Stranger Danger

There is a strange weather report and suddenly the power goes off and John is alone at home. He sits stupidly for a few moments, as if not knowing what to do, but then gets up and looks out the window. He sees that none of his neighbours have power either and sits back down in the dark, wondering if a wire had burnt out at the power station. Concluding that this matter was decidedly uninteresting, he starts to reflect on the peculiar news report he had just seen. The weather man, Harry Bates, whom John has known to be a pretty unpleasant fellow, had just been talking of strange objects in the sky that people were reporting to see. John wondered what objects they could have been, and since there obviously was nothing more heroic to do, he sat on his couch and thought. His thoughts then turned to more earthly matters like his cat, and he took her in his lap and started, stupidly again, staring into nothingness and stroking her.
His idleness was suddenly interrupted by bright flashing lights and very loud noise of what sounded like an aircraft coming from his backyard. He put the cat away and headed out. To his immense surprise there he saw what looked like a flying saucer landing. Out of the saucer, to John’s horror, two large and green beings emerged, with large egg-like heads and funny black eyes. As they approached him, he felt himself being concerningly distracted not by the aliens but by the damage the saucer would probably leave on his perfectly tended lawn.
 “We … come … in … peace”, said the first green alien as it came up to John.
“Oh!”, John managed to cough out .
“We…no...do...harm”, the alien barked in a strange, animated voice.
John stared in shock, and the aliens stared back. After a while, when nothing happened, the alien decided to speak.
“We…come...for...four-leg...fur animal.”
John gaped at the alien and managed a feeble “What?” before leaning on the doorway to support himself.
The alien proceeded to take out a large manual and perused its contents for a while. An awkward couple of seconds passed before the alien barked again.
“We...come…for… cat”.
“My cat! You want my cat?”, John replied, thinking to himself what on Earth would want little Nancy.
Oh, wait.
“Yes,” said the alien, “we come for four-leg fur called cat.”
Right on cue, Nancy the cat came strolling out the door and John unconsciously picked her up.
“But why do you want my cat?”, John asked.
“We want master of this world that is fur called cat. Give cat and will go.” replied the alien.
Just at that moment, as if comprehending the exchange, Nancy began scratching and biting John’s hands. The alien immediately grabbed her.
“Thank you, bag of water...” the alien started to say, but then handed Nancy to the other and flipped through his book again.
“... bag of water called hooman.”, the alien finished, visibly pleased with himself, and turned to walk back to the saucer.
John managed a feeble “bye” and wobbled into the house. He vaguely heard the saucer fly away and then the power came back on.
John managed to get to bed before passing out. When he awoke the next morning, he comforted himself in believing it to be a strange dream. However, he found no cat, and when he fervently ran to his backyard to see if the previous night’s adventure was real, he saw the saucer-like impression the ship left on his prized tulip patch.
None of the neighbours could quite agree why John Shallock had fainted on his back porch, but he will always remember why he didn’t win that year’s Best Garden Award.
And what happened to poor Nancy?
Well, that’s another story!