DeAndre Jordan

DeAndre Jordan awoke in an unfamiliar room. His luxurious bedding at home had been replaced by a tough cot. Outside his window sailed endless pinpoints of light that could only be stars. Before he could do any more than register these facts, he was faced with what must have been some kind of alien. Surprised, he opened his mouth, but couldn't think of any words that would begin to address the supreme oddness of the situation. "Before you speak, human, let me answer the questions that undoubtedly swirl in your primitive ape mind," spoke the reddish-pink conical creature, despite it not having any sort of visible mouth. "You have been abducted by aliens. That's us. We normally wouldn't be able to communicate in any meaningful way, but you have been provided with a translator chip, which has been placed in a ring on your finger." DeAndre looked down at his finger, then back up at his captor. "You may find your own reaction to your predicament very unusual. Your calmness can be attributed to the extremely powerful sedative that you were dosed with prior to your awakening. Believe me, we learned the hard way that your kind can be a brutish and impulsive lot." Only now did DeAndre realize that he felt no anxiety, only a vague confusion, and even that was very distant in his mind. "Why did you take me?" he asked aloud. The alien flapped its cranial membranes in annoyance. "Do you have to vocalize so loudly? The vibrations hurt my sensitive flesh. We are not used to having sound-producing organisms aboard our ship." "Sorry," DeAndre whispered. "So, why me? Am I actually best-suited to be humanity's ambassador?" "Actually, yes," answered the alien. --- DeAndre and the alien, who had introduced himself as Kronbub 32-C, walked through the corridors of the starship. DeAndre, still sedated, noted the odd construction of the ship with only dull interest. "You do not remember, DeAndre, but we have met you once before, when you were a mere baby." "Continue." "When you were burdened by your underdeveloped brain and made vulnerable by your small stature, we anointed you with the Dunking Serum. You were our experiment, and you succeeded in many ways, yet you also had many failures." DeAndre stopped walking, and for the first time, anger began to seep through the tranquilized pathways of his brain. "Dunking Serum? You mean, all this time I've been playing basketball, it hasn't been me?" "But it was you," Kronbub corrected. "We didn't take control of your mind, however easy that may have been. We wanted to manipulate your sport, your 'basketball', in a more organic way." "That ain't cool. Was it just me, or did you mutate other people?" "DeAndre, it might shock you to learn this, but everybody on your planet who can dunk a basketball has only us to thank for that skill. But you...you were one of the few who was given too much of the formula." Kronbub began to walk again, and DeAndre had no choice but to follow. "You said something about failures and successes." "Ah, yes. The transmissions from your Earth media praised you highly for your ability to dunk. However, in those very same transmissions, they expressed disbelief at your lack of skill in nearly every other area of the game. That is why you have been brought back to our ship. So that we can conduct more experiments. So that we can turn you into something better." --- DeAndre sat in the cafeterium, listlessly poking at the crumbly blue substance which passed for food out here in deep space. "So, they got you too?" asked a voice, whose owner was an alien wholly different in appearance than the ones who captained and worked on the ship. Purple-skinned and monopodal, it had five arms, each tipped with a single multi-jointed finger. DeAndre was at least somewhat comforted that it had a mouth which moved when it spoke. "Yeah," was his short answer. "It was rude not to introduce myself. My name is Galorian. I hail from the planet Thaul-Ratos." "DeAndre. Planet Earth." Galorian set his tray down at the table, but his body structure prevented him from sitting like DeAndre did. Instead, he slithered like a slug to position himself in front of his food. "I take it you are a competitor in the sport of your planet?" DeAndre looked up at his companion, surprised. "How did you know that?" "I have overheard the crew talking among themselves; they must have forgotten about my translator chip. I know now that they have interfered with many more sports than my native plobcube. It angers me so greatly that it was all a lie, that my prodigious plobbing ability was not truly my own." "I hear that," DeAndre replied. Galorian's palpable anger reignited the weak discontent that had been building up within DeAndre over the course of these past weeks. "I wish we could do something, man." Galorian swiveled his body, as if to make sure they were not being eavesdropped upon. "Funny you should mention that, because I have an idea." Part II: https://youtu.be/a8TgQdLhSE0

• published: 30 May 2015
• views: 172189