Mr. Carmichael and his Unusual Guest

Fairy tales and real life a meant to be separate. That’s exactly what the extremely busy, no fun Mr. Carmichael always thought until one day.

Mr. Carmichael lived alone. He only met his relatives during social gatherings and emergencies. He was never fond of children, pets and never had any of either. His nephews and nieces always stayed clear from him, because of his headmaster style temper. But Grace their mother always told them that despite their uncle’s socially ineptness, he loved them…somehow.

Back to Mr. Carmichael. It was the weekend. It was a fine Saturday with spring weather. Mr. Carmichael was standing in front of his garage deciding what whether to maw the front yard or the back yard when a disturbance caught his attention. 

The noise seemed to have originated from the garage itself. Mr. Carmichael’s fuzzy eyebrows were knitted together with suspicion and dread. What was that sound?

He boldly opened the garage door and scanned the vicinity like a bounty hunter. There was nothing out of the ordinary until he laid his eyes on a fallen bicycle pump. 

“What is that doing on the floor?” he wondered.

He slowly made his way to the back, picked up the pump and placed it in its proper place. When suddenly…

“Watchoo!”

Mr. Carmichael quickly made his way out of the garage into the street like a cartoon. There was no one on the street to take a photo of Mr. Carmichael’s comically scared face.

With determination to find out the identity of his mysterious uninvited guest, Mr. Carmichael cautiously entered his garage. He carefully circumvented his 2010 Volvo S40.

By the corner of the car, a faint but noticeable shape of some hunched over shook either with fear or questionable excitement. Mr. Carmichael was a few feet away.

“Hey! Come out where I can see you clearly!” he said sternly.

“Nuuuuuuu!” moaned the intruder softly.

“I’ll call the police!” responded Mr. Carmichael as he pulled out his smartphone from his pocket.

Before he could dial 911, his intruder quickly jumped from his hiding spot.

For a few seconds, they stood staring at each other.

The creature looked like a muppet. It had long pink with large patches of green fur. It had a meter long neck towering Mr. Carmichael. It had short chubby limbs with long claws similar to that of a sloth. Its face was covered in even longer fur (was it even able to see Mr. Carmichael?).

Mr. Carmichael dropped his phone in disbelief. What was this abomination? What was it doing in his garage? What was it going to do to him?

As for the creature, its response was similar to Mr. Carmichael’s. It screamed and went back to its hiding space, hunched up and quivering in fear.

Mr. Carmichael did not see this though. He was at the front door of his house, locking himself inside and muttering to himself.

“Call the police! Call the police!”

He then remembered his windows and quickly closed all of them (including the ones upstairs in his bedroom). 

By the time he sat down in his sitting room, he was exhausted from all the excitement. He picked up his land line and was just about to dial 911.

“Wait a minute…if I call the police now and describe my intruder, they will probably won’t take me seriously”, he thought. “Maybe I should try animal control.”

With that he dialled the number for animal control. After a brief conversation, they agreed to come and check the premises.

After a few minutes of peace, the doorbell rang. Mr. Carmichael jumped from his seat like he received an electric shock.

“Oh, my”, he said as he tried to compose himself. “I’ll just check my phone app and see who it is.”

As he checked his pockets he realized his smartphone was missing. And then…

“Um…Excuse me. I’m really scared could you please let me in?” asked a familiar shaky voice. “You dropped this strange looking plate.”

At that moment Mr. Carmichael was having a panic attack.

“It talks! By all that is natural and scientific, it talks!” he thought as he stumbled to the kitchen to get a paper bag to breathe in.

The creature stood helplessly outside the door wondering what to do and to think.

20 minutes later Mr. Carmichael nearly at his wits end with dread and worry, nearly jumped when the land line rang. It was animal control. They had just arrived.

Mr. Carmichael let them in and explained the situation as vaguely as possible. 

“Ah, so well it looked like a racoon, a very big fat racoon.” 

“Really?” asked one of the men. A part of him wasn’t buying it.

His colleague ignored that and went on to assure Mr. Carmichael that the problem would be taken care of.

“So could you show us the location of the last sighting?” 

“Of course. Right this way”, responded Mr. Carmichael.

He led them to the garage, to the back of his car but the creature was no longer there.

“How long did you leave the garage door open?” 

“I think…about half an hour”, answered Mr. Carmichael nervously.

The officers looked at each other briefly then back at Mr. Carmichael. 

“It most likely has escaped but just in case it’s hiding on the premises we’ll look around.”

“Right”, agreed Mr. Carmichael.

For the next 15 to 20 something minutes they searched around the house but to no avail.

There was no trace.

The two animal control officers left Mr. Carmichaels thoroughly embarrassed. 

As he turned to go back into his yard, something caught his eye. It was his cell phone carefully placed in his flower pot by the door.

Mr. Carmichael picked it up and examined it carefully.

It was certainly cracked across the screen but it still worked. 

“Perhaps this creature is not a bad”, thought casually. 

He looked back at his lawn and thought “Sunday is not a bad day to maw the lawn really.”

Surprisingly, Mr. Carmichael’s afternoon went swimmingly. His intruder seemed to have vanished completely. That was until later that night right before 09.30 when Mr. Carmichael heard a noise coming from the garage.

He had a hunch it was peculiar guest.

He got up and went to investigate. He opened the garage door and pointed his flash at the back of his car.

The pink and green shaggy creature was there. It was as scared just like their first meeting.

Mr. Carmichael looked around to see if there was anyone moving down the street that hour but the neighbourhood was silent with a few dogs barking here and there. 

“Come with me”, he said to the creature.

It looked at him confused and even pointed to itself as if to say ‘me?’

“Don’t waste my time and follow me into the house”, he urged.

It nodded and mad its way across the garage. It bang its head against the ceiling and decided it was best to keep its head down by lowering its neck.

When it reached Mr. Carmichael it stopped right in front of him and asked softly “will you call the police?”

“No. Unless you give me a very good reason to”, answered Mr. Carmichael. 

With that cleared, they both went inside.

Mr. Carmichael was quite exhausted and had no intention of a lengthy interview. Instead a quick introduction and a few strict instructions was made. 

The creature claimed it was from outer space and had lost its family. Its kind was called Lug-Lug, a fair relative to the sloth species but highly advanced. 

“Do you have a name?” asked Mr. Carmichael.

“OoowieChachaZakikiku…” responded the creature.

“Alright, alright! I will give you a name. Mars.”

Mars reflected on his new name for a bit and agreed to it.

“I like it, um…ummm…?”

“Mr. Carmichael. Now, I’m very tired and going to bed. You can sleep here in the living room for tonight. Just don’t touch anything, you hear me?”

“Yes, Mr. Carmichael”, responded Mars. “Mr. Carmichael, Won’t you read me a bed time story?” 

“No!!!” responded Mr. Carmichael as he made his way upstairs. “Go to sleep!”

And so that is how Mr. Carmichael a serious bank accountant became the owner of the most unusual pet. Keeping Mars a secret from the general public was one of the toughest endeavours Mr. Carmichael had ever undertaken. But eventually his family founded out and thanks to Mars, Mr. Carmichael was able to learn to like children (his nephews and nieces). 

The end.