Henry Herbert Hildebrand had no idea what he was in for when he woke up on that clear Monday morning. He was aware of the dinosaur sleeping next to him, so conveniently given to him by the President of the United States mere days ago. He was aware of his surroundings; his giant deep sea submarine, lying in his underwater water bed, underwater. He knew his underwear was under the draw under the waterbed underwater. And he also understood this joke was over.

Henry quickly roused himself out of bed and slipped on a nice robe, some casual slacks, and reached for his bubble jar with which he used to light his bubble pipe. Reality slapped him like a slice of cold turkey to the face when he realized his bubble jar was empty. He considered refilling it and then quickly decided it wasn’t worth the bubble trouble. Sleepily meandering his way to the bathroom, reality once again slapped him hard like two slices of turkey to the face and one to the buttocks when he saw that his new dinosaur roommate had left the toilet paper roll with the underside up.

Sleepily meandering his way to the bathroom, reality once again slapped him hard like two slices of turkey to the face and one to the buttocks when he saw that his new dinosaur roommate had left the toilet paper roll with the underside up.

With a tinge of annoyance, he quickly stormed back to his room, looking to give his friend[1] a rude awakening.

Scrubles McGoo, for that is what Henry named his newfound dinosaur roommate, also had no idea what he was in for when he woke up that morning. Just as Henry was about to give Scrubles a good whack with his rattle, an immense noise blurted out of Henry’s television. The ear-blistering sound sent shivers down Henry and Scruble’s spines, and spilling a perfectly good jar of mayonnaise just all over the place. Really just everywhere it was a mess.

            The dastardly visage of the alien overlord who had recently finished his invasion of New York looked upon Henry and McGoo through the television screen, frequent static muffling his voice and covering up his features.

“HENRY AND SCRUBLES, YOU STAND NO CHANCE AGAINST OUR MIGHTY ARMADA. TURN BACK FROM NEW JERSEY WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” the alien exclaimed, a crazed tone in his disguised voice.

It is interesting to note that, after capturing New York City, the aliens coincidentally decided to rename it New Jersey, which meant, “High Exalted City of the Ancients” in their alien language. Henry chuckled sensibly to himself when he realized he could only think of four letter words to describe New Jersey in his language.

“How did those aliens learn to speak such perfect American?” Scrubles McGoo whispered to Henry, who was still lost in thought.

“I’m not sure Scrubles, but I’m not just gonna sit here while they make a mockery of our once great city!” yelled Henry, who had had enough.

“I agree, we need to get out there and make America great again!” Scrubles added. It was at this moment a ‘Trump 2016’ button fell from Scrubles pocket, and Henry suddenly thought about causing the second extinction of the dinosaurs.

Quickly turning off their television, Henry and Scrubles rushed to the pilot’s seats of their giant submarine and set a course right for New Jersyork… err New Yorksey… with hopes of finding the alien mothership. Because of time and budget restraints, the author carefully placed the alien mothership precisely five minutes away from where Henry and Scrubles had parked their submarine, and when they arrived they were even greeted with a pleasant little party complete with little hats and even littler cupcakes to coincide with the aforementioned little hats.

Once our courageous duo decided that playtime was over, they boarded the futuristic elevator that led up to bridge of the mothership, where the alien overlord resided. As the elevator skidded to a stop in the dark and smoky antechamber of the ship, a dark, looking shadow approached the now not-so-courageous duo. Just before the figure stepped into the illuminating light, the faint sounds of Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’ ventured from out of the expansive void in front of them. As the alien attempted to switch his phone to silent, he looked up at Henry and said, “Sound familiar, Mr. Hildebrandt?”

Henry’s mind went awash with emotions, and he recoiled into a tiny ball at this revelation. He had heard that ringtone before, for it was his ringtone. His mind grasped at straws as it tried to comprehend the full extent of this information. In the meantime, the dark figure stepped out of the shadows to reveal a very small body in imposing black armor.

The dark figure began to speak. “Now did you really think that you just had that ringtone pre-loaded it onto your phone when you were born just for funsies? Just because you paid extra for the Verizon tones gold package option?” the alien was clearly enjoying torturing Henry with this information. “No, Henry Hildebrandt, I’m afraid that song was my message to you, welcoming you back into our ranks. For you are Baybee, the ancient race that I and all of my compatriots belong to.  I am here to bring you back to our planet.”

“That’s not true, that’s impossible!” Henry shouted, swinging his rattle with all his might, knocking off the dark figure’s helmet with the strength afforded to him by his baby arms. Taken aback, the figure lifted his head up to reveal the face of Vanilla Ice, which looked positively ridiculous on a baby sized body.

“Yo, turn off the lights, and I’ll glow.” exclaimed Vanilla Ice, right before Henry popped him another one right in the forehead. It turned out that the Vanilla Ice disguise was simply another mask, this time flying off to reveal the hairy, dark face of the howler monkey. The very same howler monkey who had been present at Henry’s birth just years ago, the very same howler monkey who had quickly exited the hospital when he realized it was no place for him to be.

“That’s right Henry, you are one of us, and you have been all along.” The howler monkey smiled a devilish grin, and Henry found himself struggling to comprehend. Did this mean he was half howler monkey? THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW.

 

TO BE CONTINUED IN:

HENRY 3: THE RETURN OF THE KING

 

 

[1] The term ‘friend’ here is used loosely, as people that put their toilet paper rolls upside down are barely deserving of the title.

 

 

 

Bio: I’m a sophomore here at Aims and I’ve taken quite a few English courses. My most recent has been creative writing, and I’ve completed a few stories in there that I’m happy to finally share here.