when my uncle stanley first got abducted by aliens it was alarming to say the least. he was real shook up about it the morning after, and the first thing he did was call the local sheriff in his small town somewhere in kansas. the sheriff didn’t believe him. so he called the fbi. they wouldn’t even take his call. so he shrugged it off and tried to go about his life like nothing happened.

the first time he was abducted, he woke up staring at the curtains of a tapestry bed he was lying in. they were pink with little purple flowers arching up towards the ceiling. the sheets matched. he sat up, startled and a little pissed, and pushed his way through to the larger prison outside; a 10 by 10 room with a ceiling that was at least 50 feet above him. the walls and floor were made out of metal and there were no doors or windows or any breaks in the pure sheerness of the thing. there was nothing else in the room but that damn tapestry bed and stan.
the walls started to speak in french.

the second time, a couple of months later, it wasn’t really as bad. i mean, they weren’t actually sticking anything uncomfortable up any strange orifices or even cutting him open or anything. in fact, it seemed like they mostly just wanted to talk. about feelings.

“what do you want with me?” stan screamed at those metal walls.
“oh… um… sorry if we inconvenienced you at all. we just had some… erm… questions.” the walls said back to him in, startlingly enough, his own voice.
“oh. i guess that’s ok.”
“so… how do you do… umm… make babies”
“well, when a man loves a wom-”
“loves?”

stan never had much luck with love. he never really found anyone worth marrying, and now he spent his days fixing small things around town. love was something that happened to young people, and he had missed his chance.

“i guess it’s a feeling that some people have right before they fu- have sex.”
“do people ever ‘love’ with things that aren’t people?”
“why?”

and then stan suddenly, and unceremoniously, found himself with a terrible headache in the middle of the field behind his house. he didn’t even bother calling the sheriff, but instead made a cup of coffee.

the third time he got abducted by the aliens there were flowers in the room. they were the same color as the sheets on the tapestry bed.

and the fourth time, he never came back.