About Alien Idiom
Here we go. I am Kuf, an alien living inside the mind of the human, Happy Julius Pipe.
You are thinking, “Fuck off, Kuf. Who cares?” That is a fair reaction and a good question, but if you indulge me for two minutes.
Too soon? Okay, okay. Let me explain what this is.
Imagine you, reader, are about to take your seat on an airplane, just after the flight attendant gives you shit for putting your suitcase up sideways. You have the middle seat, between a woman with a crying baby and some schlepp approaching the aisle seat.
You are hungry and tired and probably should have used the bathroom before you boarded. As much as “hope” is a word that abides in your situation, your only hope is to take that sliver of armrest, a small comfort in this world.
Fortunately, the shitbag to your right doesn’t care about the armrest. He doesn’t notice you or the crying baby. The unpleasantness of the airplane leaves the man sitting next to you so unfazed that you wonder, if only for a moment, “Is he real?”
Did this human manifest from the horrors of commercial travel? His stature is average. Size: average. His face, fashion sense, and complexion are so easy to forget that you keep coming back to the question of his reality.
The flight takes off, and the baby howls. You would feel sorry for the woman shushing herself to exhaustion, but you are too busy questioning your life choices. “Why does this always happen to me?” you ask.
Why can’t you sit next to a long-legged professional who doesn’t want her pretzels?
And then you remember the unremarkable man to your right, who may or may not exist. Have you seen him before? On the park bench chewing a turkey sandwich? In the Starbucks line waiting for a black coffee?
You realize that you have seen him hundreds if not thousands of times: next to the NPC in every video game you have ever played, in the background of every movie you have ever seen.
You begin to wonder about the details of his life. The embers of his story burn at the forefront of your mind. The details form a clearer picture.
He is wearing a wedding ring, so married. He ignores the crying baby and tucks himself so thoroughly in his seat, that he has a super-human ability to block out noise. An ability like this can only mean he has a child, possibly children.
New questions arise.
What were his parents like? Did they push him to pursue their dreams? Did they encourage him to pursue his own? And what of those dreams?
He must be in his forties, halfway through a minimally decent life, except there appears to be another act in him, a bold second act.
You slide past this unremarkable fellow and make your way to the airplane bathroom. He smiles at you but keeps his eyes on his phone. He is typing something.
You notice his eyes: plain, simple, brown, artificially lit, except when you look more closely, you see something else reflecting in them, another person - no, not a person exactly. The word you are looking for is “entity” or “being”. What you see must be a metaphor, a reflection, an archetype even. Nonetheless, the reflection is both astounding and off-putting. A separate intelligence resides inside this human.
An alien? The man who forfeits the comforts of his armrest has an alien inside him?
The truth is weird, even for you. So you open Substack and start reading on the airplane toilet. By happenstance - or divine intervention - you stumble into this very Substack, Alien Idiom. For the fuck of it, you subscribe.
Congratulations!
You are officially inside the About section. You return to your seat.
The reader returns to his seat.
That’s you, right here, in Alien Idiom, next to an unremarkable sleeping hero. You text your mother that you made a cameo on a Substack about the man in 11C. You keep reading. You learn:
The name of the shitbag sitting next to you is Happy Julius Pipe.
Happy is destined to move on from this world on November 11, 2035.
There is an interdimensional being named Kuf imprisoned in his mind.
Kuf is searching for Happy’s lost stories to publish on this Substack.
Happy is unaware of Kuf’s existence.
The reader has so many questions.
Look at you, thinking up words in the About section. Crushing it!
But seriously, how did Happy end up so unremarkable? How can a person tuck himself into a coach seat with such ease? How can anyone be unaware of an alien imprisoned in his mind? And what of this alien?
Who is Kuf, anyway?
What stories can he possibly find? And why do you want to read them?
The answer to the last question might be because they are free and will remain free for some time.
The best things in life are free (you sigh and prepare to leave the About section).
What’s next?
Indeed. I have shown just enough of this project to revert to the first person. But I must leave you for now.
I can say that about once a month, you will receive a story; by a “story,” I mean a lost piece of writing that I find in Happy’s mind and publish here. And in good time, based on the status of my parole application, I will send the reader updates on my situation, how I came into Happy’s mind, and from where.
Remember, I am the curator of this Substack, the handsome alien narrator, Kuf.
Stay tuned reader, stay tuned.
Kuf out
