Allen the Alien, Chapter 7

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They walked in silence for most of the way to Tommy’s home. At one point the duckling looked over his shoulder at his two escorts.

“Thank you for coming along, Mr. Three-Eyes,” Tommy said.

“My name,” said the three-eyed alien with his booming voice, “is TriSight.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m glad you came.”

“Are you frightened of me, young one?” asked Count Duckula.

“I’m not scared of you personally, it’s your boss,” Tommy said.

“Ellie? Ellie is harmless.”

“That’s what she wants us to think,” said the duckling. “We all know she was hoping you would kill me.”

Duckula stopped in the middle of the road, and the others had to pause until he caught up.

“Why do you believe she wanted me to kill you?”

“I’m a little too sassy for my own good. My mom says that all the time.”

“But kill you?” Duckula said. “I’m aghast.”

“I don’t know what a gast is,” Tommy said. “I just know Ellie doesn’t like me.”

“Well, nobody is going to kill you today,” said the count. “At least not I.”

“Yeah, maybe Mom will if I don’t get home soon.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence again, and Cupcake was indeed a little unhappy that her son was home later than she expected.

“I hope he wasn’t too sassy to you,” she said.

“Nonsense,” said Duckula. “Your boy is a sheer delight.”

They said goodbye, and the two assistants headed back together.

“You have been very quiet, Mr. Three-Eyes,” Duckula broke the silence.

TriSight laughed.

“Maybe I should kill you for calling me that,” he boomed.

“Please. Enough with the killing talk.”

“I do think the boy was correct. Allen probably wanted to make sure he came to no harm.”

“I would like to be clear about this,” said Duckula. “Ellie is a selfish, ambitious and mean-spirited meanie underneath that sweet smile. She always wants something a little different from what she says she wants. But she is not a killer, and I am not some minion who would do any killing for her.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said TriSight. “Do you know what it is that she wants the interplanetary federation to do for her?”

“Not exactly. But when she says she wants peace, I think she is mostly telling the truth.”

TriSight wanted to ask why Duckula said “mostly,” but just then they rejoined Allen and Ellie.

Where we were and where I was

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That was a surprise.

Frankly, I didn’t want to join the chorus commemorating the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. of A. on this date back in 2001. I was an editor for the late lamented Green Bay News-Chronicle that day, and I have my share of memories, as do all of us who lived through that day. This weekend brings the 25th anniversary of my first prescription for high blood pressure, a condition we discovered after I got worried about the chest pains I experienced while working on the Sept. 13 edition of the News-Chronicle. We had produced an Extra on Tuesday afternoon, the regular Wednesday morning paper, and it was time to consider what was going into Thursday’s paper when my internal alarms went off.

I have very strong opinions about the difference between the U.S. of A. of 2001 and where it stands today, and very mixed opinions about whether I want to go there in this space, and so I decided to peruse the archives to see what I was writing around the 20th anniversary back in 2021.

Surprise! Not a whisper. Instead I was focused on finishing a novel that I had been tinkering with for two or three years already. Enough was enough, and so I set myself a deadline to see if — after decades of meeting deadlines successfully in my news-gathering career — it would help to set a deadline in my novel writing. Spoiler alert: The novel is still not finished. Mind you, I have finished seven other books in the meantime, just not that one.

We also were focused on the newest member of our little clan. Summer had been born around July 20, we picked her out on Aug. 29, and she met Dejah and our cat Blackberry on Sept. 11. Those were sweet times.

The closest I came to addressing the historic date was three days later, and then it was only as I promoted a new edition of my first book of essays from 2010, Refuse to be Afraid. I concluded, “These are scary people who want us to be terrified. We used to call people like that terrorists; I still do … We need to overcome the fear and live in freedom. Otherwise, the terrorists have won.”

And I would add that it’s essential to love God and love our neighbors, remembering that we are 8 billion or so neighbors sharing this little orb in space.

Once again down those paths

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I have (once again) found the surface of my desk so I can write on that surface — but behind me on the recliner is a pile of papers that needs to be reassigned to another location. And in my mind this desk belongs to the other side of the house as I contemplate converting the master bedroom back into a bedroom and the second bedroom back into an office.

Here and there I found Bible verses I’ve written down through the years. I must revisit those verses. I wrote each of them down for a reason, and I must recapture those reasons.

I look up from my journal and see three notes to myself on the back wall of this rolltop desk. One is a mission statement that begins, “At the end of each path is a finished book.” Another, recalling a Super Bowl moment from nearly 15 years ago, says in big bold letters, “IT IS TIME.” The third is a Ray Bradbury quote that begins, “Action is hope.”

It feels like it is (once again) time for me to take action and start moving down those paths. Clearing the desk is Action #1 — not to be confused with the comic book worth millions, but right now it feels like a million dollars worth of sound advice.