Fiction. Boyhood dreams

Boyhood Dramas
James and John were next-door neighbours, only children of business parents. This meant they were left alone for many hours and had to entertain themselves while their folks worked long hours.
Having known each other most of their young lives, plus there were no other twelve year old children to play with, the two boys
Spent many hours together with their computer games, ipod music and many other gadgets their parents had bought them to make up for the minimum time they could spend with them,
It was a Wednesday morning of the first week of school holidays; James arrived at John’s house.
“John, are you out of bed yet?”
“Sure” says John. “I’m just feeding the cat and dog, come in”
“What about we bike over to the dam, we can take our fishing rods and togs with us”
“Sounds like a good idea, gets lonely around the house, I’m sick of computer games”
“I’ll go home and put some food in my backpack, see you in half an hour”
The boys cycled off through the track in the bush and twenty minutes later were enjoying a rest in the shade of a huge Casuarinas tree on the banks of the dam.
“We had better get fishing before this bait goes rotten”
The lines were baited and cast into their favourite spot but so far the fish were not interested. It was a good time to discuss their many gadgets and computer games, also the new blonde chick who had just started in their school before term break. Each boy argued that Mary-Lou had given them the glad eye; maybe she will become their friend. It was a warm day and both boys were bored, as there were no bights, they soon fell asleep.

“Lets have a swim, I’m sweating and there’s no fish”

‘Okay James, I’m first in”
“You’re a cheat, you have your togs on under your clothes”
“Smart Eh! Come on, I’ll race you to the old log”
Old Charlie, who lived in a shack beside the dam came running to the shore full of excitement, waving his arms and jumping up and down.
“ Boys, come here quick, there is something very strange just around the corner among the trees”.
James and John had known the old man all their life and he had taught them to fish, showing them his own special spots where the big ones were.
“What’s up, Charlie, you look like you’ve seen a ghost”
“Just follow me very quietly, we don’t want to disturb him”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come quick”
As they rounded the corner, there in a clearing was the strangest of objects, it was about the size of mini bus, round very shiny silver and stood about two mitres off the ground on three sturdy legs.
“Wow” Said James. “ I’ve always dreamed of seeing a real space ship”
“Just be careful, it may be those smart Jones brothers with one of their silly pranks”
An opening appeared on the side of the craft a ladder slowly made it’s way to the ground, then a man in strange clothes started down the steps. The boys backed off a bit but old Charlie stood his ground, he also thought it was someone trying to frighten them.
The stranger stood tall and erect, brushing off his silver suit he stared at the three, and then he smiled.
“Don’t be scared, I have come in peace, my name is Amos and I have travelled through time from a far away Galaxy. There are three more just like me inside our craft, we would like to speak to you about your planet and want to learn some more about how it operates”
The three other men appeared and joined their leader; they were identical in looks and dress.
James was the first to speak, being full of curiosity; he was amazed that they looked like some of the warriors in a war game he had got for his birthday.
“Why do you all look the same”?
Amos introduced his travelling companions as his brothers.
“We have the power to take on any image we want to and have done a lot of study on the inhabitants of your planet and decided we would look too different coming here in our own image. Also we have learned your language which is very simple for us”
“ What do you really look like?” John said, realising they were quite harmless.
All of a sudden a mist appeared and when it cleared there were four strange looking creatures in front of them. They had one large eye in the middle of a huge head which had scales on it and resembled a reptile, a small mouth and no ears, their orange bodies was very rounded and had four arms and two legs and a short curly tail.
The two boys and Charlie stood back and were starting to get scared at the horrible sight, another mist spread over them, when it cleared the four aliens were back looking like humans again.
“How do you manage to change your looks like that?” said James.
Amos replied.
“Our planet is millions of light years ahead of you. Our bodies never die we can create what you humans call magic to just about anything you could think of”.
James thought, we could rule the earth in a matter of minutes.
Amos could read his mind, but decided to let him dream a little longer.
“I have some questions to ask you”
“Anything that you like, we think you are really neat, especially when you take on a human look”
“We are interested in how the larger countries of earth have rulers that are always causing unrest among their people, interfering in other countries affairs and sending soldiers to sort out their problems and usually make things worse”
Old Charlie thought he should try and answer the questions as the boys were still young and would not know much about these affairs.
“The world of ours has been fighting for centuries, mostly over greed and fame, some countries fight about religion, others about what wealth they can get from each other”
Although James and John didn’t know a lot about the politics of the world, John did remember hearing his parents talking about it with friends. He said
“There are many horrible things happening to people, us kids are worried about what will happen to us when we grow up”
Amos and his friends talked among themselves for a while, and then spoke about how their planet works.
“We don’t understand why your world should fight as ours are all born equal, we don’t need anything more as we already have it”
Old Charlie answered many more questions, and then asked them why they decided to come and visit us.
“Because we have learned about all these horrible things that happen here in our history and have been sent here for answers, now I think we have a lot of them and we can go home and try and make our brothers understand, I’m sorry but we have a better life than you”
James asked Amos.
“How can you speak our language, do you know what is going to happen to us?”
“Our people speak every language in the universe, we also know what will happen to you but our laws wont allow us to tell anyone”
Old Charlie had another question
“Are you staying here for a while, maybe we can answer any more questions you need to know”
“We have made many landings on your planet over the last few weeks and will be quite happy to go home now to our lovely life, it has been very nice talking to you all, now it is time to go, thank you for being our friends, goodbye”
The aliens were soon back in their craft, pulled up the steps and closed the door, with a very quiet whirling noise they lifted of and were soon just a speck in the sky.
Old Charlie spoke first.
“I think we should keep this our secret, no one will believe us and they will say we are mad.
“Wake up you two, I’m sure you have each caught a fish “
James said.
“What happened, are we alone here”?
Old Charles looked at him and thought he was still dreaming.
John said.
“Yeh, what happened, where are those strange men?”
The boys discussed the dreams with Charlie who was amazed they had the same dream, in every detail.
“How can we have the same dream?”
“Maybe you were both dreaming of a certain young girl, I think one of you called out Mary-Lou”
“That’s weird, I’m sure I wont be telling anyone, will you keep this our secret, Charlie”.
Sure will, come with me now, I’ve got something to show you both. Around the next corner there was a clearing like someone had flattened it with a heavy roller. The two boys stared in amazement; James went over to take a closer look. He saw something shining and picked it up.
“What a neat looking button, it has some strange markings on it

Word Count. 1539