By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
Dear Editor,
How do you evaluate a smile? Does it mean happy to see you? Or does it mean I am guilty? Or does it mean I’m hiding something so don’t ask me any questions?
I followed Alice Bright Light’s advice and put on a play. She said “The play is the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the alien.” The goal was to find out if Julian is an alien. He is a twenty year old man who recently arrived to work as a farm hand on Streckfus Wedelmeyer’s corn farm. Julian didn’t answer where he was from and he didn’t give us his last name because he said “I didn’t know I needed a last name when I came here.”
My daughter Sarah with an H lost thirty pounds to get his attention. And I as a mature wife, mother of two and Pastor of The First Church of God’s Love can fully appreciate why my daughter wants him. Piously I say yum.
The problem with Julian is that my deceased father-in-law wrote “Julian is a space alien on a mission.” After Alice Bright Light and I held a séance and brought Pastor Silas back from the other side, he never left. He lingers in our Sunday school bus and writes messages on its three blackboards. Only Alice and my husband Willie know about that message.
So when Alice recommended in a Shakespearean way to put on a play to catch the conscience of the alien I agreed. She suggested that we put it on in the Church. So I set about writing the trap. Late at night I would sit alone in my kitchen writing my two-hander play which I call “Alien Love.” Its two characters are Thor, the beautiful alien man, and Anise, the seductive-earthly woman.
The plot is simple. Thor is an alien who comes to Halo, PA to learn all there is about corn. His alien community wants to learn about corn because they want to use corn as a source of energy. They want to grow it themselves but they need the knowhow. So they sent Thor to be the student.
Thor is a very handsome alien man. I cast my son Toby to play the part. Even though Toby is only 15 years old he looks older and acts more maturely. He is tall and his body has filled out; he easily played the part of a twenty year old. Toby was eager to play the part and he played it very well. My congregation already knows that he is a successful model with the US International Modeling Agency in New York City.
Anise is a seductive and very attractive woman. Although my eighteen year old daughter Sarah with an H wanted to play the part of Anise I thought it was too close to reality. She has an immense crush on Julian who is scripted as Thor. So I auditioned her best friend Flossie Wedelmeyer who was brilliant. Even though Flossie is only eighteen years old she had all the nuances of a mature-sensuous woman trying to seduce Thor.
“Alien Love”: In Thor’s response to Anise’s advances he admits that he is alien and that he only came to Earth to learn everything about corn because his civilization needs it as a source of fuel. He cannot love her.
Alice, Willie and I had our eyes on Julian as he watched the play. He smiled the whole time. He looked even more handsome.
Julian came to me in the vestibule of the Church after the play and said that there was a more accurate ending. Julian said that Thor was an alien. He came to Earth to learn about corn because of his Chairman named “L.” L had earlier come to Earth and had fallen in love with popcorn. Thor had come to Earth to learn how to grow corn on a growing field they were going to create in outer space. Once Thor learns everything he will leave.
Is he?
Amen.
The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
Senior Pastor
Executive Director
President
Chairman
Choir Master (part-time)
The First Church of God’s Love