Big shoes to fill

A truly sentient being in the heart of the wilderness. He loved the idea. Therefore he devoted his entire life to find this creature.

Didn’t even realize that most of the time he was that sentient being in the middle of nowhere. He preferred it there, no one to make fun of him, no one to point out the futility of his endeavor, no one to gallantly remind him of his delusion.

Governments spent billions on SETI type of research, and hundreds of brilliant minds committed their intellect to find extraterrestrial life. It was obvious that there was intelligent life out there and it was just a question of time to make contact. And this was OK. The whole world accepted that as science.

But his pursuit was labeled foolish. Although it wasn’t just his quest, there were other unwavering individuals too who searched for the same being. Beings. Who shared his conviction. He wasn’t alone. Well, generally speaking, he wasn’t, nevertheless, these like-minded people were far and few between. Probably out in the wild themselves, seeking for this magnificent beast, or at least irrefutable clues that this creature exists.

One balmy spring day, after thoroughly inspecting a few large footprints that turned out to be all grizzly paws he heard a faint rustle in the bushes. The unmistakable sound of a creature moving.

Hiding behind a tree he peeked out, ready to act as necessary, camera in one hand, baseball bat in the other. First, he detected a bright green twig sticking out of the bush, then another, then a third and a fourth, only to realize that the twigs were arms and legs. Followed by a thin torso and a big bulky head. All green. Except for the big almond-shaped eyes that were black. Clearly, this was an Alien.

Not what he expected.

Not what he was searching for.

Yet he couldn’t help but frown on how average this Alien was. Exactly how it was imagined by everybody everywhere. How dull.

It was evidently not at home in the forest, its rustling would have disturbed every creature in two miles radius.

‘Hey!’ The man shouted at the Alien as he took a small step towards it.
‘Yes?’ Replied the Alien as it leaped 30 yards to be right next to the man. This alarmed the guy a bit.
‘Would you keep it down!’
‘Keep the what where?’ Enquired the Visitor.
‘Be quiet!’
‘You’re the one who is yelling.’ The Alien whispered.
‘Because you were causing such a commotion in the bushes!’
‘I thought that is recommended in this environment. Alert the large creatures from a distance so they can avoid you. The animals living in this zone won’t attack humans unless startled.’
‘What the hell you’re on about? Alert animals of your presence? That’s nuts!’
‘Is it? Oh, I’m sorry. So far I’ve been only studying this planet remotely, today is my first day in the field. You’re the first animal from this world that I made contact with. Greetings!’
‘Who you call an animal?! Huh?’ The guy retorted, clearly unflattered by this grand historic encounter. ‘How come you speak English anyway?’
‘I’ve been remotely studying you and learned every language on your planet.’
He stared at the alien with piercing eyes, which the Alien endured peacefully.
‘So you studied us?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Thoroughly?!’
‘Yes, very. Remotely scanned and learned everything and now I commenced some field trips to prove a few of my theories.’
‘Did you examine wildlife too?’
‘Yes, all.’
‘Did you find Bigfoot?’
‘Bigfoot? Give me a second, I am skimming through my files,’ the Alien said and just stood there motionless. ‘No, nothing.’ It declared after a while.
‘Nothing? Nothing about Bigfoot? You studied everything meticulously and you have nothing about the greatest mystery of all?’
‘I only checked my wildlife database, as from the context of your query I presumed that your question is wildlife related. I will now go through all of my folders.’ And the Alien froze while browsing in his database. Must be some sort of mental database, our guy theorized. Either stored in his brains or he can gain access remotely to a central database. Nevertheless, the Alien just stood there, without flinching but our guy was getting restless. Crickets were chirping, a squirrel curiously peeked towards these two characters just standing there between a rare flower and a bear dung. Birds tweeted and not so far a twig snapped. Could have been anything. Could have been Bigfoot as well. The guy was really annoyed now, this damned Alien will cause me to miss Bigfoot.
‘Ah, got it!’ The Alien exclaimed.
‘You got Bigfoot?’ The guy exclaimed incredulously.
‘Yes. I was looking in the incorrect folder. As I stated, at first I looked in the wildlife folder, but now I discovered it in an other one. I’ve filed it under “Myth and folklore”.’
‘You what?’ He exclaimed and he stiffened his grip on his bat. ‘You traveled billions of lightyears to be a silly denier? I expected you people to be more open-minded!’
’I am open-minded. And there is no “us people”, I am on my own. I believe that you would be surprised to learn about my existence. In your world, you always need a large number of individuals to keep up a healthy population in any species. But not in my case and that is because… ’
‘Yeah, that’s nice. So how come you suggest that Bigfoot is a myth?’
‘I examined every inch of this globe and collaborated my conclusions with all your findings from all your publications and though I did uncover quite a few creatures that are unknown to humans I can unequivocally say that there is nothing out there remotely matching the definition of Bigfoot. So I placed it in the myth folder, along with dragons and fairies and Gods.’
‘So that’s it? You show up here from God knows where and you inform me there is no Bigfoot?’
‘Where I am from has no bearing on life on Earth. I am merely relying on the extensive research I’ve done in the last two hundred years.’

‘Damn you! DAAAAMN YOU! Damn you, damn you, damn you, damn you, damn you, damn you. Damn you, damn you. Damn you.’ The guy roared until he ran out of breath, though he might have been gasping for air because he punctuated every “damn” with a stroke of his bat.

‘The nerve on this freak! Telling me there is no Bigfoot. Absurd! I taught him now.’ He chuckled to himself as he left the scene. ‘I buried it so deep these UFO fanatics will never locate it.’

Since I can’t compel you to stay as there are laws against it why don’t you do it on your own? Stick around and read more of my short stories. All of them are amazing. Well, most of them are. OK, honestly, some of them are. Why don’t you decide for yourself? Take a look around –> Here’s a map!

Or, if you’re really adventurous, get off the beaten track and read a random story!