I was sitting at my computer choosing my next three (3) Netflix® movies when Xrytspet came on. She was sitting on top of our TV cabinet eating a banana she had stolen from the kitchen.

Hack Writer: Get out, Xrytspet!

Xrytspet: I see you misled the Times-News. I don’t see why they did a biography on you. You are so dumb. How could the Times-News think you were serious about seeing Big Foot on the Snake River and look up that ad you said you put in their paper looking for new members to join that bogus scouting society of yours to help you keep an eye out for Big Foot? Foot? . I saw Phontos at a garage sale in Miami the other day and told him about it. He thought he was very funny.

Hack Writer: My organization is not fake. We keep our eye on Phontos, the last Chicano. So, I didn’t put the ad. That is poetic license.

Xrytspet: Some poem you wrote for Christmas. What does it mean?

Hack Writer: It means that the Army has women with children serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who should be home with their children. The boy’s letter to Santa wants him to bring her mother home. It also means keep your nose out of my computer.

Xrytspet: I can go find her!

Hack Writer: There is no specific one for it. It’s just a poem. Let me read you:

a child’s prayer

Santa please bring mom home

by

taylor jones

Dear Santa, please listen to my words this day,

At Christmas our mother is away.

She goes to war with the National Guard.

I play alone in my backyard.

with little Bill and Mary Jane;

They cry at night as if in pain.

Because they love our mommy

And I also.

Please Santa look what you can do

To bring our mom home.

We pray at night with our daddy

That mommy will be protected-

That she will come home-

That she will be safe and will no longer wander

To distant lands across the sea.

please santa help me

And bring our mom home?

I see a tear in Dad’s eye.

I hear our grandmother sigh

out of grievance,

Because of us.

We three children are a riot-

Adding more silver to grandma’s hair

Because your mommy is not here.

Santa, can you bring our mom home?

Dad says you’re magical.

My wish is more practical:

Just bring our mama home in your big sleigh

And tell him never to go

To fight a war in foreign lands.

Please, Santa, bring our mommy home.

Xrytspet: I get it! Bad poetry, but I get it.

Hack Writer: When you steal a banana, don’t take the old brown ones. Take a green one. Give me that shell. Oh, I should have known. You’re saving it for dessert.

Xrytspet: Wow! I hurt your feelings again. You have to get rid of your humanoid feelings. I like my bananas ripe, as ripe as I can get them.

Hack Writer: That’s the problem. Pat will wonder what happened to his ripe banana. She knows I won’t eat them that way. If I say, “Xrytspet ate it! She’s going to say I’m crazy.

Xrytspet: Right!

Hack Writer: Go away!

Xrytspet: “I have good news for you.”

Next thing I knew I was on the FnL7 Time Craft Jupiter shot pass.

Hack Writer: That must be the new red spot.

Xrytspet: Correct. Almost as big as your puny Earth.

Hack Writer: So?

Xrytspet: Here we are. Triton.

Hack Writer: And?

Xrytspet: Can’t you see it?

Hack Writer: See what? Isn’t that just some of NASA’s orbiting space junk?

Xrytspet: Here’s a closer look.

Hack Writer: Wow! A space ship. What in it?

Xrytspet: It’s from Seeablee at G19000299992999. Its trapped!

Hack Writer: What do you mean trapped? If we get any closer, he’ll be blown out of here.

Xrytspet: Do you want to look inside?

Hack Writer: Is it safe?

In an instant we were inside.

Xrytspet: It’s been here since dinosaurs roamed the earth. They studied the dinosaurs but got stuck in orbit as they left the solar system. They wanted to take a look at Triton but they had a problem with the spacecraft and they couldn’t get out of Neptune’s orbit. They had no choice but to transport to Triton. That’s where they live.

Hack Writer: What is that?

Xrytspet: It is a record of the trip. See, this is what the dinosaurs looked like before the fuppftenoians from G2888994444 destroyed them.

HackWriter: Oh my gosh! That’s a lot of poop as in Jurassic Park. I thought a big rock from space had killed them.

Xrytspet: Right. But that object was knocked out of the asteroid belt when the fuppftenoians pushed another asteroid toward it.

Hack Writer: So You’ve Been Reading

Xrytspet: Not really.

Hack Writer: Write it? Can’t you help the people of Seeablee get this ship up and running again?

Xrytspet: It’s working. It was repaired eons ago. That’s why I’m here.

Hack Writer: What?

Xrytspet: I’m going to send it to the sun.

Hack Writer: Why? Don’t you know that NASA would love to have this baby?

Xrytspet: Yes! But the military would take it and use it to kill anything on the site. It has to be destroyed. I was ordered to destroy it and that is exactly what I will do.

Hack Writer: Are you going to catch the Seeablee people in G19000299992999?

Xrytspet: What friends? They have become sea monsters. They could care less. Also, there is no life in G19000299992999 anymore. You can’t imagine what happens when galaxies collide.

Hack Writer: I thought they just fit.

Xrytspet feels the spaceship lurch toward the sun. When the fuel ran out, he left behind a sunspot the size of Texas that was duly noted by the United States Navy:

“We have an anomaly, sir.”

The end

copyright © 2007 John T. Jones, Ph. D. (Taylor Jones the Hack Writer)