Author: Gerard Hutchings

The postman was early and had left something for me. I threw on an old tracksuit to go out and check the letterbox. As I approached I noticed a dollar coin on the footpath, so I went to pick it up. The cord on my pants decided it was the right time to break, so as I bent down I revealed a lot more than was decent.

A woman walking on the path caught an eyeful, screamed, took a photo with her mobile and phoned the police, apparently, all at the same time. I quickly stood up and held my pants in place with one hand and clutched the coin in the other.

A spacecraft that had been cruising above the city trying to identify some form of leadership had obviously misinterpreted the severe embarrassment and agitation we were both feeling. Next thing we had been transported aboard and were being approached by something with tentacles carrying what looked like some form of a probe.

The woman screamed again and fainted. The alien, therefore, turned to me, inserted the probe into my nose and there was a slight pinching in my nasal cavity before the probe was removed. I could immediately understand what the alien wanted, though it did seem bizarre.

It indicated it needed approximately two square metres of soil as fuel, and requested my permission to transport it onboard. Naturally, I agreed and a section of turf appeared near my feet, proof that they had taken only what was agreed.

At this point my hay fever caused me to have a huge sneeze, the small device was ripped from my nasal cavity and shot into the turf at my feet. I noticed blood coming from my nose, so grabbed a hanky with the hand holding the coin, losing my grip on it and dropping it onto the turf.

The alien may have made some other comment, however, I could no longer understand him, and the next thing I was again standing on the footpath as a police car was pulling up.

The policeman approached and asked what was going on. I thought of myself clutching my pants with one hand, a bloody hankie held to my nose with the other, then noticed the unconscious woman at my feet to the side of the path in what appeared to be a shallow grave. I looked up in time to see a huge explosion high above and wondered whether the coin or nasal insert had caused the problem.

I really had no idea what I should say to the police.