The odorous funk was so potent his eyes stung and filled with tears, but with few options for disposal of the creatures, Sam Withers reported to the commissioner's quarters each morning to incinerate the pests. He chuckled to himself as he slid his keycard into the slot, straightened his tie knot, and patted his pocket to confirm he had his gloves. Who would have thought the first appearance of extraterrestrial life would be wrinkled, winged, bulbous creatures that left slimy trails of noxious goo on every surface indiscriminately. And they reeked. The stench was a horrid mix of hot garbage and methane combined with the physical effects of slicing onions and huffing trillium flowers. A scent so permeating Sam didn't bother holding his nose.
There were others responsible for catching, collecting, and transporting the softball-sized flying varmints. Sam preferred handling the creatures with the end of a shovel instead of his hands, even with his trusted gloves. He made his way through the building and nodded to the maintenance person coordinating a new drop-off request. Operation: Alien Cleanup would last three to five more weeks, given the volume of creatures present and their reproduction rate, despite the global effort.
Sam rounded the corner to his dressing quarters, where he carefully covered every inch of his clothing, skin, and hair in a sturdy suit made to withstand and outlast hazardous materials. When he was done dressing, he pulled on his gloves and went to the incineration bay to collect his shovel and cart.
The small but heavy bodies squelched, whistled, and oozed from an early morning truckload, and the smell emanating off the blue aliens was enough to almost filter out the veritable potions wafting from the yellow ones—aged cheese and rotting eggs—or the spiciness of the green ones, whose goopy, slick trails caused hundreds of thousands of second-degree burns and cases of temporary blindness.
The incineration job was temporary but necessary. It was also disgusting and off-putting in conversation, which was just as well. Sam Withers did not prefer the company of others. Instead, he begrudgingly volunteered for work efforts like shoveling alien softball stinkbugs into a giant furnace and selling commissioned artwork pieces of the glistening candy-colored gargoyle-like creatures to find some semblance of a social life. He found it both absurd and lucrative.
The creatures could have been adorable as Sam’s eidetic memory captured the highlights and shadows and general revulsion of the heap of carcasses beside him, the heat of the incinerator already warming the air within his protective suit until his skin dampened with sweat and his carefully starched collar sagged just as it did each day before that one. But Sam took his post seriously. Thus, he picked up his shovel, heaved several hissing, squelching carcasses into the flames and smiled to himself for the expert toss that spilled none of the pustulous creatures, letting a chuckle escape through his teeth. Of course, they stink.
Sam’s specifications to the genie had been clear: small, comfortably familiar in shape and size, non-threatening colors, relatively easy to contain. But the aliens had been his third wish, so he was stuck with the creatures, like it or not. As the newly elected Commissioner of Alien Affairs for the state of Nevada and a rising star in hyperrealism—wishes two and one, respectively—Sam was responsible (in more ways than one) for handling the steaming, acrid mess left behind, a last reward, for attempting to use all three wishes for selfish purposes.
He meant no harm, truly he did not. And he certainly received the credit and immediate notoriety for discovering the first confirmed arrival of aliens on Earth. The public had been thrilled to offload their intergalactic pest problems onto the new commissioner.
Sam chuckled to himself again. He could not control his artwork buyers, but he had a months-long backlog of commissions of the stinking aliens alone, a steady income from an otherwise nothing-burger job—Commissioner of Alien Affairs, hah!—in exchange for a few weeks of osmophobic work.
The blue ones smelled the worst, but Sam thought he liked those the best.
***
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<3 Fal