“Missing the Bigger Picture” by Dan Grossman

Alien at 86th & Ditch Photo by Dan Grossman

Missing the Bigger Picture

When the teenage boys got out 
of their Nissan Pathfinder
in front of Elsa’s Alterations
I saw the alien

He was tied to the top of their vehicle 
his eyes were oversized opals
and his head was a bald, beige scrotum
His breathing was shallow.  

I asked the older boy 
what was going on. 
He said they had found him 
in a crashed UFO (UAV in modern lingo)

near the Geist waterpark.
The crashed vehicle 
took up two spaces
so the attendants 

threatened to call the police
because he was clearly not 
a Fishers resident 
and they wanted to charge him

$100 for parking. So the two boys
drove him to Elsa’s Alterations 
to alter his wardrobe 
enough so the police 

couldn’t match him in a lineup.
(He traveled on top of the car
because he was radioactive.)
It seemed to me that both 

the attendants and the boys
were missing the bigger picture.
I asked the boys if they’d seen
any Steven Spielberg movies.

The younger boy mentioned E.T.
I shook my head: “I’m thinking
of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
“I’ll check it out,” the boy replied.