THE TURQUOISE PEN

FRIEND OF MINE FINDS MARTIAN

Noël R. King

My friend Joanne discovered a little Martian in her bathroom a few days ago. At least that’s what she thinks it is.

"It’s hard to say," she told me over the phone last night. "I mean, it could just be something prehistoric, that’s hidden out in the caves and stuff deep down underground until this point in time."

"But something makes you think this thingy is a Martian?" I asked.

"Well, yes," she answered. "I do have reason to believe that."

"Please tell me more," I invited her. So she did.

"Well, it’s got little tentacles on the top of its head," she said, "and, of course, it’s got a green tinge to its body, all over. But its tongue is nice and pink. I was kinda relieved about that," she told me. "Something with a little pink tongue can hardly be bad, can it?"

"No," I said. "No, it can’t be very bad if it’s got a little pink tongue."

"Good, that’s what I thought," she said. "But what you wouldn’t expect is how nice it is," she enthused.

"It gets my oatmeal for me in the morning, it turns my TV off for me when I tell it to, and it puts the toothpaste on my toothbrush just before I leave for work in the mornings. Also, it is very quiet at night when I am trying to fall asleep. I think it likes me."

I said yes it sounded like it.

"The other thing is that it eats weird stuff, like old paint chips in my laundry room. It kinda burbles when it eats," my friend said.

"It really makes that crud sound yummy. I bet paint tastes kinda chalky, like a good vanilla rice pudding," my friend said.

"I should go feed it some more from Duron Paint."

"Listen. I gotta go," I told my friend who would not stop talking over the phone to me about her Martian she found in the bathroom.

"You’d believe anything I told you, wouldn’t you? You mean you thought I really had a Martian living at my house! Wheeeeeeeee!"

That Joanne. Why did I ever let her be my friend?

—As circumstances warrant, through her Turquoise Pen column Noël R. King, Reston, Virginia, reports on strange and wonderful things, including friends who find Martians.