I Don't Want To Believe

Unidentified Fake Object

Honestly, John didn't believe anything about his town. If you do believe or even know about this crazy little town in the middle of nowhere, you're most definitely a nerd. Supposedly, it was the number one hotspot for UFO sightings. Corny, I know. Like something out of the X-files, John's town was always swarming with paranormal researchers, trying to find a brilliant white light or be the first to discover a crop circle. But obviously there was no proof that these crop circles were made by little green aliens. No, John was 99.9% sure (and the .1% is only due to the ramblings of the town crazies) that these 'crop circles' were just some teenagers trying to get on TV. It was embarrassing to say the least, not only because the streets were swarming with men and women that look like they haven't showered in four weeks, and not even because of the local 'Alien Day Parade' celebrated when the first crop circle was found. No, the most embarrassing part of growing up in little old UFO town was because their school mascot was none other than the aliens.
"Why does it always have to be aliens?" John whined as walked past the large iron statue of the stereotypical alien, small, big head, large eyes, and three long fingers. It was in the middle of the square, where most towns would have a large fountain or a war memorial. Nope, they've got a giant alien. At the moment a bunch of tourists, all decking out their antenna headbands and alien t-shirts, were posing in front of it, obviously a bunch of nerds who took a day trip. His best friend, Greg, just shrugged, as if he couldn't be bothered with the question right now.
"I think it's kind of cute, I like it." Greg decided, passing a little tourist trap shop that was playing some terrible synthesizer music, as if people actually believed aliens listened to something that sounded disturbingly like the eighties.
"Well I hate it. I'd like to have a good mascot, a good town reputation, and normal citizens." John decided, elbowing his way through a pack of people with their necks craned, all trying to look at the sky as if a flying saucer would suddenly appear in broad daylight.
"You're kind of moody today, everything alight?" Greg asked as they rounded the corner, hiking up their backpacks and walking towards the soccer stadium. John just groaned, not responding because Greg knew what was wrong. Today was the dreaded Saturday soccer practice, in the middle of the day (most convenient for the coaches, but not the players), in the blazing heat, and they were supposed to give away their precious free time for yet more practicing. It wasn't like they got enough practicing every day after school, no, what are weekends for if not to suffer even more than normal? When they got to the locker rooms they were kind of late, the go getters were already dressed in their practice uniforms (with a large UFO in the center), kicking around balls on the infield. The locker room was a dumpy little place, looking like it had been built sometime in the 1920's, with shabby metal lockers with peeling paint and wooden benches in the middle. Right now it was clogged up with bags and clothes, all strewn around over the floor as if their owners couldn't care less. There was only one kid, sitting on the benches and scrolling through his phone.
"Hey, have you seen the most recent sighting?" asked Mike, a very enthusiastic boy with a love for the paranormal. His parents ran the alien gift shop on the corner and always organized the Alien Day Parade, and he had definitely picked up their geekiness. Unfortunately the kid was an excellent soccer player, so John and Greg had to listen to his ramblings to ensure he doesn't quit the team.
"What is it today?" Greg asked, pulling on his green and black jersey and looking over Mike's shoulder to see his phone.
"Someone says they saw a bright, flashing light, and then all technology went dead." Mike said happily, holding his phone up to show John a blurry (what a shock) picture of a large, blinding light in the middle of the sky. Of course there was always such a light in the sky, it was called the sun, but he didn't want to remind Mike of that.
"If all technology went dead, then how'd they take the picture?" John pointed out, double knotting his shoelaces and making sure his shin guards were strapped on properly. Mike frowned for a moment, as if even he couldn't think of a good answer for that.
"That's a good point, I need to text mother, tell her it's a hoax." Mike decided, typing madly with his thumbs. John just rolled his eyes in disbelief, hoping Mike didn't see.
"Tell me Mike, how many hoaxes do you all get a day?" Greg asked, combing his hair in the mirror for no good reason at all. Mike sighed, pressing send and counting in his head.
"Well, I'd say a good ten or twenty, if you count the emails and letter from the other towns, claiming to have paranormal sightings. Mother and Father run a club for alien enthusiasts, and they put their email on the website." Mike shrugged.
"How very...concerning." John decided. "I hope I don't get beamed up."
"Come on John, be nice." Greg muttered, elbowing him in the stomach.
"I am being nice, logical, but nice." John shrugged.
"Laugh all you want John, but when the aliens come, they come for the nonbelievers first." Mike warned.
"I'll tell you if I notice." John promised, nodding a farewell and leading Greg out onto the field.
"You better watch your mouth John; we need that kid if we want to win the League again." Greg warned.
"It ticks me off that we're so reliant on a guy that cuts his sandwiches into alien shapes." John decided, watching as Mike started to warm up, moving with surprising speed and agility as he weaved around and passed.
"Sandwiches always taste better when they're cut into shapes, whether it be triangles or alien heads. It's a proven fact." Greg insisted, kicking on of the motionless balls into the net.
"You know what's not a proven fact?" John asked. Greg just glared at him, as if daring him to finish his sentences. "Aliens." John insisted.
"Lestrade, go get that ball! No shooting, pass!" yelled the coach from the sidelines, with his stupid little visor and clip board.
"Sorry coach." Greg muttered, running off to the goal to collect the ball. Practice was as boring as ever, between the coaches' drills, Mike's constant ramblings, and Greg's annoying optimism, they might have managed to create the longest Saturday practice known to man. John was just about done with aliens, since the day he was born, that was all he heard about. E.T. this, alien that, crop circles here, UFO's there, and nothing has even been proven true. Most of it's all crap made up by the local idiots, disproven by the local scientists and sceptics, and then made up all again by the tourists that flocked to see the crop circle made miraculously in the shape of Darth Vader's helmet. Like, honestly, where did the common sense of the human race even go?
"So, any plans for the weekend?" Greg asked as they walked home. Greg's house was much closer than John's, only a couple of streets away from the field and still in town. John had to walk along a long dirt road since his house was right next to one of the numerous corn fields in the area. There seemed to be a new crop circle every season, right behind his house, and shockingly John has seen nothing to prove any of them. Then again, he couldn't disprove them either.
"You know me, of course I don't." John laughed, wiping the sweat off of his forehead and walking on.
"Oh well, I don't either. We should hang out tomorrow." Greg suggested.
"I need a mental health day, honestly I've done nothing but go for the past six days, I need to just sit for like, ten years." John decided.
"When would you go to the bathroom?" Greg wondered.
"That was exaggeration Greg; I think I'd die if I remained motionless for ten years." John insisted.
"And you'd be kicked of the team." Greg added.
"That's definitely a fate worse than death." John agreed. They had walked out of the main town, mostly to rows of houses, one of which was Greg's. When finally they went their separate ways, John turned down the familiar dirt road and trudged home, dropping his soccer ball on the ground and kicking it around in the dust just to give himself something to do. It was getting later; dinner would probably be just about done in the Watson household, his little sister back from daycare, his parents' home for work, a nice, peaceful, normal family experience. Thankfully for John, his parents didn't believe any of the rubbish that radiated this town. Honestly, he didn't know why they still bothered to live here, since they could stand the theories and rumors no more than their son could. They claimed that there were 'nice people' around, which there were, of course. Greg was great, their little old neighbor, Mrs. Turner, was always suspiciously nice, and most of his classmates were sort of bearable. But those were only the select few, more sane people of the town. We've already went over the ones that have their heads in the clouds, literally.
"Mom, Dad, I'm home!" John announced, coming through the front door and dropping his bag on the floor near the steps, to get later of course. It smelled like pasta, which was always a nice post practice meal, get all the carbs in quick.
"Hi John!" squeaked his little sister, Harry, who was nearing her sixth birthday. She was playing with her Barbie's on the top of the staircase, her favorite game of course, alien abduction. Unfortunately for John, Harry shared Mike's passion for aliens, and being her age she ate up every word that came out of the lunatic tourist's mouths.
"Hey Harry." John said with a smile. She laughed, throwing her Barbie down the steps and watched as its rubber head bounced off the walls.
"That's not a very good thing to do with your dolls, is it Harry?" Mrs. Watson scoffed, coming out of the kitchen and watching her daughter play.
"She got thrown, she wasn't worthy." Harry shrugged, holding her two alien action figures near the edge of the stairs so they could watch the Barbie fall.
"Wasn't worthy of what?" John laughed.
"Marriage!" Harry squeaked. "The aliens don't want to marry her, she's too mean." Mrs. Watson eyed John suspiciously, as if wondering where she picked all of this up.
"Don't look at me; it's Greg that feeds her all of this rubbish." John insisted, running up his room past his sister to take a quick shower before dinner was served. John sighed, throwing his alien colored uniform in his laundry basket and stepping into the shower, rubbing off all the mud, sweat, and dust from this day's practice. Finally, when he smelled decent enough to be anywhere other than a zoo, he walked down the stairs to where his mother had the table set.
"Anything interesting happen today dear?" Mrs. Watson asked as they ate, smothering her pasta in tomato sauce. John groaned, going into a long explanation about the drills and new torture methods his coach had thrown on them. Mr. Watson listened intently, his fork hovering near his mouth but too focused to eat. John's father was a soccer enthusiast, which meant he took pride in listening to John's training methods and pretending to be the assistant coach, giving John pointers on how to get faster, stronger, and more agile. It was kind of annoying, partially because his father only knew what he saw on TV, but also because he usually seems to want John to do the exact opposite of what the actual, experienced coaches wanted him to do.
"There's an alien in the backyard." Harry muttered when John was finished, twirling her fork around her pasta on her plate with a wild smile on her face.
"No there's not." John sighed. Mrs. Watson glared at him; she was always going on about how he shouldn't be shooting down all of Harry's alien ramblings. Every normal kid loved princesses, but no, Harry loved aliens.
"There is. I saw the ship." Harry insisted, her sauce covered hands pointing out the deck door towards the back yard. There was little grass between the house and the cornfield, but the Watson family had somehow managed to build a playground and a rather ugly above ground pool. Harry liked to wander around the back yard at night with her night vision goggles and her crappy old camera phone, insisting that she could take pictures of the aliens as they wandered around in the corn. Oddly enough, she was never brave enough to go in the corn herself, claiming that she thought the aliens would be scared, or that she didn't want to upset them as they were planning their next crop circle. John new the truth though, as much as she loved to fantasize about aliens, they scared her to death. Maybe because she thought girls get chucked out of their spaceships if the aliens consider them too mean. When dinner was finished, John took this as a great opportunity to disappear up to his room, locking his door to prevent his sister from worming her way into his bed in the middle of the night (she claimed she got lonely) and turning on the TV. Some terrible new cartoon was on, those politically correct shows that claim they're just as good as the old ones while avoiding any type of actual humor, so he flipped to a baseball game and sank into his bed, lounging on the pillows with boredom. He could hear his sister playing music in her room; Kids Bop remixes of the latest pop songs, which honestly was more terrifying than aliens and crop circles.
"Would you turn it down, I'm trying to concentrate!" John groaned, turning his head so that he could yell through the room. Instead the music seemed to get louder, and John groaned in defeat, turning back to the TV when he saw something, almost like a face, staring at him from outside his window. John jumped out of his bed in terror, holding his pillow as a fluffy shield as he ducked from behind his mattress, looking out the window in fear, as if not wanting to know what was looking back. But nothing came, and John sort of wondered whether he had seen something or just a reflection from the TV. There had definitely been something, a white silhouette of a humanoid face, not distinct or anything, but it definitely wasn't green. Nevertheless he made his way cautiously over to his windowsill, peering out onto the dark roof as if someone was hidden in the shadows. Could it be Greg, trying to prank him? Or possibly Mike, who thought he would try to convince John of the paranormal by being the hoax himself? That seemed like a thing Mike and his wacky parents would do for fun, dress like aliens and creep around on people's rooves in the dark. But there was no one on the roof, and John was sure that if Mike had dragged both of his parents up on the ladder, they would still be trying to get down. So he slowly got into bed, deciding that if there really was an alien on his roof that it would have to wait until the morning, when he was awake enough to care.