Month: October 2026

Allen the Alien, Chapter 13

Fearless Leader burst into the room sputtering and fuming.

“How — DARE — you?!” said the leader of the alien delegation. Allen placed himself in front of Fearless Leader, blocking access to Barada and Spicee.

“Is there a problem?” Allen asked.

Fearless Leader loomed over his two underlings, and Spicee leaned toward Barada. The leader tried to reach around Allen but the diplomat kept himself between them.

“I gave you an order!” The catlike eyes blazed. “You are to monitor the planet and be prepared to destroy it! I did not authorize you to fall in love with this pumpkin-headed Earthling!”

“And yet here I am,” Barada said with an eerie calm. “And I am prepared to defy your foolish order.”

“Foo — defy — DEFY!?!?!?” The leader, as you can hear, was apoplectic and nearly incoherent. He was not accustomed to having his orders resisted.

“Perhaps the threat of turning Earth into a burnt-out cinder was a trifle overmuch,” Allen suggested diplomatically.

When Fearless Leader simply stood before them, breathing hard, Barada filled the silence.

“I was quite ready to follow through and stand guard over this world in your name with my particular set of skills at the ready,” the shaggy blue warrior said. “I did not expect to find a vision of beauty beyond any I have seen on seven planets. I am in love with this ‘pumpkin-headed Earthling,’ and I wonder what else you have misconstrued about this world.”

And now Barada took a step toward their leader, and now Allen had to restrain both of his fellow aliens.

“I would strongly suggest that you both try to calm down,” Allen said.

“Please, darling, I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Spicee said.

“I am very calm,” Barada said cooly. “Don’t worry, Allen, I’m not going to use my particular set of skills on our leader — unless I have to.”

“I am not going to dirty my wings on you, you treacherous bit of pond scum,” Fearless Leader said. “But you will never set foot on our home planet again. You are banished.”

“Fine,” Barada said. “That frees me from carrying out your idiotic order.”

“Idiotic, am I? I’ll show you idiotic,” Fearless Leader said, taking a step toward his former lackey.

“I really must ask that you don’t fight in front of the Earthlings,” Allen said, and the leader noticed that a small crowd had gathered. TriSight, Bobby, Cupcake, Ellie, and Count Duckula, among others, were watching the confrontation with wide eyes and open bills.

“You did this,” said Fearless Leader, snarling at Allen.

“I beg your pardon?”

“If it wasn’t for your infernal insistence that we ‘get to know the native people,’ before we tell them the rules, this all would have been over weeks ago and we’d be on our way home,” the leader said. “Well, you’re banished, too. You can live among these primitives for the rest of your life.”

Allen blinked. “That seems a bit harsh.”

“My mightiest warrior defies me, and you think I’m being a bit harsh,” Fearless Leader said. “I would show you harsh, but that traitor would probably use his skills on me.”

Barada smiled.

The leader stalked away and boarded his shuttle back to the mothership. The small crowd watched silently as the vehicle lifted off and disappeared.

“That did not go very well,” Allen said.

“Could have been worse,” Barada said. “I was just about to kill our leader, and that would not have gone well at all.”

“Small blessings,” TriSight said.

“And so we’re stuck on Earth, among the ‘primitives,’ as our leader described them,” Allen said. “Alone, light years from home.”

“Ah, you’re not alone, Allen,” Bobby said. “We’re pals now.”

“Yes, you’re welcome to live with us,” said Ellie, but something in her tone of voice made Allen think she still had a secret agenda.

A unique era in Earth history was underway, the time after we confirmed we are not alone in the universe. Allen was destined to have many adventures on his adopted world. This was just the beginning.

THE END?

Up and down the road

I stand at the kitchen window making dog meals and see the lights of cars passing north and south along the highway up the hill. Every vehicle contains at least one universe, a human with an arrival, destination and eventual departure, every single one an ongoing story with a mix of emotions.

Many are just numb and going through the motions, but out there running up and down the road are joy and sorrow and grief and anger, happy and sad in perhaps equal measure.

Those cold steel containers racing along the road are not empty — there are souls inside, lives being led, and they have to get where they’re going. Most will get there; some will be sidetracked unexpectedly; some will change their minds and change course.

But each is a life, a distinct and valuable life like the one I am living in this earthly vessel that stands still and watches them all go by. I have my reasons for standing here and not racing or even moving for the moment.

I feed the dogs and move to the chair to write down these thoughts while listening to a rock album that was recorded 58 years ago, music I have heard many times over those years, and for some reason this time I hear the separate elements of each song and how they support each other to make the overall sound. The song would not be the song we remember without each element, and the interaction creates what many have called a masterpiece. Replace or change one element — say, a word in the lyrics or a specific instrument — and would it still be a masterpiece, something lesser, or perhaps something even greater?

I don’t want to get up from this reverie and reflection, but there is a day to be lived and I am the only one who can live it, because it is after all my day to be lived, the day that belongs to me and my priorities, just as the souls in the racing vehicles are responsible for how this day will unfold for their sakes.

Where am I going? What am I saying? What am I doing?

What fascinating questions. Let’s find the answers.

The Lord has made this day for me, and for you, and I for one rejoice.

Wanting and having

“It behooves us from time to time to take stock and realize we are already living a life we once only dreamed of.”

I did stop to take my own advice last night, as a Milwaukee Brewers fan watching the clinching game of the World Series — I took a moment to savor the moment. You only get to relish your team’s first championship once, so I drank in the feeling.

Still, I did not stop to write a new blog post for today, and so I dip into the archives for the piece where I wrote that sound (if I say so myself) advice. And, I might add, I now find that wanting your team to win the World Series was not quite as sweet as having your team win the World Series.

Oh, and last but not least, this is another preview of the material you’ll find in my upcoming book What I Came to Say: Making the Most of the Time That’s Left.

Toward the end of “Amok Time,” one of the finest episodes in the original series of Star Trek, Mr. Spock tells the man who desired and now has Spock’s former betrothed, “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”

The first car that I consciously purchased for myself was a used 1974 Ford Pinto wagon with a faux “woody” finish. I liked having a small practical car with space to transport something bigger than a bread box. Still do, actually — I’m currently driving a box chiefly purchased so the dogs have plenty of room to bounce around when we go for a ride.

When I walked into the showroom to ask the dealer about the Pinto, a Studebaker Golden Hawk was sitting on the main floor. It was a gorgeous vehicle, one of my dream cars. My dad was a Studebaker man — that’s all he bought from the late 1940s until they closed the plant in South Bend in 1965. He bought practical Studebakers like the Commander or the Lark; I fantasized about Hawks and Avantis.

“You want to drive her?” the guy asked, seeing the light in my eyes.

I was sorely tempted, but the sticker said $7,500 — a lot of money for a used car in 1975 — and so I confessed I was interested in the $1,750 Pinto out front. That remains the only time in my life that I had a chance to drive a Hawk, or any Studebaker, come to think of it, and I turned it down.

The first new car I bought was a somewhat less practical 1978 Pontiac Firebird. I loved the look, my girl was impressed after the Pinto, and it was a comfortable ride. But when the transmission failed after less than 20,000 miles, the last straw after a series of minor irritations, I realized the wisdom of Spock’s words.

In the 1990s I caught a bug to complete my collection of the Bantam reprints of the original Doc Savage pulp novels from 50-60 years earlier. There were 182 of them in all, published first one at a time, then two in one paperback, and finally a series of 13 omnibus editions collecting four or five of the short novels, between 1964 and 1990 — someone at Bantam was devoted to completing the task.

All the while I was collecting, I would read the stories, at least a dozen a year — it originally was a monthly magazine, after all — until I finally found the last omnibus I was seeking.

The complete collection holds an honored place on my shelf, but years now pass between my reading one Doc Savage novel and the next. I loved the thrill of the hunt, but it turns out that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting.

An old friend who ran a homeless shelter once told me the secret is not to go after what you want, it’s to want what you have. He and his wife never had more than about three months’ living expenses on hand, by design. They seemed like a happy couple.

We always fret more than we should about what we don’t have and think life will be better if only we could have it. It behooves us from time to time to take stock and realize we are already living a life we once only dreamed of.