by Joanne Mansfield

Created on: May 28, 2008

Heavy metal posters plastered three walls of the room. A tattered, gray paper lantern hung from the ceiling. Brandon Case stretched out on his bed. Screaming guitars of Black Sabbath convulsed his lanky body.

"Turn that damn music off!" His father pounded on the door. The teen smirked. He ignored the demand. "Can't you hear me?" The music quelled.

Second battalion, he thought, is on its way. He eyed the locked doorknob jiggle. "What is it, Mom?" Leisurely he rose from bed.

"May I come in?"

"Yeah." Opening the door, he then walked to his cluttered desk, shoved the contents on the floor, and cracked open a book.

"Bran" His mother's words stuck in her mouth. Her incredulous eyes scanned the room. "Stan," she yelled down to her husband, "you better get in here!"
Brandon pushed his curly brown hair out of his eyes and shrugged. "I was gonna clean it."

His father stormed upstairs, ranting and raving with each step he took. "This better be worth interrupting my Monday night game." Stan froze at the doorway. "What in the hell happened up here?"

The boy glanced around. Everything seemed in order to Brandon: dirty laundry strewn across the floor, amplifiers stacked on top of one another, glasses caked with a thick, white residue, food wrappers scattered on the night tables, a sheet of crumbs blanketed his bed, and primitive black sketches marred his once beige walls.

"Look at this place," his mom pleaded. She ran her fingertips over the only exposed area of his bureau, a corner. "The dust's thick enough to"

"write on," Brandon finished her sentence. "I've been busy," he lamely offered.

"Not busy enough!" His father threw his arms up in the air. "You're grounded. Get this dump cleaned up now."

"But it's my room!" Brandon defiantly yelled back, getting to his feet. "And I like it this way."

Without a moment's hesitation, Stan lunged forward, eye to eye with his son. "Don't ever use that tone with me. Do I make myself clear?" Brandon nodded. "I can't hear you!"

"Yes, sir."

Once Brandon was certain his parents were asleep, he slipped out the window into the solace of the night. Brandon walked for hours to clear his head. Eventually tiring, he reclined on moist grass and allowed solitude to embrace him. He peered into the heavens and played connect-a-dot with the twinkling stars. Suddenly a phosphorescent cataclysm ripped through the night's sky. Brandon bolted upright.

A luminous orb hovered above. The vessel's belly ejected a cylindrical, silver phallus. All at once, a violent motion

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