Summer was a great time for us. Not due to being out of school or the weather being warm enough for us to swim, but rather that both of our birthdays being in the first two months.
Calvin’s birthday was June eleventh, today.
Streamers hung from the ceiling all over the living room with a banner hanging before the kitchen area that read “Happy birthday Calvin!” in big, bubble letters. Calvin had had friends from school over earlier for a party. Plates and cups with remnants of the food and drinks that they had were on both the dining table and the coffee table. There was gift wrapping paper littering the living room floor with a large empty box labeled “Telescope” that our dad had gotten him. That would be fun for me to clean later. He had saved up for four months to buy him such a thing, but I guess nothing was too good for his perfect little son. I had been forced to save up for a little portable radio for him. Currently, Calvin was sitting out on the balcony, listening to the radio and looking through the telescope.
For now, my father and I sat at the table with a half eaten cake, playing a one on one game of blackjack.
“Hey, Kris,” My dad started, “Go check on him, see if he wants to play too.”
Sigh and get up, I guess this day was all about Calvin so I could deal with it. My feet brush past the abundance of wrapping paper on the floor as I make my way to the balcony. He seemed so focused on whatever he was looking at through it.
I place a hand on his shoulder, causing him to jump a bit.
“Hey man, dad wants to know if you wanna play blackjack with us.”
“Nah, the next report on that planet is coming in soon!” He has a big smile on his face.
“What’s so special about a silly planet?” Oops, shouldn’t have said that, his smile turns to a pout.
“Haven’t you been listening to all the reports and stuff? It isn’t orbiting anything and it straight up looks like it’s being controlled! And they think there could be life on it!” His eyes sparkle, “don’t you think that’s really really cool?!”
“They’re probably just trying to hype people up, it’s probably just nothing”
“No!! I can see it! It looks like there’s life or something! Just look!” He scoots over, motioning for me to look through the scope.
I move over, looking through it
“You better not bump it! I’ve got it set perfectly!”
“I’m not gonna bump it!” I reply, slightly annoyed.
Through the telescope I see a planet, it was quite blurry so I could only assume it was really really far away.
“Well? What do you think?” He said. As I look out, I see a big goofy smile on his face.
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s really really cool! I they’re saying it’s going to miss us by a long shot but like,” He pulls out a notebook, flipping over to a page with with drawings of the planet, along with a lot of weird trajectory stuff, “It looks like its gonna get really close! Kris!” His eyes sparkle. “What if there are aliens! What if the whole things like a ship and they visit and stuff!” He bounces in place, practically vibrating with excitement.
“That sounds pretty cool man” I smile, I figure he and his conspiracy theory friends had come up with all of that. It was possible there was life on the planet, but it was very unlikely it was any intelligent life. It’s probably just some rogue planet and we’re lucky it isn’t on a collision course with our own planet.
I sit back from the telescope, feeling the warm outside air in front and the cold air of our air conditioning on my back, mixing to make something that was honestly quite comfortable.
Despite the warm air, Calvin still wore a large winter jacket. Though if you looked at the two of us side by side, you’d think that it was I who needed the jacket. Our body types contrasted similarly to the air that we currently felt before and behind us.
Calvin scooted towards me, obviously wanting to look through the scope again. I move over due to his silent request, and sit close to the radio. Our dad would just have to wait for me to get back in later if he wanted to play.
After a few more minutes of commercials, the radio station that Calvin was listening to came back to its main content. The station wasn’t the clearest, but hey, what were you gonna do in our day and age.
“Tonight on NYSN, we have a very special report on the rogue planet: TARPT-R5F. Our sources have been following the irrational trajectory of this planet for the past seven years and we are still unsure of what causes it to accelerate and decelerate as it does. However, through observations, the planet seems to be in a tidal-locked state despite not orbiting any known object.
On the subject of theorized existence of flora and fauna on the planet, supported by the blotchy green and tan surface and what we can only assume to be two large oceans, our sources have come to the conclusion that there is a high probability of intelligent life on the TARPT-R5F. Furthermore, there is continued investigation on what the odd corona around the planet seems to be.
As the planet gets closer to entering our solar system, our knowledge on the planet only expands more and more, and we will continue to update the people on any further discoveries.”
Calvin was squirming with happiness next to me. “Kris! There might be aliens!!! Oh my god aliens!” He said, getting up and running inside.
“Aliens dad! Did you hear that! Aliens!”
We were gonna be hearing about this for the next few weeks, if not months.