The Steven Spielberg Sleuth.

"You ever seen E.T.?"

I'd never been closer to punching someone in the face. Daniel was the first person to call my new number. I didn't know the guy from Adam, but I liked that about him. Too many people knew too much about me. Later in the day, I followed him up with a small telephone consultation and outlined how deadly serious I was about the whole thing. Right on, man! My left eyebrow twitched slightly at his bubble gum enthusiasm, but it was my first call. My only call.

I arrived at Daniel's place on a warm Tuesday. At my armpits, belt and the backs of my knees, I was the sticky kind of sweaty. It was not suit weather, but I held a sort of contrived optimism that this pressed 1970s number would turn me into a businessman. It was my father's — people respected him. Maybe the magic was in the polyester.

"That you, Mister Green?" A head popped up from over a high fence, which I assumed belonged to Daniel.

The formality surprised me. A pleasure I was never usually afforded. I thought to myself briefly that I ought to wear polyester suits more often.

"Fenton is fine," I called back to him, fighting against a smile.

"That's a good name, Fenton," Daniel had a friendly look about his face, like he was genuinely happy to see me. "Well come on over, brother! I'll let you in."

His head dipped below the fence, followed by a chorus of metallic sighs — five or six slide latches, I presumed, coming undone. It was this number that, despite the warm welcome, made me slightly apprehensive again. My left foot skirted the edge of Daniel's front yard, not crossing into it, but only scooping up and disturbing the loose gravel. In plain truth, I still hadn't made peace with why I was there. I told lies about believing in myself when I didn't. And at that moment, I realised just how much of me I'd put into this tiny investigation business. So much that if it failed, which I felt today would determine, I'd have very little of me left to live with.

I made it into the front yard, then the back. I decided I didn't have much of a choice. Daniel lingered behind me, quite like an expectant child, as I started to survey the area. When the wind blew in rather harsh, it snapped the yard gate back and startled him. I think he apologised for it, but I had hardly noticed. Atop his house, the weather vane jerked between South and West. I paused to watch it and, for the briefest moment, I was back at our old farm. It was evening. My bare feet on the dry land, watching my father tinkering in the milk shed; lit by a dim light. I could smell my mother's food, but it was burnt. She was not a poor cook, but I remember how the food looked like coal. That evening, I'd never seen the weather vane spin so fast.

"You wanted me to look out here?" I forced myself out of the memory with a professional question.

Daniel hopped a couple of feet in front of me, his smile never faltering, "You sure can, if you want. But ain't nothing really happened in the yard."

"Where'd it happen then? You say something happened?"

I took real notice of Daniel as we got to talking. He was somewhere in his fifties I assumed, unmarried. His hair escaped just past his shoulders in a wild, curly sprawl and his beard grew out from his chin in much the same way. On this warm day, he'd opted for an expected shorts and sandals combination, but with a less expected t-shirt that read: I DON'T NEED LIFE I'M HIGH ON DRUGS. I tried not to let this worry me, but it did. As did the way he spoke and the excessive amount of latches on his gate. I assured myself it was all still very legitimate. Take a joke, Fenton.

"You got gadgets and things, huh?" Daniel asked, leaving my own question unanswered.

I didn't understand what that had to do with anything, so I rebuked him, "Some equipment, yes. If the investigation calls for it."

"That's sick! Totally."

I paused, "So? Did something happen?"

My head tilted slightly to one side, awaiting a serious answer. Was my patience waning? God, it was wasn't it.

"Oh! Well, not really man. Not physically. The reason—"

I exhaled through my nose, hard. I hadn't intended for it to be so loud and obvious, but it came naturally. I felt a lump begin to rise in my throat and settle there. I could no longer pamper myself with assurances.

With a slightly shaky voice, I interrupted him, "The reason?"

"Yeah man, the reason I called you! It's like—," Daniel was dancing around his words, "Okay. Say, you ever seen E.T.?"

That's when he said it, and I felt it all unravel before me. Not like a dream, it had never been about dreams. I thought it was childish to dream of becoming someone else, like it was a passive luxury. It had become a necessity for me just to carry on. When my parents disappeared, there was not a single person — not even my own Aunts, Uncles and cousins — who wanted to hear what I had to say. Let alone believe it. I had long grown tired of being the boy who wasn't quite right. Insanity had infantilised me. They called me that now, at thirty three. Daniel must've seen the ache somehow, in my eyes or in the way my fingers curled into a fist. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder, trying to rein it all back in.

"Hey man, you okay?"

I looked to the ground. Thinking, recovering. What had been the cost of business? The suit had been my father's. And all of the equipment I owned was mine, years old by now. My only lost expense was the respray on the pick-up, but I could easily tape over the slogan and the phone number. If it were only that easy to tape over myself. Nothing could change who I was and how I was perceived, it seemed epidemic at this point. Even those who didn't know me were inclined to take me for an idiot.

"Thank you for your time," I shrugged off Daniel's grip, turning my back to him and heading toward the gate through which I entered.

He was shouting after me, I am sure, but I had a knack for blocking sounds out. I did not stop for him, not until I'd marched across his front yard, gotten into my truck and put some fair miles between us. The whole time I was driving, I tried to place myself into others' shoes and look at myself from where they were standing. I'd always been a nice boy, hadn't I? I was always polite, I always had nice clothes and was always on time for school. 'My parents have been abducted by aliens' was not a normal claim, I knew that, but those words had never actually left my mouth. I remember telling the lawmen that I didn't know what I saw. In one violent gust of wind and an electric streak of light, they were gone. All that was left to report was a burning ring of fire, dead centre of the farm. Folks said I was ill, either on my own accord or because of the abuse. I had no idea what abuse they were talking about. And I wasn't ill, I didn't have a temperature.

These thoughts eventually rendered me unfit to drive and I pulled onto a dirt track to avoid collision. I stayed parked there for quite some time, wanting the quiet hum of the radio to wash over me and rinse away the bad. My phone rang once or twice, but I tried to ignore it. The way I felt, I never wanted to speak with anybody named Daniel again. On the third ring I picked up the phone and contemplated pounding it into the dashboard, silencing it once and for all, but I then noticed that it was a different number.

"Hello?"

The line crackled.

I tried once more, "Hello?"

"Can you hear me?" It was a woman on the other end.

"Yeah, I can hear you. I think you have the wrong number, ma'am. This is—"

"Is this Fenton Green, extra-terrestrial investigator?"

No, it wasn't. Not anymore. It had been short lived and painful. As I had feared, I didn't really know who to introduce myself as. I didn't want to be Fenton Green and I'd failed as an extra-terrestrial investigator.

The woman continued in my silence, "Cus I found your number in the yellow pages. My weather vane has been going like crazy all day and my crop field just set on fire."

"It's a very warm day, ma'am."

"Uh-huh. But why's the fire only burning in the shape of a circle?"