fruit I tried, but never liked, and further down near the property line sat our old n’ dented, rusty trash can with a broken metal grate covering its top. The trash got burned, about once a week back then and what was left over from the table food was always given to Shu-Shee, our bear like, black Chow dog. Shu-Shee was a regular garbage pail, I swear. When we brought him home as a puppy he looked just like a little black baby bear, and because Chow dogs were originally from China and Jesse was reading the philosophy of Confucius at that time, Jesse named him Confucius. Jesse always liked big and lofty names like Confucius, but Awful Oliver was still a baby and couldn’t pronounce it so somehow Confucius got turned into Shu-Shee, and that was the name that stuck. When Mom brought me home from the hospital, she told Jesse that I was his baby too, and let him name me, cause, I think she thought that he’d like me better or something, so Jesse named me Thornton Lee Randall. I think Thornton is a very impressive name, and I like it a lot, but most people, even Jesse just called me Lee, cause it’s shorter. Anyway, what Shu-Shee couldn’t eat, and believe me there wasn’t much, Mom used as compost for the wild flowers in the yard and later during the war, for our Victory Garden.
Tending the burning trash out back was sort of a guy’s thing back then and many a night I stood quietly beside my Dad or Jesse and made sure a wild fire wasn’t started. It was sort of like an ancient ritual. We’d stand out there in the darkness of the evening and silently reflect. Every now and then one of us would poke at the fire and watch as the sparks flew high into the starry night. Life was very good and simple then.
Jesse and I shared a bedroom on the first floor of our Victorian home. It overlooked the vacant lot, and beside our bedroom window crept Morning Glories, violet from the night, opening with first light in a fragile amethyst bloom.
Since there were no fences, most of the backyard grass grew tall past our property line and blended into the prairie beyond. The grass never seemed to get cut except sometimes in the vacant lot where the children played. My mother, you see, liked the wildness of things and allowed nature to have its own way. Most of our neighbor’s yards, asserted short manicured lawns and extremely well clipped shrubbery, and so to them our property must have seemed like an eyesore, with everything growing so wild and free and out of control, but I loved it and it always reminded me of a magnificent, ruined vintage garden. I know now that the way one perceives something is what can make it unique and that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder after all.
Our Wichita summers were sizzling even at night, and it was on one of those wonderful firefly nights when I was seven and safe asleep in my bed, that Jesse came in to awaken me. It was a habit of his to do this when the night sky was especially clear and bright and flushed with the glow of a million stars. Stealthily we slipped out the back door, and creep across the yard into the vacant lot and there we’d stand, like admiring sleepwalkers gazing up into the wonders of the cosmos. That particular night Jesse pointed out many of the stars to me and told me of their histories. I’d always wondered how he knew so much about the stars and so that night, I finally asked him.
Jesse looked at me closely understanding my curiosity and slowly began to smile. Promptly he sat me down on a tree stump and kneeled to my eye level. Carefully removing his round Ben Franklin glasses, he wiped them with a kerchief, and sighed, “Ah well Lee, and I knew I was going have to tell you sooner or later.” Searching my eyes he tucked away his kerchief and resettled his glasses on the bridge of his slender nose. He paused a moment and looked down then offhandedly, he pulled on a stray weed and murmured, “Lee, I’m going to tell you a secret.”
Well! I was excited to say the least, because to me at that age, nothing was more exciting than a secret!
Leaning towards me, his steely blue eyes stared deep into mine and he spoke the words I will never forget. “Lee” he said point blank, “—I’m a Martian.”
My heart skipped a beat, but I never doubted Jesse for an instant. “Jesse!” I gasped. “How’d that happen?”
Pulling back he smiled nonchalantly and flicked away the weed. “Always was. You see I lived out there—” he gestured towards the heavens. “For eons and eons before Parker and I crash landed in this very vacant lot years and years ago. In fact it was the very night Parker and I got exiled from Mars.”
“Parker too?” I gasped again. “You guys were exiled? But what about Mom and Dad an—?”
Jesse shushed me. “Listen, I’ll tell you all about it, but remember it’s a secret.”
I was so excited and full of questions I stammered, “but, but!”
Jesse waved his hand in the air like a conductor cutting off an orchestra, signaling me that he knew every question I was going to ask, and in time, would answer every one.
He pointed up to the heavens. “There…can you see it?”
From Jesse’s fingertip I could see a thin stream of light that led out into the cosmos. My eyes followed that stream and far, far away I could just barely make out a bright red planet turning slowly on its axis.
“Yes, I do!” I stammered, mesmerized.
Suddenly I felt the wind change direction and the rush of an icy ancient breeze blew right through us, chilling us to the bone. But just as quickly as it came — it went, and when I looked around, I realized something had changed —it was almost imperceptible, but I knew that something was very, very different. Everything now seemed eerily still and silent and I perceived a magical glow to the night that had not been there before. The house, the trees the stars, everything was supra contrasted, standing out vividly in color and illumination. Jesse and I looked at each other knowingly.
Then abruptly out of nowhere a small group of fireflies appeared, swirling and whirling around Jesse and me. Jesse’s eyes twinkled and he smiled brightly. He laughed. “You see those fireflies?”
I nodded.
“Well, they’re not just fireflies,” leaning closer he whispered, “they can change into “The Little Men” any time they want, and when they do, they become a beautiful shade of lime green and sort of resemble ‘Ready Kil-O-Watt.’ They are messengers of Klono, the god of Justice and Planets.”
In wonder I watched as the gliding fireflies whirled around us. Eagerly I waited for them to transform into “The Little Men.”
Jesse smiled knowing full well what I was thinking and running his fingers through his dark hair, added casually, “But, they don’t usually change till after midnight.”
Then he laid back in the tall grass and pausing a moment, reflected. “Before I tell you about The Little Men, I should first tell you about Klono the Dragon. They do have a connection.”
Knowing that Jesse was on a streak, I settled back happily on my elbow and listened closely.
“We Martians,” he went on, “like the Greeks, have many gods, but Klono is one of our favorites, especially because he acts as our defender here on Tellus.”
I was confused, “Tellus?”
“That’s our name for Earth.” He said as if it was a matter of fact and then went on. “You see Klono abides on most civilized worlds taking different forms to suit the locale and conditions. Here on Tellus he chose the form of an Orange Dragon. Whenever spacemen lands on a new planet, one of their first acts is to invoke the protection and assistance of Klono. He rarely travels in space as he has no powers there and so uses The Little Men as his messengers— that is, after first getting permission from Noshabakenning the god of space.
