{"story":"Once at wit’s end, no chance to mend, could do no more but cry.\nWithout a friend, at life’s dead-end, I screamed out to the sky,\n“Dost thou intend to ever send an angel from up high,\nTo come attend and finally mend this man you left awry?\n\nAre we in Nod, a punished squad of sinners that pervert…\nThe rules of God, and now must trod a planet full of hurt.\nYou like the rod, you like to prod, you heavenly brownshirt!\nSo, this poor sod, even if odd, shall now at once convert.\n\nWith no faith left, spirit bereft, I call out to afar.\nSo come here deft, all life that’s left upon some distant star.\nThis planet’s *italicseffed*end*italics, and all that’s left is misery. We are…\nOf heart with cleft and heavy heft. Please, come to mend our scar.”\n\nOn May the third, with no prior word, the alien arrived,\nHe said he’d heard from far my word, of how I was deprived,\nSo he had spurred his xeno herd, and thus they had contrived,\nA plan preferred and well-referred to make my life revived\n\n“You seem upset, I shall abet, I listen and am learning.\nI heard your set and do regret your issues so concerning.\nBut do not fret, for we have met to fix your planet’s yearning,\nAnd so have set your Earth to get a healthy dose of burning. \n\nNone of mankind would be inclined to frown if they were dead.\nNo one could find their hopes resigned while decomposed in bed.\nSee, you’ve outlined an Earth declined and we propose instead,\nTo leave behind your world outlined in bright, eternal red.\n\nYes, that is right, we shall delight in setting you on fire,\nA flash of light, sky burning white, and all of you’ll expire,\nFor that will smite, all fear and blight, all longing and desire.\nThen, no more plight, just the delight of void or heaven’s choir.\n\nSo, please just bear while we prepare our planetary laser.\nSmash chinaware, have an affair, become a drunk hellraiser,\nblow up times square, no one will care, tomorrow we will blaze her.\nYour ground and air will be nowhere, your moon: a new stargazer.”\n\n“Um… If I may, to your dismay, this plan I must protest.\nI really pray another way you choose. That would be best.\nOf course, I say, fiery doomsday, will leave grief disposessed,\nBut on the way, will do away with… well, all the rest.\nYou see, although, as I did show, it’s true, I don’t like pain,\nIf you do go and make aglow this Earth, ’twould be in vain,\nFor you must know that, yes, although no sadness would remain,\nI’d go also, and would have no more joy ever again.”\n\n“Aha, I see, your second plea, you’d like some happiness.\nLeave that with me. I do decree our answer will be ‘Yes!’\nSo, presently, you shall be free of all your Earthly stress,\nBut *italicsalso*end*italics we can guarantee pleasure to the excess.\n\nMy will be thine, by your design, I’ll send for all the jugs…\nOf Neptunes wine with taste divine you’ll gorge on it like drugs.\nAnd Vega Nine has beer so fine I’ll bring ten billion mugs,\nJust one warm stein I do opine can feel like heaven’s hugs.”\n\n“Err.. Just before you go to your far planets and acquire…\nYour wondrous store of beer. I’m sure there’s more that I require.\nI underscore I can’t ignore the profits of desire,\nBut I impore that I need more. I yearn for something higher.\n\nIt is not news that many blues and sadness disappear,\nWhen one man whose life’s with his brews continues beer to beer.\nI can’t refuse, that to abuse the drink is fun all year.\nBut what is booze, if we can’t choose to drink it with a peer.\n\nTo drink alone, it’s widely known, would boost my poor morale,\nBut its been shown that on my own that it cannot corral…\nThe deeper tone that life has thrown upon my heart and shall…\nGrind this man’s throne, down to the bone without a rationale.”\n\n“Aha! Of course, we see the source of why your spirit’s dropped,\nWhy in remorse you plead out hoarse that pain of yours be stopped.\nYour life is coarse but we’ll divorce your pain and you’ll adopt…\nChance to endorse and reinforce a joy that can’t be topped.\n \nYou have no friends, and that extends to family as well,\nAnd to what ends? Loneliness rends a heart. Oh, I can tell…\nThat truth intends and recommends an alien magic spell,\nTo make amends. It heals, it mends the lack of personnel.\n\nYour friendship suite is obsolete it cannot be disguised,\nFame incomplete, clique disrepete, coterie minimised.\nIt is concrete you shall defeat your repute stigmatised.\nFor on the street each soul you meet shall soon be hypnotised.\n\nThere’ll be no dame that will not claim you. All men will despair.\nBut they won’t blame you or defame you if you only stare.\nA look of aim will henceforth tame each person then and there,\nTo then proclaim your very name the fairest of the fair.”\n\n“I’m sorry, What? It’s surely not the right thing that I heard.\nDid you just plot that if I shot a look and spoke the word,\nThat all I spot would at once trot to my demand? Absurd!\nYou have forgot that man is not a spineless zebra herd.\n\nYou are naive to then perceive to any small degree,\nThat I conceive that to receive this power dreamed by thee,\nThat aims to weave and then deceive the mind of each I see.\nI do believe that to achieve achieve true joy, man must be free.”\n\nMy alien mate, at rapid rate was ready to reply,\nBut still was late as I would state before he spoke that I…\nWould not abate any debate from now on. “Instead, fly…\nTo space, don’t wait. Please now go straight back to your home. Goodbye!”\n\nIt seems I gave above a wave a little bit too fast.\nSeems, as a knave, I did behave with folly unsurpassed.\n’Twas a close shave. Near did enslave all mankind to the last,\nBut I still crave someone to save me from my sorrowed past.\n\n\nCopyright © Evan C. Lewis, 2026"}