Once upon a time, an alien landed on planet Earth. Let’s call him Alan. He had come from a faraway planet in his spaceship. Alan was very curious to see how people lived on Earth and was excited to make new discoveries.

His spaceship landed in a field just outside a town, without anyone noticing it. Alan then ventured into the town to explore his surroundings. Soon Alan heard a loud commotion. Some robbers had robbed a bank. Alan saw the robbers running away. They had guns and were shooting at the people chasing them.

Alan let out a huge breath with a ‘Whoosh!’ sound. The robbers became frozen on the spot. Some people caught them and took them away to the nearest police station.

In the next street, Alan saw an old woman carrying some wood. She was trying to light a fire. Two hungry children were sitting outside her old cottage. The alien let out his breath again: ‘Whoosh!’

This time fire came out of his mouth. In no time there was a bright, cheerful fire burning and the old woman and the children were warm and happy.

As Alan went further, he saw a big bully throwing stones at a poor dog. The dog was tied to a fence and could not save himself from the sharp rocks. It was howling in pain, but the bully was only laughing. Alan let out his breath again: ‘Whoosh!’

The ropes untied as if by magic and the dog was free. It growled and snapped at the bully and started chasing him.

“What a strange place this Earth is,” the alien thought to himself.

In the next street, Alan saw a sight that filled him with horror. There were piles and piles of garbage on both sides of the street. A terrible, pungent smell was coming from the garbage heaps and there were flies and rodents swarming all around the trash. To make matter worse, people were passing by without a care and throwing even more rubbish as they went by.

Alan drew in a lot of air and let out a huge breath: ‘Whoosh!’

All the garbage cans came to life and started chasing the people. The bins blocked the road and would not let anyone pass. People soon realised that the only way to make the trash cans stop chasing them was to throw the garbage in them. They started picking up the trash and threw them inside the trash cans. Soon the street was neat and clean without a fruit peel, soda can or broken bottle in sight. The trash cans wheeled back to their places and stood still.

The alien looked around with satisfaction. “That’s much better!” he thought. “The Earthlings are very helpless creatures. They have no idea how to take care of their planet or be good and kind. I think I will stay around and help them.”

So wherever there is trouble, ‘Whoosh!’ Alan would come along to help the people and animals. But I wish we could learn to be kind and compassionate, keep our neighbourhoods clean and help one another instead of waiting for an alien to come along to put matters right. What do you think?

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 29th, 2021