by B.W. Thines

Faizal Donke lived on the third floor of the Elk Hotel for years, longer than the present owners and staff. He’s a large man, around three hundred pounds with crazy eyes. One eye looks up constantly while the other looks straight ahead. He stands over six feet and has extremely large feet.

Faizal is a security guard at R G & E and had been working at the Bee-Bee Station Power Plant at High Falls. Every evening, he would take the Lake Ave. bus to State Street and get off at Brown St. and then walk down Falls St. to the Power Station. He was heavily laden with his back pack and two shopping bags of food, Faizal loved to eat.

On April 22, 1976 he arrived at his post at building 2 to relieve Officer Tony Toast, who told Faizal “it’s been a quiet night nothing is happening”. At one AM Faizal began his first patrol. Tony was right it was fairly quiet; all he could hear was the drone of the turbines running at the power station. Usually at this time of night the wild dogs would be barking and the feral cats would be fighting over the females.

As he made his way down Power Road, he noticed an orange glow coming from the water falls. When he got closer, he heard a low hum coming from the glow. It was when the glow settled on the ground it’s light faded, that’s when Faizal noticed it was a saucer like craft. Faizal uttered to himself, “Dear God it’s a UFO”.  The glow dimed and a stairway opened from the craft and three blue beings emerged from the craft. They were about 5 feet 5 inches tall and wearing identical green flight suits with some type of helmet on their heads. They were carrying a devise that looked like a vacuum cleaner that was taking water from the river.

Faizal walked closer to the craft, hoping to look inside, (which was not a good idea), one of the blue beings spotted him. The alien being raised a long tube that emitted a flash of light that knocked Faizel down and he lost consciousness.

When Faizal awoke the craft and its occupants were gone. Faizal felt funny, he had a headache and swayed when he walked, like he was half in the bag. He tried to remember what he saw and make sense of what had happened. He decided he should call the main office and report the incident. He called the office and told officer Cano Bean what had happened, Cano started laughing so hard he wet himself. When Cano finally stopped laughing, he said, “have you been drinking Faizal”? “No-no, I don’t drink” Faizal responded.

Faizal told Cano that he was shot by some kind of weapon that knocked him out, and he didn’t feel well. Cano was still laughing when he hung up. ,

Faizel went into the bathroom to inspect his body. There was a small brown mark under his right nipple, it was a little tender-that’s all.

He decided to write his report, which said: “While on my security tour I seen some strange lights on the river. It looked like some people were night fishing.” At least he put something on his report, better off being vague then writing nothing at all. He knew he could not write the truth; he would be the laughing stock of security force.

After his shift he went back to the Elk went to bed; his dreams were quite unsettling. When he awoke, he showered, the mark on his chest was fading. He felt good, very hungry, so he went across the street to the Red Front for breakfast, had two cups of coffee and read the newspaper. No mention of strange things in the sky.

That afternoon Faizel made his way to Bee bee station for another evening shift. After the shift change and all was quiet, he started his first patrol around the grounds. He had some apprehension about this evening, after what had occurred last night.

His first patrol was uneventful, just the local wild-life stirring. The skies were clear and the moon was at its last quarter. He passed a mother possum with her children clinging to her back.

It was during his 9 pm patrol that he saw the UFO by the river doing the same thing it did the previous night, but this time a voice came from the ship. It said: “Don’t be afraid, we mean you no harm. “Faizel said “but you shot me with your weapon” The voice said “the weapon was on stun, we panicked, so sorry”. Faizel: “what do I call you”, the voice: “my name

Is Onzo, we are from a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. We are explorers, mapping the universe”. Faizel: “what do you need the water for”? Onzo: “to cool our engines, over time the water changes to hydrogen and Oxygen so we must replenish it.” Onzo: “what is this place that you work?” Faizel: “It’s a power station, it produces electricity for our city”. Onzo: “the black stuff you burn is very dirty, do you have anything cleaner?” Faizel: “Yes our people are trying the nuclear fuel”. “Yes-yes” says Onzo “much cleaner”. “Well, we must be on our way” says Onzo, “It’s been nice talking with you, good-bye”. The ship ascended into the clouds and soon was out of sight. Faizel looked around to see if anybody was watching him, but there was no one.

Faizel returned to his building to write up his report, omitting his encounter with the space ship, no one would believe him anyway.

B.W. Thines is an author from Rochester, NY and working on publishing his story collection, Tales from the Elk Hotel.