Everyday Canvas

Family Influence and Alien Probation

Prompt: When you were a kid, who did you most want to be like when you grew up? Was it a particular athlete, a television or movie character, a superhero? Maybe even a family member? And in what way(s) did you emulate them?

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When I was six, seven, or younger, I wanted to be a doctor because my grandfather, my superhero, was one. When I turned eight, I made up my mind to become a writer or a poet because my mother’s uncle was a lit teacher, and also many people in the family had tried their hands in writing. When I started to pen my flawed productions, just about everybody in the family remarked that I had gotten the family bug. “The microbe’s in her,” they said.

The fact is, I really couldn’t emulate anybody perfectly, but I was very lucky to be born into a wonderful extended family on my mother’s side. In that family, the greatest lesson everyone in unison taught me was respect for human beings and all life. As to their vocations and interests, I may have borrowed a thing here, another thing there, but when all was said and done, I was me, the one forever searching. So I ended up studying linguistics, art, psychology, and several other things while earning certificates and diplomas for one thing or another, but reading and writing has been the greatest background force in everything I have done.

Prompt: When humanity has to leave earth to live on the moon, you panic. Nobody knows that you are a.........

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Nobody knew I was a creature from Alpha Centauri, exiled to live an earthly life as my probation stipulated. I just couldn’t go with everyone to live on the moon. I would be violating the terms of my probation. Worse yet, I knew I was being watched. Probation officers of Alpha Centauri, watch their subjects from afar on a regular basis. Even thinking about moving to the moon would be an infraction, and no statute of limitations existed, either.

I, therefore, didn’t say anything to anybody, one way or another, but I put my most essential needs in a backpack and went on a hike in the jungle. I am now guessing, most anyone must have left for the moon by now, and hopefully, they took their unruly rulers and good-for-nothing presidential candidates with them.

I plan to hide another year or two in the jungle with the monkeys and other creatures like me, and then, return to the empty and forlorn cities of yesteryear. I expect everything to be in place. Living alone on earth is definitely much better than living under power-crazed, rule-breaking presidents and kings.