I have been talking to him for weeks now. Only it’s over the phone and we never met yet. But with deadline over finding discrepancies on the report from one of the former employees lead me to discuss the report on the phone with him.

At the end of the discussion and on the brink of expressing my gratitude, he asked, “What do you look like?”

Taken aback, I answered him with, “Hum…a human being?” it was really an innocent joke, an attempt to deflect any more personal questions that I don’t wish to answer. After all, I always maintained that my professional life and personal life are always been clearly separated. I never let anything or anyone mess with that.

Unfortunately, he was insistent. “What I mean is that, do you have a long hair, fair skin…?

I gave out a deep sigh. Resigned to my fate, well here goes…”Hmm…long hair? I believe that would be hard to measure since I couldn’t reach my back…”

“You could try you know…”

I cut him off.  “Maybe, but I don’t have a measuring tape here with me now, so I wouldn’t know how to answer that.”

“A ruler perhaps?” He suggested.

“Somebody borrowed it. I forgot who…”

He chuckled. “Ah okay, well about your skin?”

Wondering, I answered him with a question as well. “What about it?”

“I mean, what’s the color of your skin?”

From I don’t know where, I suddenly felt the urge to play mischief. “Well...”

“Well?” he prodded on.

“It’s green!”

For a moment, he was silent. Then, “What are you? An alien? Complete with antennas?”

I feigned shyness. “I’m afraid so, it’s true I got antennas too.” I could hear him, clearing his throat on the other line. He’s preparing for a battle I told myself.

Then he asked. “By the way, what are those antennas for?”

Aha, just as I have thought! The game is on. “Well, they are sort of… my radar…to help me pick-up possible being out there to hurt me even before they get too near.”

“I see…” he fell into contemplation.

“Well do you have any more questions to ask?” wanting to use the lull of the moment to make my escape.

“Don’t aliens have the power of telepathy?”

Surprised by the sudden shift, I became alert. “Yes, I believe so…why?”

“Well, you see I got a confession to make…” Straining my ear, I waited. My antennas are literary up, I mean my senses are.

He continued, “I’m also an alien!” he said it with triumph.

“So?” I said with boredom in my voice. “You better be careful. Aliens could get pregnant through telepathy you know…” he sounded confident.

It irritated me. The phone conversation is getting longer and getting out of hand. Inspired by that irritation, I boldly answered, “Ah not my strain!”

He paused then got a quick rejoinder. “Maybe, but we still came from an original genetic make-up! From a mother gene. There’s a chance that with your strain and mine, we could produce a much better strain.”

He thought he won. But I’m not done yet. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid it would be impossible”

“Why?” he quickly retorted. “You see, my strain have already mutated to another strain which could be irreversible…”

“Why is that?” he seems getting impatient.

I decided it’s high time I end this call. “You see, I quickly undergone and developed another genetic strain right after the other because I got infected while talking to a monkey carrying an Ebola virus for about 20 minutes now.”

Silence…

And then he let out a loud laugh. It seems, it took him a minute to realize that the monkey I was referring to, is him. When it finally dawned on him, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. In-between laughs though, he managed to congratulate me…the green alien.

Now, every time he calls, he looks for the green alien. My bosses got wind of it. They found it amusing and I thought it would be contained within the office. What I didn’t count on was that, him talking to some of our people in the field and our other clients as well about the green alien.

So now, there’s a green alien validating sales report for an oil company and a monkey for their client. It went on for months.

My officemates and his, waited with trepidation to the moment when I’ll agree to see him and have dinner with him…

However, when the moment did come and the green alien and the monkey finally meet…

The monkey lost his confidence and the green alien was disappointed.

End of the story. *****