The Man In My Closet
	It was a soft autumn day. There were quite a lot of brown leaves under my feet, while more were falling from above. It was not an especially odd day, Granted, at this point in my life everything was odd. I straightened my bow-tie and lead onward towards my house. I approached the steps, running up in a flurry of shoe laces and tattered trouser legs. I put my key in the door and continued on with my day. 
	After I had finished my homework and took the mandatory time to calm down after a very hectic school day. I headed off to my room laid down upon my bed, Resting my head on the soft pillows that laid about my bed. Just as I was finally getting relaxed, I heard my mom yell…?
	“Blade?”?
	“...Yeah, mom… I’m here.”?
	“Oh, good! You can unpack the car!” she burst through my door carrying arm-loads of groceries.?
	“Uh, yeah… Okay, I will get to them in a bit,” I got out of bed. 
	“Thank you!” she walked out of my room and shut the door as I started pacing. I walked over to my closest, I opened the door...
	“Oh, blimey! That’s not the Russian ambassadors office...” A tall thin man wearing a tight fitting white laboratory jacket, light brown pants, and white glass worker gloves; staggered out of my closest.
	“Wh-What-Who-When? WHO ARE YOU?!” I exclaimed almost falling over.
	“Oh, yes! A new one!” the man jumped toward me and took out a syringe of what I assumed was some sort of poison.
	“AHH!” I squirmed before he was able to get it to my neck.
	“Sorry, boy.” He got up from a hunched over position and picked me up.
?***
	When I woke up I was in what seemed to be a small, damp, green, area full of what reeked of death.?
	“Hey… Good… You woke up,” he said almost  smiling at me.
	“Do you want some yogurt…?” The man was leaning into the corner of the horrible death box. He got up and lifted the lid of the dumpster. 
	“Where are… We….”
	“My spaceship of course!”
	“A dumpster thing, is your… spaceship….” I was hesitant as I was dealing with the likes of a crazy man. Who has just seemingly kidnapped me and thrown me in into a dumpster looking thing.
	“Not just a dumpster, a MAGIC dumpster!” he said while flourishing his hands in front of him as if he were ushering a plane out of the sky.
	“Magic? I said while mimicking his hand movements.
	“Okay, you’re crazy, I am out of here!” I got up and headed toward the black lid of the “spaceship”.
	“Leave if you must…” He sighed and hung his head. As if he was very sad. I turned slightly. 
	“I will make you a deal…” His face tilted up slightly meeting eye level with me.
	“Take me on a mission in the ‘spaceship’. I have always wanted see the universe through a different view, and this may just be my chance,” he hopped over to the wall of the death box, and hit the wall with a forceful shove of his fist. A panel popped out of the wall. When he did this the disgusting dumpster looking box was transformed into a beautiful room. It seemed to get bigger the better the interior got. Blinking lights filled the panel with buttons and wires lay about.
	?“Ready for adventure?” He poked a series of buttons and I heard an odd noise. The ship started to shake and bounce in the most non-sequitur I don’t think so pattern I have ever experienced.
?	“Here we go!” his face lighting up in a furry of blues reds and greens as we flew his magic machine.
	*CLOP!* We were violently shaken as he stopped the craft. He jumped up from the controls and hopped over to the lid.
	“Let’s go?”
?	“Uh, yeah…” I was still quite surprised by the whole experience. Of riding in a spaceship with a crazy man.
	“We’re off!” He jumped out of the lid and over the side of the box. I followed his lead. When I got out, we were in an ally. From  what I could tell, somewhere in a large city. The smug air, and harsh smelling wind led me to think we were in a dump. ?
	“Oh, great, this place...” He staggered about as I have observed the man often do. He walked over to a trash can and lifted the lid.?
	“Good, no head hunting aliens in this one…” He continued to do this to every trash he could find. I soon learned this was a common ritual for him.
	“Follow…” He pointed me off out of the ally and onto a busy city road sidewalk. A homeless man looked up at me.
	?“Spare change…?”
“I am sorry, but I-” I was interrupted.
“Here you go!” The tall thin man threw dollar bills at the bum.
The bum stood up and started dancing. The inspector as I had now learned to call him was running off in another direction across the street. I followed after him struggling to keep up. He dashed into a dark ally, jumped over to a ladder and looked at me as he clammed climbed? Clamored? up. I followed in a frantic haze of sweat and exhaustion. He jumped through a window just as I was getting to the middle of the ladder.
	After I was inside and had caught my breath, he explained why we need to run quickly.
	“You see, in my travels I have come across a lot of people, in a lot of places. Some of them not so nice, most of them very nice,” he paused.
	“Like you, luckily you are nice, but if you were not nice, don’t you think I would be your enemy?”
	“Uh, yeah, I guess….”
	“So they follow you, or…?”
	“Not exactly, they just know a general idea of where I am…”
	“Okay, so where are we?”
	“Repair shop,” he had shifted his view over to a panel in the wall I had not noticed. Pushing buttons in a seemingly random fashion.
      “There, the space ship is fixed,” We ran out of the window and back down the ladder on our back towards the ship.
      When we arrived, the amazing interior of the spaceship had vanished revealing the ugly gross slime filled dumpster like interior I had first seen.? He walked over to the wall and punched the same spot he had previously hit. The process started all over and soon we were being thrown around again. We soon came to another harsh stop and he jumped out. 
We were now in my closest. He opened the door, and led me out.
      “That was it?”	
      “Well you didn’t ask for a large adventure,” he started to turn but turned back.
      “I can take you for a bigger adventure, just, later,” he turned around and closed to the door. I got up and checked the time. No time had changed whatsoever. Time travel! What a magnificence!  I had experienced more then 20 minutes and changed no time in the real world. I got up and put away the groceries as my mother had instructed me to do 30 seconds ago.
The End








		Grades 6-8
		Page 1