Blog Battle – The Alien in the Park – Part 1

This is Part 1 of the Blog Battle Entry for May 2022 and the prompt is Pastoral.

The Alien in the Park – Part 1

Life is a funny thing, it is for everyone but you know what I mean – life is a funny thing. It certainly turned into a funny thing for a young boy called Squid. As you can tell from this name Squid was already having a riotous time at life becasue his father was distracted by the fishmonger around the corner so rather than being called Sid when his birth was registered, he became Squid forever more.. Because of this name it mean that Squid’s ‘funny’ life was often anything but funny as the other kids woke make fun of him – rather cruelly as kids do.

Anyway, Squid’s life took another funny turn when he passed an old man sitting on a park bench that was on his route to school. He normally wouldn’t notice this kind of thing but this old man was wearing a tatty old coat with a big rimmed hat with a hole in the middle where his hairless head poked through and was reading a large newspaper. As well as this Squid got a distinct smell of some expensive perfume. The whole thing smelled, not fishy but it definitely wasn’t one expected of Chanel or Hugo Boss.

As Squid walked past he couldn’t help but stare at this strange man, who seemed to be talking to himself in some strange dialect. The man, seeing that he had become the subject of the curious child started back with a look that was meant to scare but ended up making Squid laugh as is eyes both of them rolled around to the side one after the other like some insane comic act. Crying with laughter, Squid made his way to school and he thought that would be the funniest bit about his day.

The school bully Fergus as always made Squid’s life rather unpleasant at school. The jibs of “Something smells fishy” as Squid homed into view was usually the start of a three course meal of insults and jibes that usually ended with Squid being tied up with his own tie and blazer and his school books thrown over the floor. Today was a bit different, as Fergus strode towards the innocent Squid declaring that “You’re going to be tied up so tight you won’t be able to squid slip out!” when the bully instead slipped and knocked himself out cold. When he finally awoke he was nursing a bump the size of a tennis ball and singing a merry poem about ponies.

It got stranger though. On the way home Squid saw the man again and as he close close the man said “The world is going to end you know?”

“I’m sorry?” Squid replied.

“The world laddie – it’s going to end!”

“What you mean in billions of years when the Sun eats us up and burns it all to a crisp?”

“No I mean next week laddie, on Tuesday just before the 6 O’Clock news!”

“Oh, that’s a shame, that means I will miss dinner and Tuesday’s is always my favorite as it’s Shepherd’s Pie. I like Shepherd’s Pie!” Squid said sadly.

The man mad a grotesque noise of disgust in his throat. “Ugh. I suppose we could put it out twnety minutes – we just don’t want to be on the 6 O’Clock News that’s all!”

“Why not?”Squid asked.

“We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

Squid nodded and then replied “But if the world ends there won’t be any 6 O’Clock News!”

The man made another noise. “Damn those idiots in planning – I can’t trust them with anything!” He then started mumbling in his strange dialect again. Squid took this as his sign to leave and went home.

The next morning squid decided to give the old man something to eat on his way to school and see if he was alright as he seemed quite upset. Wrapping a pasty up in an old bread bag Squid made his way to school and his inevitable beasting from Fergus with his usual sense of ‘that’s my lot in life’. He left a few minutes early so he could dispense what he saw as some kind of pastoral duty and as expected the man was there chattering away. Squid sat next to him and noticed that this time he was wearing a somewhat different perfume to the day before but it wasn’t of mildew and maggots.

“Good morning strange man – I got this for you.” Squid held out the bag.

The man stopped his illegible rantings and looked at squid, again his eyes not wholly controllable. “What’s this?”

“It’s a pasty. My mum makes them!”

“What do I do with it?”

“You eat it!”

The man looked strangely at Squid, reaching out he grabbed the bag. “That’s very kind of you.” The man managed some kind of strange smile that was a cross between a grimace, joy and some other unknown emotion.

Squid plucked up the courage to ask him something “How’s the world going to end?”

“A super dimensional laser beam is going to vapourise the Earth and everything on it in about 5 seconds.”

“Will it hurt?” asked Squid.

The man chomped on pasty as he leaned towards Squid “Not for me!”

“That’s a shame becasue I kind of like Earth. What’s your name anyway?”

“My name?” The man thought for a moment “Oh I see, yes my identifier is Ramik Nimbus the third.”

“It’s good to meek you Ramik Nimbus the Third. It’s a bit of a strange name isn’t it?” Squid said observantly.

“There’s only 2 others I know of with similar names.”

“Oh who are they?” Squid asked.

“Ramik Nimbus the First and Ramik Nimbus the Second.” He replied matter of factly.

Squid had no answer to this, so he left and went to school, the man shouted from behind him “That was funny with that boy Fergus yesterday wasn’t it?” Squid didn’t have time to ask what he meant, so he carried on.

To be continued…

Find Part 2 of The Alien in the Park

Simon’s Space

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