Blueberry Pie
by Michael A. Kechula
Anybody who goes to Roswell looking for evidence of an alien landing is stupid. Nothing happened there. It was a fabrication. But the lie’s been repeated millions of times since then, and most people believe flying saucers landed in Roswell sixty-one years ago. What jerks.
I know it’s all a bunch of hooey, because the freakin’ things landed in MY wheat fields. And I live in Texas, about 300 miles from Roswell.
No little green men were involved like the newspapers and radio said. They were orange. And they weren’t men. They were aliens.
I got the first one with my rifle. When it jammed, got the second with my hunting knife. Buried the Martians in my fields. If they were Martians. No telling what they were.
As to the saucers, they were the size of tractors. Both disappeared the very night the things landed. Maybe their alien buddies came and got them.
After killing one with my knife, I wiped its blue blood — or whatever it was — on a handkerchief. The stain smelled pretty good. Taking it to Lawton’s Drug Store, I showed it to old man Lawton. Asked him what he thought the stain was.
“Paint,” he said without looking close.
“Paint don’t smell like this,” I said. “Take a sniff.”
“Don’t need to. I can smell the blueberry pie stain from here.”
“What if I told you it was Martian blood.”
“I’m a busy man, Frank. I don’t have time for jokes.”
“Just wanted to see how you’d react if I said it came from a Martian, considering all the wacky news coming from Roswell about them saucers and little green men.”
“Mass hysteria,” Lawton said. “An invention of idle minds. All those Army Air Force guys came back from the greatest and most exciting war in history. And now, with nobody to fight, they’re bored to death. Maybe they’ll get a crack at the Russians soon, now that the Red Army’s gobbling Eastern Europe.
“In the meantime, the guys stationed at Roswell gotta come up with another enemy until they have to slug it out with the Russians. But the new enemy’s got to be more exotic than the Red Army. Something that’s tougher to beat. So, they decided to make up a story about invading Martians.”
When I left Lawton, I figured it best I buried the handkerchief and knife. Nobody would’ve believed me back then if I told the truth. They were too wrapped up in Roswell.
* * *
After sixty-one years, the baloney about aliens is far thicker. Druggies hallucinate about being abducted by aliens. We’ve put men on the Moon and reconnaissance vehicles on Mars. Funny how none of those vehicles have spotted any green aliens. Or grays. Or oranges, like those that stepped out of saucers in my fields.
Far stranger things than my blue-stained, blueberry pie-smelling handkerchief are offered by Internet sites these days. If I offered it for auction, I suspect few would bid. My handkerchief can’t match grilled cheese sandwiches imprinted with the face of God. Nor can it hold a candle to stolen communion wafers consecrated by the Pope.
The fact that my handkerchief still smells like blueberry pie might make it even less desirable. They might say I added something to make it smell good.
On the other hand, I could use more money to keep up with the rising cost of gas and medicine. I thought about exhuming the remains of the two aliens I killed back in 1947 — if anything is still left — and offering them on eBay. I’d tell the truth. Give the whole story.
The day I was gonna open the graves, I heard something on Fox News that changed my mind. The commentator told of something super-spectacular offered on eBay. When I heard what it was, I figured it made no sense to dig up alien remains and try to compete.
Not when the Shroud of Turin was offered with no reserve and a starting bid of one dollar.
Copyright © 2008 by Michael A. Kechula
