Mirror of the Soul

     Ralph threw the last carton on the shelf. This finished the final incoming load of the week in the stifling moving company warehouse.  

       He couldn’t wait to shower, change into street clothes and head for his favorite watering hole down Main Street. After a few cool ones, even the flea-bitten, fly-by-night boring rural outpost of a town where he had wasted much of his life might start to look good.

     When he looked in the locker room mirror what stared back at him almost knocked him off his feet.  Although Ralph could, by no means, at this stage in his life, win the top prize in any bodybuilding competition, he still considered himself in pretty good condition.

     To his astonishment, he saw reflected back at him a tiny, pale-looking creature standing less than four feet tall and dressed in some type of uniform that resembled something taken directly out of a recently-released outer space battle epic. Nothing as trite or old school as a little green man, of course, but still convincing enough to make Ralph think he had somehow chugged a few of those brewskys without going anywhere near the local pub.

     Although Ralph wouldn’t have qualified for Employee of the Month at the Express Moving Company he knew better than to drink on the job. This might cause him to lose the paycheck that let him live the kind of life that fulfilled the meager ambitions of a high school dropout. He also didn’t want to rock the boat to jeopardize his middle rung social standing in the small town.

     Still, what could explain the figure that looked back at him in the seedy locker room’s mirror?

     Suddenly, the warehouse shook as if struck by one of the Cat 1 tornadoes that roared into Ralph’s area every summer. Yet local weather broadcasts had announced nothing even resembling severe weather for more than two weeks.

      Then, out of a dark corner of the dimly-lit locker room a blinding light emerged and a creature similar in stature and dressed in the same type of uniform Ralph saw in the mirror came charging forward.  He told Ralph:

     “The mirror you are looking into is not an Earthly creation. We of the planet Yugocraneous have replaced your locker room mirror with one from our world. Reflected back you see how you would appear on our planet.  We have caused you to see yourself in the likeness of one of our fellow creatures because we need an earthling ambassador. You will convince your leaders that Earth’s climate change will spread around the universe and completely destroy our population and our homebase.  Also, if your leaders do not take the steps needed to save our civilization, you and your fellow inhabitants of this planet will perish along with our own.”

     Ralph shot back:

    “Why did you choose a simple working stiff rather than one of our most wise scientists or diplomats to relay your message?”

     “Also, why did you transform me to look like one of your fellow Yugocraneons rather than leaving me in my current form if you wanted to convince Earth’s leaders to do what you ask?”

     “I’ll answer your second question first–the members of our civilization do not trust Earthlings to keep their word. They have relied on your promises too many times in the past only to have your leaders pay us back with deception and disappointment.  Those who inhabit our planet have the unique ability to detect what resides in a creature’s soul simply by sending a transformation into their brain. To ensure your leaders would take us seriously this time, we did an interplanetary brain detection to ascertain that you could successfully carry out our mission. We have made you appear as one of us because we believe the shock of your transformation will get more attention from your leaders than if an ordinary earthling approached them.

    “Additionally, we believe that both our civilizations no longer believe what your elitist scientists and diplomats tell them. Therefore, we think the person delivering our message must be of the socioeconomic class that both parties can relate to most readily.

      “As I pointed out before, our existence faces what you earthlings would call a very tight deadline. We will take you to an obscure village on your earth, where our top environmental scientists and others we have captured from your planet will give you the education you need to make a presentation on our behalf to your leaders. We will not return you to your previous earthly body and your previous way of life until your leaders meet with us to find a solution to the climate change crisis. 

       After you help reverse the tide moving against the survival of both our societies we will restore your previous earthling shell. We also will wipe away your memories and that of your fellow earthlings about the events that now are happening. We will see that your future personal wealth and social position greatly exceed your current standing, but you will have no idea why you have received these rewards.”

      With that, the bright light left the locker room and lifted Ralph with it. The mover soon found himself in an obscure mountain retreat in a heavily-guarded compound in a secret location in Antartica. His only memories of his time there involved the facts he needed to arrange the meetings of Earth’s leaders with the Yugocraneons.

      On the day before Earth’s top scientists predicted that environmental destruction would put an end to Yugocraneous and its people, the climate change that would have precipitated that destruction disappeared.  Also, Ralph’s planet’s diplomats and scientists united to make  improvements in industry and protection of the atmosphere that they believed would save both worlds.

     Ralph won a new multimillion-dollar global lottery. This enabled him to purchase the moving company for which he had previously worked so he could improve working conditions for his former colleagues. 

      For a reason which he never quite figured out, he became intensely interested in environmental science and its role in preserving the earth. He used a large portion of his wealth to work with the most important leaders in the real estate and moving businesses to back thought leaders forging landmark global environmental achievements in those industries. 

    The former moving warehouseman also became one of the most accomplished figures in every facet of environmental advancement around the world.