By John Cosper

Carl cursed the day he was born as he opened his eyes to the purple sun lifting over the horizon. It was cosmically unfair, patently wrong in every way, that he, a Cum Laude graduate of Harvard with an MBA in Business Management, would be here. And yet, he could feel the squeeze of the giant alien baby's arm around his waist, welcoming him to another day on this alien world.

The morning began like every other morning the last six months of his life, with the baby cooing and licking the back of his head. He could feel the millions of giant bumps on the alien baby’s tongue grazing over the reddish, raw skin on the back of his head. Carl had paid a pretty penny for the hair plugs a while back, hair plugs this huge beast of a child had licked off in a matter of months. He hadn’t seen a mirror in a while, but Carl imagine he looked like a reverse Mr. T with the bald stripe running from the back over the top of his head.

The baby squealed and tossed Carl high in the air, giggling and gurgling as Carl bounced on the hard alien baby mattress. Had he eaten in the last few hours, Carl would easily have puked his guts out on impact. This was a new game, one the baby alien had only come to play in recent weeks since its motor skills developed. But this sort of physical abuse was far from new. The alien baby’s parents, giant green blob-like humanoids, loved to shake Carl in the baby’s face while the power lunch wizard screamed and begged for mercy to the delighted coos of the alien baby. Then the alien baby learned to snuggle him. Carl had nearly smothered a few times, but alas, he had yet to be put out of his misery.

Now that the baby had full range of motion with its arms and hands, Carl had never been more miserable. Not even that hearing before Congress for defrauding investors in his multi-national conglomerate had been this excruciating. And there was no high-priced lawyer to whisper in his ear or shield him from the abuse of the alien baby. He was a toy, a play thing, and life was Hell.

Often Carl had railed at the God he wasn't sure he believed in anyway. This was no fate for a man of his stature. Surely some bum on welfare, bleeding the economy, would be more deserving. But not Carl. Granted Carl was no saint, but Carl had a purpose for every deed, good and bad. The number of people who profited from Carl’s business decisions far exceeded the number who suffered. He never screwed anyone that didn't have it coming. And the young girls he fancied on his trips to the Far East... well, it wasn't as if his wife had been faithful either.

And yet Carl was the one singled out when his airliner was nabbed over the Pacific Ocean by a UFO. Carl wondered if the government had any clue that giant aliens were abducting people like him. He feared he had been written off as lost at sea, when in reality he and two hundred others had been whisked away to a far off planet, cleaned up, dressed up, marked up, and sold at what he feared was probably some giant alien thrift store.

Carl had watched a few alien conspiracy shows on Discovery, but he never heard anything approaching the horror he faced day in and day out on this alien planet.

Best as he could tell, Carl was a gift, given at the birth of his beastly master, by some butt-ugly alien relative. He had tried on many occasions to make contact with the parents, whom he found to be of questionable intelligence, desperately trying to convince them he was a man and not a toy. His pleas for help only served to make the father alien play harder and rougher, usually for the alien baby’s amusement.

Carl knew they knew he was alive. Why else would they give him crumbs and scrapings from the table? But he rarely if ever kept things down. The food was far from a nice lunch at Morton's, and with the rough play baby and Daddy preferred, he usually ended up puking anyway.

The morning exercises bouncing off the crib mattress and bars finally ended when the alien baby's momma came to claim the alien baby and take both of them (baby LOVED Carl, and never left him behind) to the kitchen, where he was pinned into the high chair with his infant master. The horror of being tossed about was once again replaced by the horror of breakfast, where the alien baby’s hot, slimy food would dribble from his mouth on Carl's head. Words could not possibly describe the humiliation, the torment, the sheer terror of feeling this monster's slobber fall on you.

It seemed like it would be just another day on Hell Planet, as Carl had come to call it, when the back door flew open. Screaming and wailing erupted from the infant's mother as five or six huge aliens burst into the room waving what looked like weapons. They ran to the high chair and yanked Carl out of the grasp of the infant, who began to bawl.

Carl was terrified. His new captors put him in a kennel and then set him in the back of some sort of vehicle. It was cool in here. Cool and quiet. And for the first time in months, Carl heard a voice that sounded familiar.

"Hey, buddy."

Carl looked and saw he was not alone. Two other kennels were in the back, a Caucasian human in each.

"You okay?" one of the men said.

"No, I am not okay!" Carl shouted. "I'm alone on a foreign planet, and I'm tired of being a baby chew toy."

"You're one of the lucky ones," said the other man. "Doesn't look like yours was teething yet."

"Teething?" Carl exclaimed.

"Yeah," said the other man. "It never ends well."

"Who are you?" said Carl. "And where am I?"

"You're safe," said the other man. "I'm Lance Davis, Davis Home Furnishings, Phoenix. This is Dieter. He's from Germany."

"Hallo," said Dieter.

"Guten tag," said Carl to Dieter. To Lance Davis, Davis Home Furnishings, Phoenix, Carl said, "What’s going on here?"

"You've been rescued."

"By whom?"

"Well, technically, on their world, they're terrorists," said Lance Davis, Davis Home Furnishings, Phoenix. "You see it’s perfectly legal to abduct other intelligent life forms and bring them here as property. But these guys, well, if you ask me, they’re the good guys. They know that we're intelligent beings, and they want to see us respected, not turned into play things."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Apparently, this planet has been stealing humans since the 40's. It's only been recently that some have had a moral objection to the way we're treated."

"So what will they do with us?" asked Carl.

"Send us home," said Lance Davis, Davis Home Furnishings, Phoenix. "With a message to the President that they want peace, and the end to human trafficking."

"My gosh," said Carl, sitting in his kennel. "What a sick planet."

"Yeah," said Lance Davis, Davis Home Furnishings, Phoenix. "You're telling me."

The alien "terrorists" loaded Carl, Dieter, and Lance Davis, Davis Home Furnishings, Phoenix into a UFO. After being put in hibernation, Carl and his companions woke up on Earth, safe and sound in Washington DC. When he was ready, he was taken to the White House for a briefing with the President.

"I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal," said the President. "But national security demands a cover story be used to explain your disappearance and reappearance. We can’t have a national panic of people with people afraid of aliens."

"I understand," said Carl, who deep down wanted nothing more than to sell his story to Steven Spielberg for a million bucks.

"We’re gonna say you were stranded on a deserted island. That’s the most logical explanation."

Carl definitely agreed with that.

"And just so you know, we’re using this incident to open a dialogue with the people of Boogooboogoostanish. That’s the planet where you were taken captive. We hope they will come to recognize us as fellow intelligent beings, and treat us as such. No more human trafficking amongst the stars."

"Good," said Carl. "No one should have to endure what I did."

The President shook Carl’s hand. Secret Service arrived and took Carl to the nicest hotel in town, where he ordered room service.

His belly full, Carl relished being in the big hotel bed. Even now, days removed from the alien planet, it was beginning to feel as if it were nothing but a bad dream. It was still all too shocking to accept. Those alien fiends treated him like chattel. It was wrong. Morally wrong. And Carl would do everything in his power to fight it.

Carl shook off his bitter thoughts. He needed a distraction. Something to help him forget. Something he hadn’t had in a long time. Carl had visited DC many times over the years, and he knew just the person to call. He dialed the unlisted number from memory and proceeded with his order.

"Hello?"

"Reg sent me," said Carl. "I'd like some company."

"I understand," said the other voice. "What you in the mood for?"

"Innocent, pretty, and young," said Carl, leaning back against the headrest. "In fact, the younger, the better."

 Carl gave his address, then grabbed his wallet. He headed down to the lobby to get some cash, looking forward to a simple pleasure that just can’t be bought with credit card.

Millions of women and children around the world are unable to live their own lives because they have been drawn into the world of sex trafficking. It is a crime. It is a violation of human rights. And yet it continues because too many people turn a blind eye. Get involved and find out how you can help combat this horrible evil at www.sharedhope.org

Copyright 2008 by John Cosper