe quickly pointed out.
We happened to be in your neighborhood and witnessed your car spin out of control. We pulled you out just before the car turned over. We knew you would survive the crash and it would have no effect on the time line. We have to be very careful not to disturb the time line, as it would change the future. It provided an opportune time to abduct you and do some research. We determined that you would be a good candidate to help develop the communications device. During your examination, we discovered your testosterone level to be very high. That is why we cloned you.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much, I said. I had no idea why I was thanking him. Seemed the proper thing to do.
From the look on his face, my Elvis impression went right over his head.
So, if I may ask, besides helping to devise the communications device, why then are you abducting and cloning people from your past?
Future generations wanted a perfect world where all human negative behavior could be eliminated. We envisioned a world with no jealously, envy, war, pollution, crime, or disease. A world with one race and one creed.
We created our almost perfect world. Unfortunately, during the creation, we lost the ability to verbally speak and reproduce. To save mankind from extinction, we needed healthy reproductive glands. The only place to get them was in the past, Monroe said, with a sad look on his face.
That’s what caused the blood in my semen? You stole my sperm?
I would not say stole, more like borrowed. You are quite capable of producing more.
This started to get interesting and maybe, just maybe, I had started to believe. How about you?
So why do you have to abduct so many people? I asked. As you can see, I am really getting into it now.
Unfortunately, not all abductees are healthy or have good genes. We could not tell this until after an examination. The years between 1960 and now have proved to be mankind’s healthiest span.
That could explain why abduction reports exploded during that era.
When did the cloning start? I asked.
I will explain everything in due time, he replied, but for now, your brother requires your assistance and time is running short. I require you to come back to the future with me and help restore order.
Did I hear that right? I wondered.
Had he just said he wanted to take me back to the future? To help restore order?
Surely I’d be waking up from this dream world any minute now. Someone, please get on Facebook and POKE me. But on second thought, let me be. This could turn into an amazing and intriguing adventure.
Move over Doc, Marty and Biff. It’s time to fire up the flux capacitor.
The Kid was going on a joyride back to the future.