The Last Christmas On Earth

EPISODE III-9

"Like an invasion of Visitors," Viewer teased again.

"I don't think so, that one there has already been a long time ago," the professor replied, looking into his eyes so seriously that he made him uncomfortable. "I'd rather say from a huge catastrophe or maybe, why not, from both things," he said later.

"Come on! Who would believe you? ... It's been years since radio, television, priests and weird sects fill our heads with this crap! First with Nostradamus in 2000, then with the Mayans in 2012 and then with others and still others ... but instead, as it happens, we are still all alive and well!" Replied Earl Riise with sufficiency.

"Yes ... For now!" The professor agreed, using a very hardly reassuring tone of voice. Then he continued: "The sightings and the presumed contacts in the last two years have multiplied exponentially, as well as the cataclysms and the environmental catastrophes. Do you have any idea how many animal and plant species have become extinct only in the last semester?" Questioned Hamilton and everyone, except Lia Robson, shook their heads in denial.

"And maybe it's better this way! Now take a look at these images: they testify to the events that took place less than a week ago in Knox County, Maine" the professor urged them showing photos of the mummified corpses. "Those that now look like secular mummies, up until a few days ago were two of our smartest Men in Black. You have no idea of the effort that our specialized team had to make to recover them and cancel all the evidence of their passage from there."

"Oh, God!" Margareth blurted out aloud as a dismayed buzz filled the room. The scientists were asking each other if the same fate would not befall them too.

"Despite the fact we are all attached to our certainties, we must give evidence that things are happening everywhere in the world ... the time to open our eyes has come," the professor calmly considered.

"Please forgive me, Mr. President, but I have far more important matters to worry about than those of your secret cult affairs," Riise snapped, causing some surprise in the audience. Probably no other person in the world would have ever dreamed of contacting the President of the United States that way. The President looked at him without a word, except to move his lower back in the chair by an imperceptible measure to rest the aching half at the expense of the other part. "Professor Riise, when you agreed to follow my agents, did they explain that you are free to leave at any time?" He asked.

"Yes, honestly they did," he confirmed.

"So you are aware that if you are not interested, as indeed you have just politely pointed out to us, you can leave the room immediately. You need one word only and I assure you that within three hours someone will deposit you at the exact place where you were when invited to attend this meeting," the President informed him, maintaining a slightly off-putting attitude that did not, however, reveal the slightest disappointment.

"Thank you, Mr. President," Riise replied then, closing his copy of the file, then got up and took his steps toward the exit.

"With all due respect, Professor Hamilton, I believe that to clear up all these mysteries we would need to have them explained by a real alien. Other than Dr. Turner ..." Dr. Eagle dared to say between being serious and humorous, in an attempt to defuse that situation. Riise had already opened the door, but had an intuition and stopped, curious to hear Professor Hamilton's reply.

"You're absolutely right, right now what we need most is just an alien in the flesh," the professor replied, looking at him in a way that made a little bell ring in many of the present's heads.

Luke repeated again in his head that the attendant had been honest because Spring's cooking had proven to be really simple and tasty. While waiting for Sally to serve him the second course, he looked at the half-deserted room and found it strange that despite all those qualities the Motel had so few customers. But in any case he found it a positive thing, after all, it was better this way, because certainly he would not have been ignored. Sally came out of the kitchen and walked towards him holding a steaming dish in her hand, she had just finished grilling her spicy Mexican chicken breasts in the oven. Arriving more or less halfway, she stopped in front of the service station man, who had just entered holding a book under his arm and was pulling straight towards the staircase that led to the upper floor.

"Leonard, where are you going?" Sally asked.

"Upstairs, where do you want me to go?" He replied mildly.

"Your dinner will get cold," the woman replied.

"I'm not hungry, I have three gallons of lemonade floating in my stomach and even today I couldn't read the last three pages of this novel," said Leonard. Feeling observed he turned in Luke's direction and he smiled at him raising his arm. Leonard responded with a pained grimace that wanted to be a polite smile.

"Come on, bring that dish to that gentleman, can't you see he's waiting for you?" He said brusquely to his wife.

"All right, I'll join you later," she replied, blushing at his reproach.

"Excuse me, my husband may look like a bear but he's not that bad ..." Sally said to Luke, handing him the plate.

"Don't worry, I exchanged two words the day before yesterday at the gas station and he didn't seem so bad to me ... he was the one who advised me about this place."

"He used to be different, he was much nicer with me, but as the years went by, he somehow dried up," she explained to him in a very low voice as if she was talking alone.

"He neglects you a lot, doesn't he?" Luke ventured confidently. The woman jerked her head up and looked around, surprised and worried, almost as if Mc January had just uttered an inviolable secret.

"I ... forgive me, I didn't want to be intrusive," Luke hastened to apologize.

"No, it doesn't matter ... anyway, I sit that clear, eh?"

"If I have to be honest I think a beautiful and kind woman like you, who in addition cooks so divinely, would certainly deserve much more attention."

"Oh, I ..." she mumbled more and more embarrassed. Then, not finding what to answer, she invited him to eat and ran away with an excuse. He watched her disappear into the kitchen and smiled satisfied, he had just recruited a collaborator at no cost.