Your Imaginary Holiday On Another Planet

A visit to another planet. Write an imaginary account.

I was training under Pittacus Lore. He was a cruel taskmaster. Never let you slack and also didn’t you give to eat. We were building a spaceship. He was continuously on his radio set which he kept locked in a shed behind the main house. We stayed far from the madding crowd surrounded by paddy fields.

One day, he came running and waving his redshirt. He was shouting, ‘Eureka!’ I laughed and told him not to ape Archimedes.

He caught me by the scruff of my neck and tugged me into the barn. I saw the spaceship was fired and ready to boom. He pulled me inside and we flew up in the sky. Suddenly I started feeling queasy as we had crossed the Stratosphere. Pittacus asked me to strap myself and lie down. I pushed my recliner and lay moaning. Pittacus was hail and hearty. I asked him why the rarefied atmosphere was not affecting him. He said that he had been taking antihistamines to protect his immune system during the voyage. I glared at him angrily. He grudgingly handed me the capsules.

We were racing towards outer space. Pittacus had made contact with his host on Ceres, the largest asteroid. The aliens had sent us the coordinates of their planet. We were flying towards it.

After seventy-two hours and twenty-five minutes and eighteen seconds, we made contact with a solid surface. We had landed on Ceres. Pittacus was excited. He had brought gifts for his hosts. He was going to give a sack of paddy, tomatoes, and potatoes as a present to his host. I wondered what they were like. Would they imprison us or treat us like kings.

The hatch door opened and we climbed down to harsh sunlight but cold weather. There was a crowd of green ETs standing to welcome us. They had swords in their hand. They began to play the trumpets and drums. Some began to dance. Suddenly they launched their swords into the air. They did this three times. They were giving us a gun salute in their own way. The swords made a clanging sound.

When I handed over the gifts to the chief he guffawed loudly. He said in sign language that they did not need food as they ate sunlight. I was horrified.

We were taken around their small planet. It was as big as our largest city, Kolkata. They lived in red sandstone igloos. Every fifteen minutes they had to come into the sunlight to charge themselves. So there was a party after every fifteen minutes. They would beat the drums and dance to charge faster.

We stayed a fortnight and learned about their customs. We had gathered a lot of information about their soil and minerals. We had to return back to Earth as we were running out of fuel.

Everyone came to give us a marvelous farewell. We invited them to our planet but they shook their head and looked afraid. I told Pittacus that the aliens were not coming because they were afraid of us. He scoffed at me.

We landed on Earth at 1200 hours. It was midnight. The trip to Ceres had been thought-provoking as well as mind-blowing.