This is my entry to The 31 Sentence Contest Round 6 by @tristancarax. It is a contest based on creating a story with 31 sentences exactly, and each sentence has a set number of words allowed. For more information on joining the challenge see this post:
The Man From Renarc
I’ve been a doodler for several years. I keep them all. I use them in ways that a normal person would never guess, even if they really, truly wanted to know. These doodles are special because they come into being when I, for all intents and purposes, am unconscious.
It all began seventeen years ago, when I was contacted by a man that had six fingers and said he was from the planet Renarc, the pronunciation of which is ree-nark. He told me that I could leave my body if I really, truly wanted to. But why would I though?
He told me about how I could meet famous people when I am out of body, like Marilyn Monroe, which caused me to be even more skeptical of his story. He had sensed my doubt however. He made it clear he was for real.
He told me he would prove it by making me draw images on paper, and that I would draw the images without knowing. I told him that even if that could possibly happen, I still wouldn’t be able to confirm his involvement anyway, if I didn’t know that I had drawn them. Touché.
He had an answer though; he’d use mental telepathy. This was around the time when mental telepathy and ESP had become popular subjects of discussion at parties and social gatherings. The evening TV sitcoms were even writing them into their scripts. Some of the sci-fi shows at the time also used them in some of their episodes.
He said I should have a pad of paper and colored pens when I go to bed and put them where I can reach them. He assured me that he would be taking care of the rest.
At the time, I was young man - a kid really - just out of high school, working in a steel mill. It was the same steel mill where Robert Deniro’s character in the movie, The Deer Hunter worked, before he got shipped off to Vietnam. My title was “product piler,” which meant I manually stacked steel beams, with another “piler” at the other end.
Harold was an inspector at the mill, and I’d met him on break. He was a middle-age guy that seemed to be fairly intelligent and somewhat odd. He was alien.
Was he?
The day that I would test his theory started like any other day, but when break time arrived I told Harold that I was all prepared. He looked me in the eye and said, “I know.” The time had come; the time when I would discover if Harold was truly what he claimed to be and could do what he claimed he could do.
When I awoke the next morning, I picked up the pad and realized I had indeed drawn doodles on the top sheet, in more than one color. At break, I started describing the doodles, when Harold showed me a duplicate and asked, “Like this?”
The Man From Renarc © free-reign 2019
