Space: An Interview from America's Heartland

"It came from outer space!" were the woman's first words when I sat down to interview her. It was my job to maintain a professional straight face, to protect the podcast from the weirdos and predators who thought to get their fifteen minutes of fame at our expense. That was not how my boss had built the internet's oldest and most successful paranormal podcast in blatant spite of deafening criticism and negativity.

"...Some grotesque mask or somethin'. I tell ya, it was downright petrifying!" I tuned out the woman's otherworldly claims once more, letting my phone record her endless nattering. If there was anything interesting or useful, I'd find it in playback. "Well this thing was wearing some sort of winged suit...."

Once more I let my thoughts drown out the woman's breathy explanation of her memories of the encounter; it all went in and right back out as the depths of my brain processed her chatter with all the innatention it deserved. Humidity hung heavy in the air, smothering and oppressive as though someone were holding a thick, wet cloth to my face.

My brain was idly sifting through the woman's recounting, scanning and dismissing keywords with algorhythmic precision: teeth, fur, scales. None of them were unusual enough to trigger my inner eye and warrant a closer examination. "...looked like some ancient Egyptian heiroglyphs or something."

That caught my brain and I stared past the woman's horned-rim glasses and straight into her eyes. "I'm sorry, did you just say that there were symbols on the control panel that looked like some mutated aberration of ancient Egyptian?"

The woman had barely managed to breathe out the word yes before I had my hands around her throat and squeezed until her tongue protruded and the life left her eyes. I slung her meat-suit over my shoulder, and carried her back to the safety of my armed and armored spaceship, letting the situation become something for our sisters in the true crime podcast community.