The Stoner from Europa

“The fuckin’ surf sucks, bro”.

“No shit, dude. I have eyes. What the fuck?”

“Ah, well, let’s just chill and see what’s what before we hang it up”, the young, blonde, teenager said to his friend, an almost carbon copy of himself. Tall, lean with ab muscles well-defined, long golden hair tucked behind both of their ears, wearing their wetsuits with the tops rolled down to their waists leaving their tanned and hairless chests naked. Both were blue-eyed descendants from the waves of immigrants who had been coming to SoCal since the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century. Drawn by fame and fortune in Hollywood, millions had come and millions had failed, but in the process of discovery those same immigrants realized that SoCal had the best weather in the world, so they stayed. The thing is, these were almost uniformly the nation’s most beautiful and handsome people who having realized their only talent was being pretty, settled down to become great looking cops, firemen, plumbers, accountants, lawyers, etc. then marrying and producing lots of kids that looked like these two: handsome and fit. The apples don't fall far from the tree and apple trees can only make apples. Yet since everyone they knew fell from the same kind of gorgeous tree, they were only vaguely aware of their good looks as they moved through life with the confidence and cool that so often beauty can assure regardless of whether the bearer knows it.

They sat there while one rolled a blunt out of a grape Swisher Sweet wrapper while the other waited patiently, his back turned away from the ocean to the east as they sat on the seawall that lined the coastal boardwalk that ran from north of Santa Monica all the way south to Redondo Beach. His eyes were closed as he soaked up the first early warmth of the rising sun peeking over the sand berm that protected the beach from Pacific Coast Highway. The roller lit and took the first hit.

“Whoa, good shit. Got it from my dealer, $65 for a half, way cheaper than fuckin’ dispensaries and no fuckin' tax. OG Berry Kush”.

“No shit, bro. Fuck that tax shit and how much we can buy bullshit. Let me hit that”, he said as he took a man-sized draw and held it for a moment before handing the blunt back to his friend. For some reason, he didn’t take it. “Yo, bro. Wassup? Take it, man.”

Silence answered him as he realized that his buddy was looking toward the water with his jaw open and hanging slack, his eyes wide and his entire body tensed.

“Check that out”, the mesmerized surfer said as his friend turned to comply. “What the fuck is that?”

“Fuck, dude. I have no fuckin’ idea, man”, the reply came weakly as neither boy had any from of reference for what they were witnessing.

They were sitting just south of Playa del Rey near El Segundo by a public parking lot where RVers often boondocked their rigs to hang out for a few days by the beach. There were only a few in the parking lot because it was a weekday, but nobody else was stirring this particular morning as of yet. From their perch on the wall they saw something emerge from the almost still surf. "Something" was all they could identify it because how often do teenage boys see six foot octopus-looking upright creatures with eight what could have been arms or legs, who could tell because it was walking on some of them and others, it seemed to them, were pointing and arm-like. And its eyes were nothing human but from this distance the boys couldn’t really see clearly. They looked kind of golden and seemed to reflect the dawn's light. Then, while still trying to process the creature itself, thinking it was some sort of bizarre deep sea squid or octopus, it suddenly changed color and shape, it didn't take more than a second or two, and where it had been a moment before now stood a tall, thin and fit man, an older version of themselves, maybe twenty five or around there somewhere, blonde hair down behind his ears and hanging a bit longer than shoulder-length, with a reddish-gold full beard that made him resemble the Caucasian version of Christ. He too wore a black wetsuit rolled to the waist and was barefoot. His expression seemed neutral and friendly. He turned his head to face them, smiled, and began walking across the sand toward them.

Both boys felt their bowels loosen and heard the grumbling of anxiety from their churning guts as fear gripped them. They simply had no way to make sense of anything they were witnessing. They froze in place.

“Hi, fellas!”, the man said as he approached. Well, he looked like a man, but the boys were speechless in reply to the shape-shifting stranger in front of them.

It’s not every day one runs into someone with his skills, so the stranger had a lot of room for the boys just sitting there and staring. He had expected this of his first contact with a human and in fact had chosen this particular section of the beach because his preliminary scouting had made it clear that this was not a location used by the human intellectual or societal elites.

He was as new to human contact as they were to meeting him, a Europan in English referring to the moon of Jupiter. As his specie's culture did not bother with naming their planet, the human name was good enough for him. As Europans didn’t tribalize like humans, their identities were all individual. So collective identification with naming of places or regions seemed just silly to him.

Therefore he thought it good to start modestly, with immature human males as they clearly were illogical, malleable, and most of all, completely dominated by their genitalia which would make them easy to manipulate. In fact, at first he had thought to shift to the shape of a human female but rejected the idea as he wanted to learn something from these young ones and teenage human male sex drive was so overpowering, his research showed, that it rendered them useless in any meaningful way to his mission once stimulated.

“Um, you can relax, guys. You did see what you saw, but don’t worry, I am not here to hurt you or eat you or anything awful like that. Maybe you ought to let me take a hit on that blunt?” He had done copious study of the surf and beach culture of his chose landing area and made their vocabulary a part of his own. Yet though his human expression didn't convey it, he was excited. He understood the chemical properties of cannabis, but this was his first real experience with it. He had concluded that nothing in it would be particularly dangerous to a Europan. They were much more resilient than humans as a species given the conditions on their planet. It was the high that he was most excited by as he had no reference for what that might be like. And of course, it was central to his mission.

The one surfer looked at the other and as if in a trance dully lit the blunt and both took hits. Why they did before the creature in front of them they would never know, but they were so terrified that they were just operating on autopilot. The boy holding it then offered it weakly to the stranger, his hand shaking like a Parkinson's tremor.

“Don’t mind if I do!”, the Europan said as he took a man-sized rip and held it. “Good shit” he said as he simultaneously exhaled in perfect stoner fashion.

“You guys are probably wondering what the fuck, am I right, and shit like that?”, he said with a radiant, white, perfect smile. Behind the smile, the Europan was fighting back the urge to return to the ocean, his true form, and gorge himself on every goddamn corvina, surf perch, and croaker he could find. So THIS was the munchies! Oh wow, he thought, I can feel the high down to my buccal mass. Steady. Steady. "Right?", he asked again as much to buy another moment to collect himself as for their answer.

The weed now kicking in, cannabinoids now blocking out the boys’ fear and replacing it with stoned wonder absent even an iota of sense, both took another hit and one replied for both, “I think I read about something like you, dude, or maybe it was when my parents and me went on a road trip back when I was like thirteen and we went to Arizona and they have some sort of shape-shifting thing, dude, out there like I can’t remember what the fuck they call it but, fuck me, is that what you are?”

“I love Stoner Logic! That was a random reference, but you are referring to the mythical Chupacabra of the Sonoran Desert, and no, that’s not me! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bob, the Europan”, he said jovially as if it was a tossed off introduction one hears everyday. He had chosen "Bob" as his human name as his true identity among Europans was understood hormonally and not verbally.

“Like German or French, dude?”, one asked.

“Whoa, like, do Germans shape-shift?”, the other chimed in.

“No boys, not European, Europan, as in the moon of Jupiter.”

“Gnarly.”

“Boys, I would love to lay it out all for you, but really, I was just drying out my vocal chords. My species doesn’t use them actually, so there it is. But the human mouth works great on that weed, wow, whoa, so good. Anyway, I am going to send you boys night-night for about 15 minutes after which you won’t remember even meeting me.”

“Will it hurt, dude”, one asked without considering the possibility that maybe allowing himself to be put to sleep by some alien creature might not be a good idea and perhaps try to run.

“Not a bit. It will be like an awesome mushroom trip.”

“Count us in!”

Calmly, Bob asked them to sit in front of the sea wall facing the ocean and close their eyes. Both did tightly like toddlers looking forward to a big surprise. Then, gently, he touched both of their foreheads with an octopedal arm that seemed to emerge from his body as if from nowhere and they immediately went out, their heads now leaning against each other and smiles on their faces like a cute meme.

“That went well”, Bob said out loud to himself. “Now off to it”, he concluded as he walked the easy stride of an athlete and headed to the steps that led up to the street from the beach. Task 1: Find more Weed.