5 Word Challenge: Sci-Fi Micro Stories

story #7: I Hate Tuesdays

I stuck it out all winter long. Being cooped up, too cold to be outdoors, breathing the same air molecules ad infinitum. I had put up with going to work and coming home again, bundled in several layers of thermal clothing, under a down jacket, since early November. It was now May. Canada's winter was almost over, vernal equinox notwithstanding. The days were now finally warming up. Yesterday it got up to 12° Celsius, today it was topping out at a balmy 23° Celsius! Welcome to Cobourg.

After breakfast and the morning rituals, I waited a bit impatiently. At 8:03 A.M. the sun snuck around the corner gable and illuminated my front deck. It would shine there until late in the afternoon. I was sooo glad that I had taken the day off work, for no other reason than I wanted to. I had asked the boss yesterday, after the Monday morning meeting, and he agreed. I didn't even have to resort to begging, pleading, or puppy dog eyes. Fortunately, my workplace allowed such leisure days to be taken.

As soon as the sun cracked open the cold shadow of the house, I grabbed the small outdoor bistro table that had been hibernating in the shed all winter. I set it up on the deck, with the full-on sunshine quickly warming it. I added a chair, power cord, my laptop, and a big mug of hot tea. There I sat, soaking in the long-awaited warmth of the almost-summer sun. The tea was tasting lovely, and I started writing furiously, working on a new chapter in my next novel. I heard a soft mewling and turned to look at the living room window, which overlooked the front deck. My cat, Dick-Head II, was sitting there in his most elegant and regal pose. He was simply letting daddy know that his little prince was close by. I mumbled some kitty styled baby talk to him, then finished the last of my second mug of tea. I went inside, made some toast with peanut butter, poured another mug of tea, then went back down to type some more of my prose. I probably shouldn't be having toast and peanut butter, overweight and diabetic and all. However, I had worked hard to get where I was in life, weight notwithstanding, so I tended to be a little less careful in exchange for being a little happier.

As I sat down, however, I noticed an odd humming sound. I put my white-haired head close to the computer, it wasn't coming from there, thankfully! I checked the power converter on the charging cable, it wasn't that either. It wasn't coming from my neighbours, in fact, I couldn't be sure it was coming from anywhere. The mystery was solved when I looked across the farm field, on the opposite side of the road, in front of my house.

The 250 hectares was still a springtime dust bowl. It wasn't time for the corn to be planted yet. There was a square gray ship flying slowly through the air, coming in from the Lake Ontario, straight up the middle of the farmer's field. By square, I mean, perfectly square. Equilateral sides and no wings. My first thought was that I was about to be assimilated by the Borg. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. I looked at it with my glasses on, then off. I was seeing a UFO. I couldn't believe it. I had been writing about outer space, aliens, and spaceships for years. Now, on the morning of my day off, I was standing on my deck, watching a UFO come to a hover almost directly in front of me... in a farmer's field. How cliché.

The humming was quite disconcerting. The closer it got, the louder it got until it was almost in front of my place. Then the humming lowered its pitch to nothing as the square ship landed on six legs, extending from the underbelly. No sooner had it stopped moving, a hatch on the side opened, and three creatures stepped out, looking around carefully. I darted back through the front door before they saw me, then peeked out through the blinds on my front window. They had to be seven feet tall, and they looked like, well, a cross between a house fly and an ant. Long skinny arms and legs, big bug-eyes (pardon the pun) on their heads, antenna's, and it looked like claws on their hands.

Ummm, frak. What to do? Who do I call? The Police? To what end? Their freaking aliens, right out front of my place. It was during this stunned moment of lost meanderings, on unlikely courses of helpful action, that Dick-Head II chose to mewl loudly, followed by a low throaty growl. He was watching the surprise farm field visitors too. All three alien heads turned to look at my house. They all started running. Frak. "Dick-head," I muttered.