S T A R S H I P M I N E

  Peter Cawdron

  thinkingscifi.wordpress.com

  Copyright Peter Cawdron 2015

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Peter Cawdron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published as an eBook by Peter Cawdron. With the exception of Dr. Mel Thomson, all the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Cover art “Open your mind the wonders of the universe” (50455566) copyright 2014 Yuri Arcurs via iStockphoto by Getty Images. Used under license.

  Synopsis

  James Patterson is a gay accountant living in Keyes, Oklahoma—deep in the Bible Belt—the religious heartland of America. He’s also the first person to make contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence seeking to understand our world, and that makes him the most important person on the planet.

  Church

  Rain falls gently on the windowsill, tapping at the glass, reminding me of my childhood. I love the sound of rain. Always have. My older brother loves stomping in puddles—but me, I’m the kind of guy that likes the thought of splashing in puddles, not the act. When we were kids, he’d be out chasing the dog around the yard in the rain. He’d get soaking wet without a care, while I’d be reading on the porch, content to listen to the rain with its hypnotic chant luring me deeper into a book.

  Snuggling up in bed under a fluffy, down comforter, there’s a sublime joy to being warm and cozy while it’s cold and wet outside. It’s Saturday morning. Casey is taking the kids to church to rehearse for this year’s nativity play. And me? There’s nothing to do other than listen to the rain. My cell phone is switched off. Email, Facebook, Twitter—all those false prophets of contrived importance—they can wait. Any urgency they have is artificial. Besides, I’ve had my fill of cat videos this week.

  I bury my head in my pillow.

  Casey sniffs, sneezes, and shakes me, saying something about a tissue in a muffled, nasally voice. I roll over, grabbing a box of tissues from the nightstand and hand one to him. “I’ve got a cod,” he says, honking his nose into the tissue. The sound isn’t as soothing as the rain I was enjoying a moment ago.

  “A cold,” I say, handing him another tissue. Casey exchanges tissues with me. It's as though I’ve been handed radioactive waste. Holding the flimsy, crumpled sheet by the tip, I get out of bed and drop it into the trash can by the desk.

  “Oh,” he says, with words barely decipherable as English, “can you take Robbie and Angela to church this morning?”

  “Sure,” I say. I’m tempted to drop back into bed and sneak a little more sleep, but I don’t. Instead, I sit on the edge of the bed and yawn, saying, “Ah, well, I had nothing planned today anyway.” Nothing other than lounging around.

  “You’re a darting,” Casey says, meaning darling. Casey is from England, having moved to the U.S. when he was seven. He still has a quaint British accent, but it’s distorted by the flu. My mother is from London. I’ve never been there, but Casey says I’d love it. He says I’d fit right in—U.S. accent and all. I have my doubts.

  Much to his disgust, Casey is often mistaken as being from Boston, or worse, Canada. Correcting people with, “The Cotswolds,” is next to meaningless, but Casey insists on identifying with that region of England rather than the country as a whole. Pride is funny like that. I’ve seen the quizzical look on various faces as they struggle to figure out where the Cotswolds might be. They probably think he’s from somewhere near Martha’s Vineyard.

  I’m grumpy. I don’t want to go to church on Saturday, or Sunday for that matter, but I keep that to myself. I’m on the verge of asking if the kids really need to be in the play, but I stay quiet. I’m being selfish and unreasonable—this was supposed to be my me-time.

  “When do they need to be there?” I ask, leaning over to look at the time on Casey’s phone. 8:53 AM.

  “Nine,” he says. It’s as though a jolt of electricity has run through my body. I spring off the bed, wearing nothing more than boxer shorts, and rush into the hallway, pounding on bedroom doors.

  “Hurry up, guys. We’ve got to get going.”

  Angela wanders out of her room. She’s dressed, which is a relief.

  “We’re going to be late,” she says. It’s all I can do not to explode in frustration. Yeah, I got that. Thanks for the wake-up call.

  “Help your brother with his shoes,” I say, snapping out my words, while simultaneously trying not to be brutish—which is impossible. Casey is so much better at parenting than I am, something that’s reflected in our careers. He’s an elementary school teacher. I’m an accountant. Facts and figures are my work associates.

  “Are you taking us, or is Casey?” Angela asks, wandering into the bathroom, and picking up her toothbrush. Angela sounds disappointed she’s stuck with me. I want to tell her there’s no time to brush her teeth, except that I’m pretty sure Casey is listening and would tell me to relax. I had wanted Angela to help Robbie tie his shoelaces, but I’m the one that slept in. I’m the one that needs to get things done. Technically, Casey slept in, but Casey is sick. Casey could have woken me earlier—and the blame-game bounces around inside my head.

  Robbie wanders out into the hall in his PJs.

  “Come on, buddy. Get dressed. We’ve got to get going.”

  “You’re not dressed,” he says, pointing at my rotund belly protruding over the waistband of my boxers.

  “Just—get dressed. Okay?”

  Robbie disappears back into his bedroom. I grab some shorts and a shirt from the ironing basket and slip them on, followed by a pair of socks, along with my running shoes.

  “Are you guys ready?” I call out down the hall. There’s no reply. “Angela?”

  “Don’t rush me, Jay,” she replies, tossing a bag over her shoulder. “You’re the one that’s late, not me.”

  Breathe, James. I don’t like it when Angela calls me Jay. She should use James, but Casey calls me Jay, and it’s rubbed off on her. Ah, the little things that are entirely meaningless—why do they bug me so? Accountant. Everything must balance. Everything has a place, a purpose, and needs to be tracked for efficiency. Casey is far better at leaving his work outside the home.

  “Robbie?”

  Robbie’s got his shirt on back-to-front and inside out. If I weren’t in such a frantic rush, I’d burst out laughing.

  Angela’s right. We’re late regardless. Kids—they’ve got their own brand of genius.

  It’s a ten-minute drive to our church. Once I saw the time, it should have been obvious we were always going to be late. Rushing won’t solve that—it’s only making the stress worse, and without improving the time factor.

  Aggravation level: ten.

  Efficiency: zero.

  Finally my financial background is put to use, calming me down.

  “Come here, buddy,” I say, ruffling his hair with my hand. I pull the shirt up over his head, turn it right side out, switch it around, and help feed his arms through the sleeves.

  Casey asks, “Are you going to be okay taking them to rehearsal?” He’s standing in the doorway of our bedroom wearing a bathrobe, which I interpret to mean he’s not a viable alternative, but will push himself to go if needed.

  “Go back to bed,” I say, leaning past him and kissing him on the cheek as I grab my phone.

  Casey rests his hand briefly on my chest, saying, “Thanks.”

  I grab my wallet along with the car keys, and jog into the garage. Angela is already sitting in the front seat looking at either Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr on her phone. Most days she switches between them so quickly I can’t keep up, and have given up trying. If texting were an Olympic sport, she’d take home the gold.

  “What’s for breakfast?” Robbie asks as I tie his shoelaces. Breakfast?

  “Just get in the car, bud. I’ll get you something.”

  I run back into the house and grab a couple of granola bars along with a banana from the fruit bowl. Please, let this be the last hurdle before leaving the house. I’m running around like The Flash.

  I jump in the car. “Is everyone buckled in?” A chorus of yeps is the reply. After checking anyway, I reverse out of the driveway. Rain pours down. Windshield wipers swish in time with my madly beating heart.

  “I had a bad dream,” Robbie says as I toss him and Angela a granola bar each.

  “Really?” I say, peeling the banana and taking a bite. I guess it’s a bit of a leading question, but I’m not actually interested in the dreams of a five year old. As much as I love him, I’m too busy focusing on the traffic to listen intently.

  “There was a planet,” he says. “Like Satan.”

  “Saturn, dummy.”

  “Angela, don’t talk to your brother like that,” I snap, merging lanes and racing down the road in the rain. Out of nowhere, blue and red lights cut through the gloom. A quick glance in my rearview mirror—“Fuck.”

  “Jay!” Angela cries, swatting my seat playfully with her hand. Casey does that too. She’s learning from him.

  “I’m telling Casey,” Robbie says.

  “Great,” I say, pulling over to the side of the road.

  I wonder—if a cop’s booking you for breaking the law, and you don’t signal when he pulls you over, does he slap you with two fines? It’s not a good time to find out, so I flick on my turn signal. I’m not sure who I fear more, the cop, or the wrath of Casey grilling me for speeding with t

he kids in the car.

  Once we’ve stopped, the cop sits in his car for a few minutes as the rain continues to fall. I rest my hands on the steering wheel, keeping them clearly in sight, even from the rear. I’m flustered, frustrated, annoyed, angry, and given time, capable of coming up with a dozen additional synonyms to describe the rage welling up within. Breathe, James. Let it go, or you’ll make things worse.

  9:18 AM. It’s going to be at least ten minutes and several hundred dollars before the cop is finished with me. We’re going to be stupidly late. This definitely isn’t what I had in mind when I woke this morning.

  “What’s he waiting for, Jay?” Angela asks. It’s James, but I bite my lip.

  “Oh, he’ll be looking up our car on his computer, checking out who the owner is, making sure there are no outstanding fines or warrants, stuff like that.” But what I want to say is, “He’s lazy. He’s waiting for the rain to let up,” or “He’s finishing a donut,” but I keep those seditious thoughts to myself.

  The cop wanders out of his squad car, taking his time as he walks up beside our SUV. I lower my window and the rain pours in, soaking my waist and legs.

  “License, registration and proof of insurance,” he says, even though I’m already handing them to him. He barely bothers looking at them, handing them almost immediately back to me.

  “Are you the owner of this vehicle?”

  “Yes,” I say, even though we both know he already established that when he confirmed my license and registration details.

  “Do you know why I stopped you this morning?”

  This is what I hate about the police. They’re heavy handed and patronizing. Just give me the goddamn ticket and let me get on my way.

  I play dumb.

  “Uh, no. Sorry, officer.”

  “Are you aware what speed you were doing back there?”

  I try to get as many apologetic terms in as possible, regardless of how insincere they may sound. If kissing ass will save me a couple of hundred bucks, I’m not too proud to beg.

  “No. Sorry. We were talking, and I lost track of what speed I was going. I’m so sorry. I’m taking the kids to a nativity rehearsal at our local church.”

  Going to church, that’s some serious groveling in the Bible Belt—the religious heartland of America.

  “You were doing 46 in a 35,” he says, and I know I’m about to get smacked with a fine. One mile an hour less and I’d have probably got away with a warning.

  “My son was—” I say, not sure where to take my last shot at avoiding a fine. “I’m really sorry. I was distracted. My son was talking about a dream he had last night. I wasn’t concentrating on driving. I should have been, and—I’m sorry, officer. My speed was completely unintentional.”

  Liar.

  The cop leans down, peering in the back seat.

  “What was your dream about, son?”

  “Huh?”

  I’m about to ask the officer if that’s really relevant when my son blurts out, “A giant blue planet.”

  “You too?” the officer asks.

  He taps the open windowsill of our SUV, saying, “Weird, ain’t it? Never would’ve thought that was possible.”

  “Did you see the spaceship?” Angela asks, and I feel as though I’m caught in the middle of an episode of The Twilight Zone. If this wasn’t a cop, and if he wasn’t about to slap me with a fine, I’d be saying, “What the fuck?” Well, I probably wouldn’t use fuck again, as I’ve already lost ten bucks to the swear jar. Casey lets the kids use our swear jar money for lunches, so they’re all too eager to sell me down the river for the slightest infraction. I’ve protested that there’s a conflict of interest in having them police my language, but Casey thinks it’s hilarious when they catch me swearing.

  “Darnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” the cop says, looking at me for some kind of affirmation. I nod, going with the flow, hoping he doesn’t ask me anything about the dream. “Well, slow it down out here. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, realizing I’m about to get off with a warning.

  “Drive for the conditions. If it’s raining hard like this, back off the gas. We don’t need anything else to deal with today. That dream has already freaked out too many people, so take it easy on the roads, all right?” I nod. “You take care now.”

  The officer turns and walks back to his squad car. I’m speechless. I raise the window.

  “What was all that about?” I ask the kids.

  “You were speeding,” the ever-helpful Angela says.

  “Yeah, I got that, honey. The dream?”

  “Oh, Jay. You’re such a technophobe,” she says, even though I’m not, at least not in my estimation. “It’s all over the twitter-sphere.”

  “What is?” I ask.

  “The dream,” she says, as though she’s explaining the alphabet to a three year old.

  “Did you have the dream?” I ask.

  The police car cruises slowly past us as we remain parked on the side of the road.

  “Everyone had the dream,” Robbie says. “It’s on Facebook.”

  “You were on Facebook?” I ask. “So you were awake. You weren’t dressed. But you were on Facebook?”

  “Of course,” Robbie says. No wonder we’re late.

  “You aren’t even old enough to have a Facebook account,” I say.

  “Casey made one for me,” he replies. Although I disagree with Angela’s sentiment about being a technophobe, I’m left feeling pretty damn technophobic at the moment. Casey and I need to talk about this Facebook account.

  “We’re late, Jay,” Angela says, asserting her influence as Queen of the Obvious.

  I pull the SUV back out onto the road and accelerate to 30 mph as we drive past the cop. He’s stopped outside a coffee shop. I’m dying for some caffeine, but I’d rather not run into him again.

  “So what was this dream about?” I ask, turning at the lights.

  “Serious? You didn’t have it?” Angela asks.

  “No. Why would I?”

  “Everyone had The Dream,” Robbie says, and I can almost hear the capitalization in his voice.

  “You probably had the same dream,” Angela says. “You just forgot.”

  “Maybe,” I reply, not seeing any importance in a stupid dream beyond avoiding a speeding ticket.

  I pull into the church parking lot. There’s an empty spot by the door. We rush inside, hurrying to get out of the rain.

  A nativity scene has been set up at the front of the church—a tiny stable made from rough-hewn wood with straw lining the floor. The animals are cutout figures. I want to ask the kids which parts they have in the play, but that would only demonstrate I haven’t been paying attention to what they’ve been saying at home over the last couple of weeks. One of the elderly parishioners coordinating the play gives me a friendly wave. I smile in response, sitting in an old-fashioned wooden pew by the door as the kids join their friends at the front.

  “You look as if you could use some coffee,” the Rev. Jamison says, walking up beside me.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say, getting to my feet and joining him by the coffee machine at the back of the church. For a small Episcopalian church, this is the fanciest coffee machine I’ve ever seen. Polished chrome reflects the aging building around us, and I catch a glimpse of my hair in the distorted image. It looks as though I’ve shoved my fingers into a power socket. I try to pat my hair down, but it springs back into its sleep deprived state in open defiance of gravity.

  “Sugar? Creamer?” he asks.

  “As it comes,” I say. “Black and strong.”

  He hands me a disposable cup of coffee, saying, “So, what did you make of the dream?”

  I sip at the coffee. It’s hot, scalding my tongue. Not smart.

  “Didn’t have it,” I say, figuring we’re all talking about the same thing—him, the cop, and my kids.

  “Really,” he says. “How interesting.”

  “Interesting?” I ask.

  “Well, the news is reporting that upwards of 99% of people all had the same dream last night.”

  “Huh... You know statistics are notorious for being misleading. At best, that’s 99% of the people they interviewed, which is way less than 1% of the overall population. Besides, anyone that didn’t have the dream, probably doesn’t care enough to tune in and participate.” Don’t get an accountant started on statistics. We could turn misrepresenting the facts into a primetime sport.

 

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