Front Matter

The Alien that changed the world

Part 1

Otsiron’s Disappearance

A novel

By Risto Stefov

The Alien that changed the world Otsiron’s Disappearance

A Novel

FICTION - ADVENTURE

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May 12, 2020

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Before going back to where he had returned from, my old friend Riki, who now calls himself Otsiron, confided in me and told me the story about his disappearance. I suspect he will not be coming back this time. He disappeared years ago. We were told he was abducted. (See police report at the end of this story). But then later he came back but only for a brief time. He never told anyone what had happened and kept his abduction a secret. He told me to keep it a secret and until now it was… no one else knew.

I am getting old now so to preserve his story I decided to write it down. I will tell it in the first person just like he told it to me years ago before he disappeared for the second time. I will put the manuscript in a brown envelope and mark it “to be opened in 2020”, about forty years after the story took place.

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My trip to Kanata gone astray

It was early Sunday morning when I got on my bike and headed north. I had packed everything I needed the day before including provisions for my trip and some camping gear. I was going to Kanata Ontario, via Algonquin Park. It was quite a distance by bike from Toronto but I was determined to do it. I told my school mates about it but they all said that I was nuts, especially the part about going alone.

You see I had just graduated from University and was anxious to find a job. I had just finished my fourth year Electrical Engineering course at U of T and was looking for a good engineering job that would suit me. I figured I could find one in Kanata.

Unfortunately I was flat broke and couldn’t afford to pay for transportation to get there.

Tuition in the 1970’s was not that high, not like nowadays, but wages were not that hot either. I worked during the summers and weekends doing all sorts of jobs and made enough money to pay for my tuition but that was it. I had no money for bus fare or hotels, so biking and camping along the way, I decided, was the way for me to go.

How difficult could it be, I figured? Believe me, it was!

I spent several days biking along highways 400, 11 and 60 and all that time I slept in the open and cold outdoors. It was punishing but I was managing. I was eating double from what I had planned and that worried me a little.

I wanted to go to Kanata because I believed the semiconductor manufacturing companies there were as good as those in California. I wanted to work in the semiconductor industry. I found it fascinating, particularly the micro chip industry.

I tried to convince a couple of my school mates who were interested in working with semiconductors to go with me but they didn’t seem to be that interested. I guess they would have gone if I had chosen an

easier mode of transportation. But I was poor and didn’t have the money. So, if no one wanted to go with me I figured I would go alone. I was a loner anyway. I was born in a small village and basically grew up alone. I was used to loneliness.

Biking all that distance wasn’t exactly going to be easy either but I wasn’t afraid of a little hard work. I had always worked hard in my life and wasn’t afraid of a bit of pain. As for friends, I didn’t really have any. And that was my fault because I was trying to live a double life with no room for friends.

You see, even though immigrants voluntarily make a life choice to come and live in Canada it is never easy for them to let go of their past and embrace their future in a new and often alien world. So, many immigrants tend to cling to their old culture, customs and habits long after they arrive in Canada. My parents were no different.

Adults tend to cling to their past but that’s not the case with children. Immigrant children tend to integrate into the new society quickly and become part of it. Parents, however, don’t always approve especially when it comes to some things that collide with their own culture or beliefs. Immigrants don’t always accept Canadian values and often want their children to grow up and embrace their old culture. This unfortunately often creates conflict between them. If parents are overly strict their children can’t successfully integrate into Canadian society. As a result they tend to become isolated and distant.

When children break away from the culture of their parents, by disobedience or by being rebellious, they create a cleavage between themselves and their parents. Parents usually become disillusioned and feel they have lost their children and the children tend to distance themselves from their parents and their culture.

But when my family came to Canada I was old enough and mature enough to understand the importance of integrating into a new culture but without abandoning the old culture. So I tried to live two lives at the same time. That, of course, was not easy and had limitations on what I could do as a new Canadian. But no matter

how hard I tried sometimes I had to forsake one for the other. For example I wouldn’t do things that my parents wouldn’t approve of. As a result the circle of people I hung around with was very limited.

At the same time I did, without hesitation, what my parents asked of me. It seemed harsh but I understood why they did it. I understood their fears and apprehension and how they felt being plunged into an alien society at a late stage in their lives. I also attended many events that belonged to my culture. This was a surprise to many adults who thought of me as an overly unusual person but at the same time they saw me as the hope that was needed to carry our culture and traditions forward into the future.

When my parents came to Canada it was leap for them from the stone age to the modern age. Back in the village we had no electricity, indoor toilets, indoor running water, television, car, etc. So, when we bought our house and a car a year or two after we arrived, they required upkeep and maintenance. We had a mortgage to pay and no extra money to pay plumbers, electricians, mechanics, etc., so I had to learn to do that myself. In addition to taking all the courses in school that would lead me to university I also took courses in which I learned how to solder, weld, house wire and repair cars, etc. Since my parents could neither read, write nor speak English, the burden of paying bills and dealing with the mortgage and home and auto insurance, filling out forms and doing tax returns was left to me. Also, any additional money I made working that didn’t go for my education went towards paying the house mortgage and bills. My parents were blue colour workers who worked in factories and made very little money. I took on this responsibility as soon as I began to understand English. I was only fifteen.

A byproduct of living a double life and exposed to the burden of worry at a young age helped me to become independent, overcome peer pressure, take responsibility for my actions and have the sense of being productive. I also learned to deal with the consequences of my actions at an early age. The burden was mine and mine alone. I didn’t know it at the time but I had developed a sense of self-confidence and independence and was able to take charge and deal with all sorts of matters on my own.

I also had this crazy idea which I wanted to try out. I remember seeing something like it in a movie or read about it, I don’t remember which but I always wanted to strip naked before sunrise and see what it felt like to have the first rays of the sun hit my body first thing on a cool morning. I just wanted to experience that for my own curiosity.

When I had doubts about something I always looked back to the past and wondered how our predecessors had dealt with it. I truly believed tradition was a time-refined blueprint of how we should live, like the bible is for some Christians. So, when someone said something that contradicted my experience I always looked back to see how our predecessors had dealt with it. For example when people here started saying that fat was bad for you because it made you fat and caused heart disease, I looked back to my own experience for answers.

Back in the village pork fat was part of our staple diet. We ate it every day with almost every meal and none of my relatives became fat or suffered from heart disease. So, it was difficult for me to accept that fat was bad for me. In other words, I tended to question everything and looked to the past for answers.

I wanted to experience what our predecessors had experienced and often looked to the caveman for guidance. The caveman had it the hardest because he didn’t have all the amenities we have today, yet managed to survive and thrive. How did he do it?

One of the things that fascinated me was how the caveman felt in the morning when the first rays of the sun came in contact with his naked body. I figured I could experience that at sunrise on a hill in Algonquin Park. I had been there once before and was familiar with the hill. I know it was a stupid idea but I wanted to do it. That’s one of the reasons why I chose to go through Algonquin Park and spend a night there in the outdoors.

It was early June but how cold could it be? And I was only going to be naked for no more that five to ten minutes, not like the caveman who spent nights in the cold and then waited for hours for the sun to come up. Imagine the exhilaration the caveman must have felt when

the first rays of the sun warmed his naked body. I wanted to know how that felt. It was silly but I wanted to experience it for myself.

Regarding the long trek to Kanata, in order to make things easier on me psychologically, I decided to divide the trip into several milestones, the first being my arrival in Algonquin Park.

Once I completed a milestone I would then think of the next step. It was much too difficult for me to think of the entire trip all at once. It was overwhelming. I also thought a lot about what I was going to do and who I was going to see in Kanata.

My aim was to get a job in the computer chip manufacturing sector, like the jobs offered in Silicon Valley in the United States. It would have been ideal for me to go to California but it was too far and I had no desire to leave Canada.

My family had come to Canada from Greece, from the Greek part of occupied Macedonia, for a reason… so that I could get ahead in life… escape the Greek torment and poverty imposed on my people.

So, I felt I owed it to Canada to pay back for giving me opportunities, like an education, something Greece would not grant me… because I called myself Macedonian. Here I could go to school, to church, speak my language freely and call myself Macedonian without fear of being persecuted or deprived...

In other words, I was grateful to Canada for the opportunities it afforded me but at the same time I wanted to be Macedonian because that is what I was. I strongly felt I could embrace Canadian values but still be Macedonian. It is richer to belong to two cultures than to none.

Anyway, I arrived in Algonquin Park late in the afternoon and decided to bike right into the park without registering, and headed straight for the base of the nearest hill. I set up camp in the woods in a secluded place and, before dusk, went up the hill to explore it. It was perfect. It was open, flat at the peak and deserted. It was early June. No one goes camping in early June. No one but me…Besides

rarely does anyone camp up there. Not that I cared but I couldn’t exactly strip naked if other people were there.

It was my understanding that the sun rose around 5:30 a.m. in that part of Canada so I set my alarm clock for 5:00 a.m. I was just going to go up in my regular clothes and strip before the sun rose, experience the sunrise, put my clothes back on and then off to Kanata. Most often, including this night, I slept with my clothes on so that I could get up and run if needed, in case of an emergency, like an animal attack, hopefully not a bear attack.

I couldn’t sleep most of the night thinking about the next leg of my journey. The physical torture of having to bike and the anxiety of having to sleep outdoors in the open weighed on me.

The next thing I remember was jumping out of my sleeping bag to the dreaded loud ring of my alarm clock. Ah, my faithful wind-up alarm clock that had scared the wits out of me so many times.

I only grabbed my wrist watch, pocket knife and lighter before I bolted out of my tent. I left everything else behind, including my wallet. I would be back in less than an hour, I thought, and rushed up the hill so as not to miss the sunrise.

I got to the top of the hill in minutes and looked around. It was still dark and peacefully quiet. While thinking about how I was going to do this, I heard a rustling sound behind me in the bushes. It startled me. I turned around and looked but there was nothing there.

It was probably a raccoon going back to its tree to sleep, I thought.

Raccoons were common and plentiful in this park. But the thought of raccoons began to worry me. What if they found and ate my food? I began to worry and my thoughts of saving my provisions became overpowering. I dashed through the bush to find my way back, following along the same path I had come up. My thoughts were on my food as I ran fast. Then I was stopped abruptly by another rustle, which I heard in the bush on my right hand side. I went and looked.

I looked in the direction where the rustling sound had come from and saw something. I looked closer. It was a little girl crouching down. She was hiding behind a bush. I couldn’t see her clearly from this distance and it was dark. I went closer and looked again. She looked frightened. Perhaps she was lost, I thought.

I took a couple more steps towards her and heard myself say, “What are you doing here little girl?”

I could clearly see her now. She looked horrified. She kept crouching more and more so as to make herself smaller. Suddenly she put her hands over her head to hide herself. I was completely puzzled by her reaction. Why was she acting this way?

The next thing I remember was pain, crushing pain on the left side of my ribs. I fell down. I was only steps away from her but still conscious. The surprise blow and pain made me angry and even more puzzled. Many thoughts went through my mind. Who had hit me? Why? What had I done?

I became angrier as I turned back to look at my assailant. I then saw something step over me and go towards her. In the murky dawn it looked like a walking tree. Was I hallucinating? I got up and, angry as I was, picked up the large, dead branch lying next to me, swung it around to give it momentum and “whack” I hit the walking tree on the side.

There was a loud crash and the tree fell down. I stared at it. It wasn’t a tree. It was something else. It was some sort of creature, the likes of which I had never seen before. It was grey and smooth like a dead log without bark. But the funny thing was it had arms and legs, a round bald head… and a slit… black stuff was oozing from the slit.

Was that its mouth? That was all I could see in the dark. I became mesmerized and lost in my thoughts. I tried to make sense of what I’d seen and almost forgot about the little girl. I could feel the pain in my ribs but I didn’t understand why. I raised my eyes to see what was distracting me. It was the little girl crouching behind the bush frantically waving her arms trying to get my attention.

She stood up. She was not a little girl. She was a fully grown, petite woman with long brown hair. She was Chinese… No she wasn’t… Not her eyes. She looked frightened.

Then, from the distance I heard a loud policeman’s whistle. It came from my left side. I became even more confused. What was going on? I looked in the direction of the whistle and as I stared away I felt a hand grab my hand and pull. She was pulling my arm leading me away.

I noticed she was wearing tight fitting camouflage clothing. Completely confused I followed her. About a dozen steps or so later, I saw a couple of men running towards us. They were small like her, perhaps shorter, had short brownish blond hair and were wearing tight fitting white clothes. They were angry with her.

She let go of my hand and ran towards them. They had quick words in a language I didn’t understand. The two men grabbed her by her arms and began to drag her away. She snapped at them and they let her go. She was angry.

She took a few steps towards me and stopped. There was hatred in her eyes.

She said something loudly, turned around and walked past them into the distance. Looking even angrier the two men came over and grabbed me by my arms and began to pull me away in the direction the woman had taken. Completely confused I followed. I was so confused I didn’t know what to feel or what to do. My mind was running like a runaway freight train trying to make sense of all this. It was about to crash so I surrendered my fate to them.

They led me and I followed without any resistance, without any hesitation. My mind was working overtime… I looked up and realized I had missed the sunrise. The sun was shining on the hilltop. I distinctly remember amidst all the confusion in my mind that there was also a sense, a feeling of curiosity in the back of it. What was going to happen next? It was like watching an adventure movie.

The two men suddenly took a sharp right turn into a secluded wooded area. I followed without hesitation. There, in the distance, I saw a dark opening into a structure. It had a ramp leading to an opening and on top of it stood the woman motioning with her arms. I assumed she was motioning for them to hurry. We picked up the pace. I kept staring at the structure. Was it a trailer, or perhaps a mobile home? No it had to be a truck, a big military truck because it looked brownish green, like the trees around it. But how had they got it in here? The place was surrounded by boulders and tall trees.

The two men pulled me up the ramp. It was a lot larger inside than it had looked like from the back. I stopped to look around but the two men pulled me away and shoved me into what looked like a cage or maybe a small jail cell. One of them shut the door behind me and I was now trapped like an animal. All I heard after that was the back door slamming shut and strange noises, almost like engines starting.

The next thing I remember was waking up hours later, maybe six hours later, which would make it noon the same day. I felt pain on my side. I was hurting. Was it from the walking tree hitting me or from lying on the metal bench substituting for a bed in the cell?

Was this all real or was I having a nightmare? I couldn’t tell.

One of the men flung the door open. I couldn’t tell which one he was. To me they both looked the same, like identical twins. After opening the door he was distracted by the other one telling him something which allowed me to take a peek beyond the hallway and into a room where the woman was sitting.

The room looked like the cockpit of a modern jumbo jet. There were instrument panels everywhere with lights blinking and strange lettering. I had never seen anything like it before. What kind of truck could this be? I wondered. And above and beyond the instruments I could see a tinted window. It looked black except for the object ahead of it in the distance which looked like a toy truck; maybe two toy trucks side by side? I couldn’t tell.

When the woman saw me looking at her she slammed the door to her compartment shut. When he saw this, the man pushed me back

into the cell and pointed to the bench. I sat down and he slammed the cell door shut. He opened it again and gave me a plastic bag filled with a clear liquid. It looked like a milk bag. He shut the door again and walked away. I bit the corner of the bag and began to suck on the liquid. It tasted like ordinary water, so I drank it all.

The next thing I remember was looking at my watch. It was only one o’clock. I must have dozed off for an hour, I thought. My heart began to pound when I looked at the date on my wind-up wrist watch. It was six days later. I put the watch to my ear, it was still ticking.

I had been told to wind it up every day. I never thought it would work for six days without being wound. But here it was still working and according to it, I had spent six days in this cell, totally unaware.

I began to wind my watch again. I heard footsteps outside the cell door. I tried to sit up but my entire body below my waist was numb. I felt like I was paralyzed. What was wrong with me? Better still how could I have spent six days and not know it. Had I slept for six days?

I began to wonder where we could possibly be going, traveling for six days. Six days later and we were still on the road? Where are these people taking me and why have they locked me up? Why can’t I move my legs?

The cell door suddenly flung open. The man looked around and made a face. He said something loud to the others. They too made faces. The men began to yell at each other. The woman said something and walked away. They were all angry.

The men too went away and one of them came back with what looked like a clear plastic bag. The other motioned for me to stand up, I assumed. I tried moving but I couldn’t. They grabbed me by my arms and shoved my lower body into the plastic bag. It was a long bag so they shoved my entire body into it, up to my neck. They lifted me up, one holding my shoulders and the other my legs. When they lifted me I saw what the problem was. The floor was wet. And more than that... I assumed I had soiled myself and no one wanted to

clean it up. I assumed they had drugged me but my body continued to function doing its thing for six days without me knowing. They should have known I couldn’t have helped it, but they were disappointed in me anyway.

My question now was who was going to clean me up… now that I was paralyzed? Strangely, so far they hadn’t given me any food or drink. How was I even still alive?

The next thing I remember was being carried to a smaller vehicle that looked like a cat and being dumped on the back seat. The two men sat in the front seat and began to operate some controls. A big door opened and I could clearly see that we were in space orbiting a very large planet.

I could hear my heart racing and all I could think of was the saying, “Dorothy we are not in Kansas anymore”…

Had I been abducted by aliens? They looked nothing like the aliens I was familiar with from the movies and from the conspiracy theories.

These people looked like humans. The only difference between us and them was that they spoke a strange language and used strange symbols. As far as I was concerned they were as human as we are. I didn’t know what to think.

As we descended towards the surface of the planet I could see a very large ship behind us looking like a huge ocean liner. We had just come out of it. I only got a short glimpse as we sped off. We were moving pretty fast.

By now my paralysis had begun to wear off and curiosity started to take over my brain. I surrendered myself to the sights. I knew that I was no longer on earth… but I was still alive. If they had wanted to harm me they would have done so by now, which meant they had plans for me. But what?

For the time being I didn’t care, this was an opportunity for me to discover new worlds which, until about a week ago, I didn’t know existed.

The planet grew larger and larger and took on many colours as we got closer and closer to its surface. When we got close enough to see what was there all I could see was trees, grass and a river. There were no structures or buildings.

The next thing I noticed was trees with fruits existing next to trees with flowers. It seemed funny to me to see trees loaded with fruit next to trees in full bloom. What kind of world was this?

I looked up towards the sky. The sun in this world was about four times the size of the earth’s sun and much brighter with a yellow light… but there was also a silver tinge, especially in the shadows. I looked up in the opposite direction. I saw a bright silvery object in the sky. That must be the moon, I thought, thinking of earth. It was so large and so bright in the middle of the day. Or perhaps that was another sun, a silver sun, opposite the yellow sun?

This sun was much smaller, perhaps because it was further away? This sun was giving off the silvery tinge. What a world this was, what a world indeed, I thought.

The little ship landed on a long rock slab and the door beside me flung open. I was still inside the bag so I couldn’t get out on my own. The two men grabbed me again, one by the legs and the other by the shoulders, and took me down a set of stairs into a well-lit tubular underground station.

When the ship’s or the flying cab’s door was flung open I felt the warm and moist air rush in. It was heavier than our air on earth and very aromatic. The smell of flowers and fresh fruits was everywhere and was overwhelming.

When we arrived at the bottom of the stairs I could see a cylindrical car in the station, looking like a large glass bottle with four seats in it, back to back.

There was no one in the station. The two men put me in the seat facing backwards and they sat behind me facing forwards. The moment they shut the door the tube car took off like a shot down the

tube tunnel. We traveled for only a few minutes before we stopped at another tube-like station. There was no one in the station.

The two men picked me up, bag and all, carried me up a set of stairs, across a small park and tossed me at the edge of a ravine near a wide slow moving river. Being confined in the bag I was unable to stand up so I rolled down a short slope and landed in a ditch about fifty metres away from the river. As soon as I stopped rolling the two men turned around and left.

Besides feeling hungry and groggy, I was fine and still alive.

Welcome to Nodekam

The river flowed gently. It was quiet in the ravine. I contemplated my situation for a few minutes and decided before I could do anything I needed to get out of the bag I was in. I reached into my shirt’s front pocket, got my pocket knife out, cut the bag open at the top and rolled out of it. I now knew why they had put me in a bag. I stunk to high heaven.

It had been more that a week since I had stood on my own two feet so I found it difficult to stand up. I was able to sit up. I heard water running. I crawled a few metres to my left and saw a hole in the steep part of the ravine. It looked like a cave and water was gushing out of its entrance. The cave was a lot closer than the river so I decided to go for it. I crawled for a while but seeing the water gushing reminded me of how thirsty I was and how much I needed a bath. I got up and walked the rest of the way. The air was hot and humid and the water was refreshingly cool. I didn’t go inside the cave. I wasn’t sure what I would find in it. I stopped at the entrance and submerged myself, clothes and all, in the pool collecting the running water and drank from the flowing part above. It was clean, clear and cool water, just like the kind I remember from the village back home in Macedonia.

I took all my clothes off and washed them clean. I then washed myself from top to bottom. I didn’t mind being naked. There was no one there and the warm air felt good on my cool skin.

I walked around naked and gathered some sticks of wood to light a fire. I figured a fire would dry my clothes faster. I found a lot of dry wood in the ravine and collected as much as I could and placed it in front of the cave entrance. I then collected some dry grass which was also plentiful. Then I remembered that I had my lighter in the shirt that I had just washed. I got it out but it refused to light. It was wet.

I became anxious as I toyed with my lighter trying to dry it and get it to work. What if I wasn’t allowed to light a fire? What if I wasn’t allowed to be naked in a public place? Was this a public place? There was no one there.

The only way not to feel anxious I figured was not to start a fire at all and put my clothes back on – wet. I did exactly that. It felt uncomfortable at first but I got used to it. Just like in the village when we worked out in the fields. I remember being rained on first thing in the morning and having to wear wet clothes all day. Eventually they dried. No big deal.

I had another drink of water but this time it didn’t sit well. I doubled over with stomach pains. I threw up. There was nothing there but fluids. I realized I had not eaten in a week. I needed to find food. I remembered seeing the fruit trees loaded with ripe fruit. I climbed my way out to the flat part above. I found the climb very tiring. My body felt heavy and weak. I figured it was from hunger. How was it possible to be alive for seven days without any food or water? I figured the drug they had given me must have slowed my metabolism. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. My stomach hurt and I needed food.

I didn’t have to walk far before running into the first fruit tree. It was about ten metres tall and loaded with round, peach coloured fruit the size of very large oranges. It had small, dark round leaves the size of a golf ball. I picked one fruit and sank my teeth into it. I was too hungry to think of the consequences of eating alien food. The skin was soft and smooth. The inside was pinkish-orange. It tasted like a sweet melon with the sour tinge of an orange. It was delicious. I kept biting at it, again without worrying about the consequences that it might be poisonous.

There was a large, rock solid brown pit inside; the size of a golf ball. I looked at it and then tossed it as far as I could throw it. I immediately realized that I could have cracked it open and eaten the nutty part inside, if there was a nutty part. I reached up and picked two more fruits. I could have taken more but I figured it would be too much. I could get sick.

When I was very young my grandmother, may God bless her soul, back in the village used to tell me not to eat more than one apple at a time because the fruit was going to give me a tummy ache.

I took the fruit and ran. I rushed back to the ravine like I had something important to do. Why was I rushing? Perhaps I felt bad because I wasn’t allowed to leave the ravine? Perhaps this was the forbidden fruit that I wasn’t supposed to eat? I don’t know. Being out there… I was apprehensive.

I sat down next to the pile of wood in front of the cave entrance and began to think about going inside the cave. I don’t remember how and when but I ate the other two fruits. All I remember was holding the pits in my hand. The next thing I remember was breaking a pit. I put it on a rock and smashed it with another rock. It broke easily. It was white like a coconut inside, but solid right through. I picked up a sliver of the white that had broken off and put it in my mouth. I immediately spat it out and ran for water to wash my tongue. It was very bitter. I had never tasted anything so bitter before. I figured it wasn’t meant to be eaten. My stomach began to feel heavy and started gurgling. I figured it was the fruit fermenting. My grandmother was probably right. The old people had learned these things from experience and it was worth listening to them.

An hour had passed and I was still alive and still sitting by the cave entrance. The fruit wasn’t poisonous, especially since my stomach had begun to ease up. I guess it was time to go inside the cave.

The cave entrance was circular, about two steps wide and about three steps high. There was long grass growing on the sides and hanging from the top. It was wet everywhere. Water was rolling out over a large stone at the bottom. It was pitch black inside. I took a step in and got my right running shoe all wet. I then stepped inside on solid ground, on a rock. I was apprehensive and stood still for a few moments and listened. It was quiet. All I could hear was running and dripping water. I closed my eyes to focus on the sounds. There weren’t any. I opened my eyes and was able to see a shadowy outline of the inside of the cave, but not very well. It didn’t look like a natural cave. It looked more like a pile of large, discarded boulders with a large crevasse between them. Over time the running water had washed away the soil and left a hole. I guess that’s what caves are but this one looked like it was manmade, by accident of course. Inside it was littered with rocks. It was dangerous to walk without

being able to see. So, the best way to explore the cave, I figured, was with a flashlight. But I didn’t have one.

I looked around but all I could see were stones and water. I picked up a number of flat stones that were close to the entrance and placed them in the shallow running water at the entrance. They became my stepping stones for going in and out of the cave without getting my feet wet.

I went outside again and sat by the woodpile. I looked up at the sky and noticed the silvery tinge had gone. Everything was yellow now. I looked around and noticed the silvery sun had set. The yellow sun seemed to hover above like it was standing still. I had been here now for many hours and hadn’t seen it move. I estimated I had been there for more than ten hours and it was still light outside. I began to wonder if the yellow sun ever set. I looked at my watch. It was still working but I hadn’t notice what time it was when the two men dumped me in the ravine. The yellow sun was a mystery which I was going to solve later. Now, at this moment, I was feeling very tired and needed to find a place to sleep, a safe place.

I must have passed out because the next time I looked at my watch, which seemed like moments ago, it was a couple of hours later. I looked up and noticed the sun had moved. This meant that night was coming and I needed to find shelter. Who knew what kind of creatures lurked here at night, in the open space next to the river?

I made an instant panic-driven decision to move into the cave. I was going to light a fire to give me light and keep me warm during the night. The fire would also ward off any predators that might be lurking in the outdoors during the night and decide to come inside the cave.

I quickly went inside the cave, collected a bunch of rocks by feel and piled them up a metre high. I then placed more rocks all around the pile and made the rockpile into a raised pit. Then, armful by armful I brought all the wood and dry grass inside. I put some dry grass in the centre of the rockpile and lit it with my lighter. I then piled the dry wood on top, small pieces first and then larger pieces.

“We have fire!” I yelled out loud.

My voice echoed in the cave. I stood up and began to choke on the smoke. Rats! I had forgotten about the smoke and sat down again.

There was no smoke in the bottom half of the cave. In fact the smoke had found its way out and began to slowly dissipate. As the wood burned hotter it produced less and less smoke. I now had the light I needed to see and began to explore the entire cave.

I spent a couple of hours inside the cave, looking here and there. I then decided to go outside. It was cloudy and drizzling. It was a gentle rain. I remembered being brought here in a plastic bag. I went looking for it. It was exactly where I had left it. I dumped it in the pool of water in front of the cave entrance and washed it. I placed it over me and enjoyed watching the rain fall. The rain lasted about twenty minutes. After it stopped the clouds left and the sky cleared up. The sun was shining again and it was getting very humid. I went back into the cave and took the plastic with me. I looked around the cave for somewhere to put it to dry. I noticed a large pile of soil in the corner. It looked like a mini mountain. I went over and stomped on it. It was dry and fell apart. It was also very fine, like finely milled wheat flour. It would be a good place for me to sleep, I thought.

I remembered sleeping in the outdoors in summer back in the village. My favourite spots to sleep were in the fine dust which felt very soft, softer and more comfortable that an expensive mattress.

I leveled the soil with my feet and, after I dried the plastic near the fire, laid it on top of the dust. This was going to be my bed. I put more wood on the fire and went to try out my new bed. I raised some of the dust underneath the plastic to make a pillow and rested my head on it.

The next thing I remember was opening my eyes and trying to figure out where I was. It was dark in the cave and the fire had gone out. When I did remember where I was I felt this heavy weight on me and a sharp pain cut across my stomach. It could have been hunger but I was pretty sure it was fear. I looked at the cave entrance. It was

dark outside. I could have lit my lighter to see what time it was but I chose not to. It was best to preserve the lighter fuel for lighting fires.

I got up slowly. My body felt very heavy and I was lightheaded. I slowly made my way to the cave entrance and used the stepping stones to exit. What a good idea I thought. Now my shoes can remain dry.

As soon as I popped my head out of the cave it felt like I had entered a black and white movie. It was eerie outside. The silver sun was at the spot where the yellow sun had been earlier. If I could describe it, it looked like the full moon on earth on a clear night but shining at four times the intensity.

I felt like I was a character in a black and white movie. I sat outside the cave in the same place where I had sat earlier and looked at the sky. I looked up at the tree tops. I noticed the trees in the ravine were different, wild, tall and rough, like the willows around our rivers on earth. I thought I saw something move on top of one of those trees. I looked again. It was a round thing like a ball, the size of a basketball. My eyes and brain were telling me it was a round owl, a comical looking big owl. I didn’t see if it flew but it disappeared quickly.

I looked at the river bank hoping to see some creature, but saw nothing. I wondered if there were fish in the river… and how I could catch some.

I lay down on my back and kept looking at the silvery sun. The sky was black. It looked like someone had poured a ball of mercury into a pool of black. It was too boring to look at so I closed my eyes and thought about how I had gotten here.

The two men and woman I had first encountered, I figured, were what we here on earth would call space people. They had come to earth to maybe do some exploring. The woman wore a camouflage outfit to blend in with the surroundings. The two men monitored her movements from their spaceship hidden in the rocks and bushes.

What I couldn’t figure out was the thing that had attacked me. What was it? Obviously it was a living thing but what? What was the black stuff it oozed from its slit? Perhaps it was blood… It was too dark to make out the colour. And what about the policeman’s whistle…? What was that and why did it spook the woman.

And another thing, how did she communicate with the two men who ran to get her? I saw no communicator. Perhaps these people can communicate in ways we don’t know! Perhaps!? They can travel in space so obviously they were more advanced than us. And the thing, the thing I saw that looked like a truck, or like a couple of toy trucks side by side must have been the mother ship keeping an eye on them. I have seen enough Star Trek episodes to understand how these things work. But Star Trek is fiction…? So what! Well, anyway I have nothing else to relate it to. So Star Trek and aliens it was! But in this case I was the alien.

As I sat there wracking my brain trying to figure out what was happening, it occurred to me that the reason they didn’t want me to see inside their ships and inside their cities was because they were planning to return me to where they had found me. The ravine would be familiar to me because we have ravines everywhere back home on earth. The less I knew the better.

If that were the case then the only thing for me to worry about now was my food and gear back in Algonquin Park. Would my bike, tent and food still be there when they returned me? Surely the bread and cheese would go stale and moldy but the canned food should be okay. Maybe the raccoons would have eaten the perishable food.

I figured it was a waste of time thinking about it. Let’s wait and see what happens, I thought. How will I explain what happened to me to the people at home…? The missing time…? How was I going to explain to myself what had happened? Pretend it never happened? Pretend it was a dream… a bad or good dream?

All my life I wondered how it would be to take a step in outer space, to walk on the moon, to see the rings of Saturn from the surface of Saturn and to walk on one of the moons orbiting Jupiter. And here I

was on an alien world and all I could think of was to pretend it had never happened. Why are dreams so beautiful and reality so harsh?

I opened my eyes. It was still black and white outside. I went back into the cave and lay down on my makeshift bed. All I wanted to think about now was my life back in the village. It gave me some comfort.

The next thing I remember was waking up and looking through the cave entrance. I was happy to see the yellow light. It had a tinge of silver.

I felt hungry, very hungry but there was nothing to eat. I craved bread, cheese, meat… How about some sizzling bacon? I thought. No!? So, fruit it was. I got up but still felt very heavy. The fire was out and had been out for a long time. There was little firewood left. First breakfast then firewood I told myself. I climbed up the bank and out of the ravine. I looked around. There was no one there. I thought perhaps no one lived there. I looked around and noticed the grass was trimmed and the area was cleaned of fallen fruit and leaves. I wondered why people would go through this effort to clean a park they never used. It was just a thought. The aroma of the fruits and flowers in the nearby trees was overpowering.

I went to the same tree and this time picked two fruits. I picked them from the ground. They must have fallen since the park was cleaned last. I could have taken more but I figured too much fruit would upset my stomach, like the last time. I took them back to the ravine, sat on the same spot outside the cave and ate them both. I washed my hands and began to look for more firewood.

I took a long stroll downriver and found plenty of firewood. I also found paths in the overgrown dry grass which led all over the ravine. I wondered what had made them. What kind of creatures roamed around this part of the ravine? I picked up as much dry wood as I could carry and followed one of those paths. It curved around towards the river. I came back to the cave. I went back for more wood. I followed a different path this time but I only found one piece of wood. It was a straight and well-trimmed stick. It looked like someone’s walking stick. I paused for a moment to look at it.

Then, suddenly I heard a loud “honk” behind me. It was very loud and startled me. I swung around quickly with the stick in my hand. I then heard a loud snap. I looked down and there, in front of me lay a strange creature with its neck snapped. I had killed it. It was an accident but I had killed it. I felt terrible.