They tell me I am on my way home. At last. They promised me, when I returned, little time would have passed on Earth. Hard to tell, though. My watch died as soon as I stepped on board. Instinctively, intuitively, I feel like about a year has passed. However, I learned that with these people, er, things, lies become truth, fact is fiction and God knows what time means.

God. Well, that’s probably a story for another time.

She promised me a love that would transcend the universe. Instead I got a bloody nose when she tried to access my memories through my old schnoz. Actually, after all the experiments they ran on me, I wonder what I look like. These guys don’t use mirrors. As ugly as they are, I can see why vanity eludes them.

Right now I am in some sort of suspension chamber that buffers me from the stress of faster-than-light space travel. A year ago (or whenever) the new experience of being confined in the chamber squeezed my soul to desperation. Obviously I am conscious in the contraption but not claustrophobic or anxious. 

Besides, being an astronaut who explored the moon and Mars, I accepted cramped quarters as routine but this chamber is something else entirely. Somehow I can see outside their vessel and can watch stars, planets and entire galaxies flash by. 

“You’ll be home soon,” they tell me. Soon. Time. Relative. This part of the trip is a bit frustrating. Certainly one thing I learned is how embedded the concept of time is. Without time, existence is strange, foreign, horrible.

When they made first contact with my colony on Mars, Earth erupted in excitement, terror, panic, and nations across the planet armed their nuclear weapons. However, a civilization capable of intergalactic travel did not fear our puny ordnance. 

“Don’t fear us,” they told we earthlings. “We mean you no harm,” they cooed. “We have many things to teach you,” they lied.

“Send an emissary to our home world.” That’s how I got here. Wherever here is. Whenever here is. Space-time is much more queer than Einstein could imagine.

I must have fallen asleep because the suspension chamber released me onto the now familiar bridge of their ship with a thud. The skyline of New York City replaced the incredible images of our universe. Maybe.

We floated over the Statue of Liberty and seemed to drift south over the Atlantic ocean until the familiar landmarks of Washington D.C. emerged underneath us. The spacecraft hovered over the White House and, with no verbal commands, the president of the United States materialized next to me.

The man looks like the president I left but how can I be sure I’m home? How can I be sure I am anywhere. I’m still not used to this but somehow a thought appeared in my consciousness. Not an idea, not those flashes of innovation that are uniquely human. No, whatever they inject into my mind are commands. I can’t ignore them, postpone them, or disbelieve them. The consequences are far too dire.

“Of course he is the president, you’re home. Rejoice,” they implanted in my head.

“Sir,” I said and shook his hand. The jolt knocked me on my butt and my head bounced off of the bulkhead of the ship. When the stars cleared, I sat on the lawn of the White House surrounded by uniformed Secret Service agents with the president standing over me. 

The president laughed and his guards cracked up, holding their sides from giggling so hard. My head cleared and the alien things took form in front of me.

“Welcome back home,” roared the president.