1

Howie wasn’t quite sure what shocked him the most. The fact that there was a stranger in a glaringly bright silver suit who introduced himself as ‘Kevin’ and claimed that he was from Planet Narrs; or, that said stranger had pointed his index finger, hovering inches over Howie’s chest, and said that he had been chosen to help him save his Planet.

He was sure Halloween wasn’t for another five months and even so, Kevin looked over thirty, too old to play trick or treat.

It was practically boiling, here in Florida, and Howie was standing in front of the Littrell’s porch, waiting on the Burrows to arrive any moment now to have a look around the property. He was hoping to clinch the deal, 10% to his commission would totally help with his own mortgage problems. Besides, the Littrells are a wealthy client and Howie would hate to lose them to another agent who didn’t really need the ten percent like he does.

So he really wasn’t quite sure what to say to this, supposedly, alien person. He scratched at the phantom stubble on his chin lightly before saying, “So what do you call yourself, Narrsians?”

2.

It’s Narrseusians, thank you very much.

And apparently, there’s a battle between good and evil going on in Planet Narrs. How else do you explain the drastic climate changes here on Earth? Kevin had pointed out. Howie figured the terms pollution and global warming had no effect on the alien and decided it wasn’t even the reply Kevin was expecting anyway.

Howie also decided that he’d add ‘fashionably late’ on his list of all things Burrows.

Also, he was disappointed to find out that aliens truly have bad taste in fashion and that they speak English. Oh also, Kevin wasn’t green and didn’t spot any feeler-like antennas for ears.

“Look, I’m sorry you’re having a war and all that but I honestly don’t know how I can help you,” Howie said. “My country is at war in Iraq and I’m still selling houses in Florida.”

Howie was also very surprised at how calm he was about the entire thing. This could be a joke, there could be a camera hidden somewhere nearby and a week from now the entire America would know about the stupid Floridian Real Estate Agent who totally fall for the prank.

He was also very sure that First of April had come and gone for a while now.

3.

So there’s this really cool design on Kevin’s forearm right? And it looked something like a Croatan tattoo his buddy AJ had on his shoulder. Only, get this, it glitters okay? And then Kevin sort of hover his left palm over the tattoo and the thing kind of came to life or some shit like that, and it became 3D, like a laser show or something. Made of awesome.

Now that was how Howie knew Kevin wasn’t lying.

4.

“Why me?” Howie asked as they walked back to his car because the Burrows are apparently liars who LIES and ought to stick their wealth where the sun doesn’t shine.

“You’re the Agent, aren’t you?” Kevin replied and entered the vehicle easily and Howie was almost tempted to ask if they have cars on his planet and if oil prices are as ridiculous as back here on Earth.

“I’m a real estate agent, Mr. Kevin.” And hoped he didn’t insult the alien by calling him Mister. Hey, in some parts of the world, burping after a meal is considered a compliment. ‘Mister’ could be a vulgar term on Narrs and Howie really would like to keep his head. “I sell properties, houses, you understand?”

5.

So there’s this thing that belong to Narrs that apparently holds the answer to end the war. It was supposed to be used on their final battle but apparently, it got blown to the wrong direction and landed here, on Earth.

“Did you not suffer a major storm a week ago Howard?”

“That was your fault?”

“Well yes.” Kevin replied easily. “We’ve been searching for the Fhaifean since then and our track traced it back here, on your earth.”

Howie decided that’s what the thing was called.

“And you somehow think I can find you this, Fhaif…yen?”

“We believe you will.” Kevin said. “You see Howie, we measure distance differently than you do and tracing it back to earth using our method only confuses us more. However, with some minor tweaking, we managed to convert the track into something humans can understand. Unfortunately, we don’t understand it ourselves.”

Howie couldn’t believe aliens use the term ‘tweaking’; he’d thought they’d come out with something fancy. So far, Planet Narrs doesn’t seem to be going anywhere with their influence. Howie would totally not uproot his life and live there. He figured such an invitation might be possible if he helped to find this Fhaifean thing. As a reward possibly. He was, after all, the Chosen One. Like Neo. Howie likes Neo’s coat, very much.

6.

Friggin’ coordinates. He hates Geography, always has been. Back in school, Geography and him are like old enemies. And Maths too, because they have coordinates in Chapter 12, Graphs.

“I don’t understand this term.” Kevin said as he showed a hologram map of the coordinates.

Howie decided all those talks about aliens being way smarter than humans are bull crap.

But for the first time also, Howie felt connected with Kevin and his kind, because they don’t understand coordinates.

And that hologram stunt was totally cool.

7.

It landed in the backyard of what used to be the house of one Nick Carter. The storm kind of went away with his house and left behind 2 pillars and the 3 steps to the front door and a backyard that now looked like a tornado had hit it. Well…

The kid wasn’t happy. Apparently it was his first house and he’d worked hard to buy it. Howie slipped him his card, with the Littrells’ property in the back of his mind, promised the young man a good bargain, and then finished it off with ‘can we take a look around your backyard?’

Nick Carter referred to it as a dumpster, gave Kevin the once over that totally said ‘which planet did this guy come from?’, (Howie couldn’t totally blame the kid, that silver suit summed up a lot about a person) and left.

8.

It’s a crystal ball, that’s what it is. It’s round, transparent, totally like the mini version of the one he saw Ron and Harry was gazing lazily during Divination in that Harry Potter movie.

He couldn’t believe this tiny thing caused a storm across Florida!

But Kevin was happy and he took the thing and kept it safe under his suit.

“You’ve been a great help Howie.” Kevin smiled.

Howie was just thankful his rusty grasp on coordinates didn’t fail him today. He might have totally miscalculated the thing and pointed them both to somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Now wouldn’t that be something?

“It’s just some coordinates.”

“This could be the answer to freedom and peace in my planet.” Kevin stressed.

Howie wanted to ask if this means there’ll be no more storms and drastic climate changes and if he could possibly use the ball to put peace on earth too, but to be honest, Howie wasn’t ready to know the answers behind those questions.

“Well then, I’m glad I was able to help.”

9.

Their last stop was surprisingly an abandoned building.

Kevin started wandering around the place and Howie decided it was wise to just shut up and follow.

They stopped at the fifth floor and Kevin stood there facing two adjoining walls, studying them as if they were a piece of art.

“This will do.” Kevin said. Howie just nodded because yea, totally weird out still.

Then the amazing thing happened. Kevin’s suit started changing and he was now spotting a pair of black leather pants, a black top with a silhouette of a shapely woman across his chest underneath a red wine jacket. Also, snake skin shoes. Huh.

“Why didn’t you wear this just now?”

Kevin’s eyes went wide, as if the very words that just came out of Howie’s mouth were blasphemous.

“I can’t wear this on earth! Humans will know I’m an alien!” Kevin exclaimed. “This is my army uniform back at Narrs.”

And just when Howie was ready to give up on Kevin and all of Narrseausians, something else got him stumped.

“Why are you…why are you squatting like that?”

Kevin had lowered himself to the corner of the two walls and while squatting down, held on to the two walls as if his very life depended on it.

“Why, I’m getting ready to leave.” Kevin replied.

“Of course...” Howie nodded. This could not go any weirder. “Because that’s totally…normal.”

“Goodbye Howie and on behalf of all my people, we thank you.”

Howie waved and smiled. “Sure thing.”

And before he knew it, Kevin started to buzz like static and was gone.

Howie was kind of disappointed that after helping out to save an alien race and it’s planet from extinction, nothing seemed to change for him. Still the regular real estate agent struggling to meet demands. This heroic crap is so overrated.

He looked around the building and decided it’s a nice place to invest on. A little bit of construction, a lot of decoration and he could sell this building off. It’d be awesome if he could promote the place as an ex-pod for aliens to teleport themselves to earth, but the agent figured that’d be pushing his luck way too much.