Mr. E & The Tunnel Through Time
Moonlight therapy with Aliens
“I know you like me.”
Anyway, that’s what she said. I try to be an optimist, but sometimes I doubt myself, and this was one of those days. I wasn’t sure if she actually meant it.
I’m Alphonse Aloisus Edgerton-Jones, Private Investigator for Aliens: “Just call me Mr. E.” (It really is easier to say.) If I knew what I was getting into with this PI work, I probably would have chosen a different profession, but I’m stupid. I take too many risks. Anyway, that’s what I do.
So there I was, eating a sandwich, catching up on email, wondering who my ex was with now, when a glowing woman knocks on my office door.
And that’s how this one got started.
Did I say glowing? Well, I’m not being metaphorical. I’ll be honest with you: Since I’ve been a PI for Aliens, I’ve lost my need for metaphors. I get the real thing now.
My office is on the Far Side of the Moon. If you want to visit, I’m in Tunnel 12, Lacus Oblivionis. That’s the Lake of Forgetfulness, if you prefer English. I could have chosen another address. There are bigger tunnel complexes with night clubs and fast food, but I wanted to forget. That’s why I came here.
My wife had left me. I can’t blame her, really. I was shit in my earlier profession, editing a gossip column for interstellar hip hop artists. Those rappers deserved better than me, and they eventually got it. The day my wife left, she looked at me, and said, “Alphonse, there are some real dumb asses in the world, but you don’t even get up to that level.”
It stung. I had just gotten back from a tour with the Earth-Tang Gang — and, boy, did we have fun! 12 star systems in 48 days. That’s traveling for you. I was exhausted. I got home, and there was my wife, laid up (so to speak) with the Mendelavian Ambassador to Earth, and she didn’t care about me. At all. The Mendelavians look just like us, well, close enough, but they have what they call “totally responsive sexual apparatuses.” Wow, that’s an understatement. My wife met him at a diplomatic party. I’m not bad in the love department, but Mendelavian men can fill a woman, whether she’s human or not, with a type of attention I had no answer for. I knew I was sunk.
“Alphonse, if you were ever home, and not out dancing and partying, like 12 fucking light years away, I’d give you a second chance. But I already gave you at least 10. And I don’t think it meant a thing to you.”
I couldn’t argue with her. She’d just look at her phone, saying, “M, M, M, where is his number?” So I packed my bags and left for the Moon. I loved my wife, but my mind and senses were filled with Alien lights and smells, music that I can’t even explain. I didn’t sing. I couldn’t rap. My dancing, let’s say, is rudimentary, but I loved just being there, on tour, in places you can’t imagine.
With women even I can’t imagine.
I’m guilty as hell. She was right.
So I went into exile. I tried to forget. And that’s why I put my new office where I did. I decided that, my skills being what they are, doing music reviews might not be the best fit. I had travelled to so many other solar systems, met so many strange strange people and vaporous beings, that I was thinking more like an Alien, more like somebody from another effing solar system, than my own.
“Well, Alphonse,” I thought to myself, “if you’ve become half an Alien yourself, then put it to use! Don’t just write. Investigate!”
I’m Alphonse Aloisus Edgerton-Jones, Private Investigator for Aliens. I guess I’m in phase 2 now.
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“I know you like me,” she said, as she pushed open the door and blinded me with her cloud struck scent and glow. “I saw you at the starlight party last night. I could tell.”
“I saw you, too. We just talked about small things, though, with drinks in our hands. I thought you were with that other guy, so I didn’t push it.”
“You didn’t need to. I’m a Veloniant woman. I can smell you a mile away. But I’m not here for kicks. Maybe later, E. I need your help now, instead.”
“So what can I do for you?”
“I lost my soul, and I’d like it back.”
“You’re not being metaphorical, are you?”
“Of course not. We Veloniants don’t need to be poetic. We don’t get lonely or anxious. Our souls are real, and if we get too far way from them, we’re in trouble.”
“So what happened to yours?”
“It fell down a time tunnel, and I don’t have long enough arms to pull it out. I need you to do that for me.”
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OK. I probably should explain.
The Veloniants, though they look enough like us, aren’t. They flit around through time the way that we might walk to a corner bar. And when they order a scotch, neat, well, watch out, boys. It ain’t quite the same.
“Can I show you, E?”
I knew I probably shouldn’t, but I said OK. I am a goddamned curious idiot. That’s probably why I’m in the business that I am. And why my wife knew what she was doing when she said bye bye.
Veloniants, as I’ve mentioned, use time the way we use an Uber. When they want to go someplace, they just slide — or walk or run or fly — through a tunnel of time, the way you or I might go for a jog or take the car with our girlfriend for a weekend trip.
She wanted to show me.
“I have to,” she said. “You’re strong enough, which most Earth men aren’t, so I know you can take it.”
“How do you know?”
“You told me last night when you were bragging about your sexual exploits with MBO.”
Shit! Martian Brine Ooze again.
I must have let my stupid mouth take over. (Not like it was the first time, of course.)
Martian Brine Ooze is, well, essentially, a telepathic aphrodisiac from the red red planet, and it packs a punch that can make any party go wild. You’ve probably heard me mention it before. It costs a fuck of a lot, but, because of some not so above board work I’ve done rescuing lost souls who got sucked into the MBO trade, I’ve gotten a stash that people would go google wah for … if they could afford it, that is.
“E, you did let your bragging mouth slip, but I’m glad you did. Not everybody can handle the amount of MBO you claim to have ingested. If you weren’t lying — and I can tell — then you can snatch my soul out of the time tunnel it fell into.”
And, with that thought in mind, she grabbed my hand, and pulled me into one.
We fell, deep and deep and deep. What does a time tunnel feel like? Well, if you’re a guy, a human guy, that is, and you’ve been in love, and fell inside the most magical woman you could ever imagine, and she squeezed you tight… She clenched and squeezed and kissed you and ran her fingernails down your back, and locked you with her eyes at the same time, … Well, it’s something like that.
She was right. Veloniants are astute judges of things like this. She knew that if I wasn’t making up my brags about tolerating massive amounts of MBO, I could handle a time tunnel, but… it still wasn’t for the faint hearted, or even for a long ass dude who could chase hip hop across 12 light years and not get too winded.
I guess I’m lucky. I’m lucky my wife left. And, yes, she did eventually marry this insurance guy. And that’s cool. You gotta believe in safety, right?
That’s what we tell people. But, guys, it’s a pure lie. I fell into a time tunnel. And she wouldn’t let go my hand.
Her name is Flo-aishus. I hadn’t mentioned that. I’m Mr. E, and she’s just Flo. I guess it all is just easier to say. OK, a time tunnel … WTF is that?
Back on Earth, Einstein showed that there’s no such thing as time “and” space. It’s all one piece, guys. The Veloniants just naturally know it. If you don’t mind a joke: They walk on all fours.
But, for humans, and, let’s be honest, most other Aliens, too, doing the all fours thing takes some getting used to. Flo knew I had already stretched my dumb ass senses with all that MBO — and survived, so…
“If I hadn’t met you at that party, I’m not sure how I’d handle this,” she told me when we got back to my office.
“Thanks, Flo.” And I meant it.
**********
She actually had lost her soul. I found it in 1463 in Tenochtitlán, in the Valley of Mexico, just long enough before the Spaniards showed up so that I could do a good deed, too. I went back to 2089, and got mRNA vaccines against all the nasty Eurasian diseases those fucking conquistadors were (not) planning to bring with them in 1519,
So the Aztecs and all the other tribes in Mexico would be ready for them.
Sorry, Hernan, but I never liked you that much, anyway.
************
So, hey, you want to change history? Just be a PI for Aliens. You never know what opportunity you might run into. Oh, and please, don’t give me this shit about “Hey, you might destroy the whole world by messing with history!”
You’re still here, aren’t you?
And I prevented the Spanish from wiping out 80% of the indigenous people of Mexico with their fucking diseases. So, OK, you gotta learn Nahuatl now, but you can still visit Spain and bask in the sun.
Or so I hear.
I’ve been too busy to pay attention. Now that Flo taught me how to walk on all fours, I’m sort of enjoying my new found abilities. Time is more of a fun place than people think. Slip slidin’ away. (Who was that guy, anyway? It was awhile back.) I get to go up and down a few time tunnels myself now. You should try it!
Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe you shouldn’t (quite yet.) All that MBO, and the tough Alien women I’ve met and joked around with, has certainly helped. You gotta prepare yourself for that kind of strange Alien hip hop. I’m kind of glad now my wife did decide to get it on with the Mendelavian Ambassador while I was gone. Who would have guessed the opportunity?
And I hear she’s OK with that insurance guy, too.
You should come and visit me in my office in Tunnel 12. Lacus Oblivionis really is a cool getaway from all the noise and hurry back on Planet Earth. The air is clean and sweet (because we manufacture it that way!) The view is stupendous, and, because you can’t see the Earth from the Moon’s back side, you can sometimes forget all the strife and hatred that still exists there. Aliens have their problems, too, of course. (That’s what keeps me in business.) But, I don’t know… New problems. New solutions, too.
The Alien women I have met have taught me some useful stuff. I’m glad they put up with me. Who would have guessed? And Flo’s soul…?
Maybe I should say a few more words…
Humans always love to talk about their goddamned “souls,” but absolutely nobody I know of has ever seen one. I think they’re just excuses for lovers and religious types to keep their wives or hubbies or those ubiquitous religious sheep in line. “You don’t want to lose…” that thing that doesn’t even exist.
Veloniants actually have a soul. It moves up and down in time, just like your adam’s apple does when you talk. When Flo’s soul got detached and fell all the way back to 1463, it created real problems. She was (rightfully) scared she might become as dumb and helpless as one of us!
I’m Mr. E, and you gotta be a Space Alien to hire my stupid ass.
But I’m goddamned good at what I promise to do.
And I am not cheap. So there!
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Lacus Oblivionis actually exists. It’s at 21.0°S 168.0°W on the Far Side of the Moon. And it is blissfully quiet there,
Except when someone knocks.
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© “John” Lesly Levin 2021
