“I never wanted my daughter to become my therapist,” Plucky is saying to Susan and me. “But I can’t just ignore what I know to be excellent insight and helpful advice.” We’re sitting with Plucky and Princess in the clubhouse area of the bar and grill. Princess had just suggested that her mother structure father and daughter activities to complement Deadpan’s therapy. “She takes after you,” I reply, just as Lmao and Deadpan walk in, pulling a cooler full of live fish. When I told Lmao I wanted to build a deep sea habitat, he said I shouldn’t let anyone burst my bubble.

This morning I received a surprise email, and I’m not sure what to think. Apparently a literary agent has been reading my blog posts and she says our story might make a nice movie. She asked if I could write a treatment. Now my anxiety is building. I looked up what a treatment is but that’s about as far as I’ve gone. One minute I’m thinking how great it would be to have a movie made about us and the next minute I realize that everything depends on me. When Lmao heard they were looking for actors for a jungle movie, he said: “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”

Lmao’s routine isn’t considered adult comedy but it is nevertheless recommended for adult audiences. Sometimes tourists bring their children along on the king’s cruise and need someone to watch them during the comedy act. Plucky and Susan have turned this into a business opportunity and set up a daycare for the three hours during which the tourists attend the fifty minute Time Travel Comedy Show.  As an added benefit, Princess has other children to play with. When I told Deadpan they were going to add a leap second, he asked: “When’s the big day?”

Lmao’s Bar and Grill is vibrant and bustling three mornings a week. These are the days when the king’s overnight cruise boat drops anchor and the tourists come ashore for breakfast. The money is welcome at a time when our comics business has matured into the maintenance of a loyal but stagnant customer base. Money was the topic of discussion one night as we sat around in the clubhouse area of the restaurant. When I told Lmao that I was going to buy a bunch of canvas sacks, he said: “Moneybags”.

The best kept secret in this part of the ocean is Lmao’s Bar and Grill. The building served as our gift shop when we hosted a cruise excursion. After that, Lmao kept the gift shop going for the king’s sailors who wanted to buy souvenirs during their supply runs. When the king started a private overnight cruise sailing from his port, Lmao added a kitchen and dining area. Susan and I dropped by this morning for breakfast, and I mentioned to her that I thought Lmao looked a little harried. Lmao wanted to open a business once before; he says he kept waiting for a sign.

When Susan and I are sitting with Princess, her favorite topic of conversation is her father. I have learned more about Deadpan from her than I learned in the hundred or more years I have known him. Everyone including Princess is aware of his inability to relate on a personal level, but when she speaks of him, she speaks as if his flaws don’t exist. One day, however, she had just returned from her father’s shack and told us: “Dad has too many things. Today he was in his laboratory, and I couldn’t find a way back there and we couldn’t play chess. I had to knock on a window to tell him I was there.” Lmao used to spend a lot of money at the cleaners; he says he was sitting on a gold mine.

Our spaceship is possibly the nicest spaceship in the universe. Susan has been decorating ever since she became my wife, adding home improvement items with every visit of the king’s supply ship. Today she said: “Now that everything’s the way I want it to be, there’s something I want to do that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I want to start a business.” Deadpan began a new career making airlocks. He says one door shuts and another one opens.

While everyone here contributes to the operation and maintenance of Alien Resort, nobody works harder than Plucky. Nearly every day, Susan and I visit Plucky’s spaceship and sit with Princess while Plucky works on various projects. For us this isn’t a chore but rather a delight: Princess is the smartest child there ever was, and she asks us an endless barrage of questions that we’re glad to try to answer. Today she asked: “Why are you and Aunt Susan so good to each other?” Lmao used to like sitting around in the back yard; he says it was right up his alley.

My wife Susan is usually cheerful and upbeat. But this morning I noticed she was teary-eyed and I asked her what was wrong. She replied that ever since her father disclosed that her brother left the island sixty thousand years ago, she hasn’t been able to get her brother off her mind. I put my arm around her and said I can’t imagine what it must be like not knowing what happened to him. I added that I’m intrigued by what Heather the anthropologist said: Lucas made landfall and his genes became part of the human genome. Deadpan says the footprints he discovered won’t make him famous; he’s going to use them as stepping stones.

I was thinking about what I was going to post when Plucky and Princess dropped by to visit. While Susan and Plucky were talking, Princess came over to my desk and asked me what I was doing. When I told her I made regular posts on the internet, her eyes got big and she said: “I want to do that too. Can I Mommy?” Plucky replied that there are certain responsibilities with having a blog, and certain hazards, but she would think about it. Princess jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “I only said I would think about it.” When Deadpan worked for 23 hours straight, he said he was calling it a day.

Deadpan’s shack is largely impassable because the rooms are crowded with junk and trash. In the back is a laboratory where he spends most of his time, working in secret. We never know the nature of his projects until he finishes them, is forced to reveal them (like the Alien Search computer game), or requires our help or participation. Today he dropped by and told us that he wants to construct a model of our genome in case we get sick. Susan and I gave him DNA samples. When Lmao asked what DNA is, Deadpan said it’s one of those little things in life that makes a difference.

Plucky and I are managers. Not in any formal sense of course, but over the years we’ve assumed a division of duties that works to maintain Alien Resort on an even keel. In a nutshell, she takes care of the technological and interpersonal issues and I manage the business matters and outside communications. Sometimes I don’t see her for a few days but we nonetheless maintain contact in one way or another throughout the course of the day. Recently I became concerned because she hadn’t responded to my emails; I decided to pay her a visit. I asked Lmao what his first day on the job was like. He says they showed him who’s the boss.

Every evening Susan asks me if we can go for a walk. First, we stop at the pier to sit and watch the sunset. Then we drop by the gift shop. With the tourists gone, we’ve turned the gift shop into a clubhouse called Lmao’s Bar and Grill. But the past few nights, the door has been locked. We decided to walk up the hill to Plucky’s ship where Lmao lives and make sure everything’s okay. Plucky looked surprised to see us: “I thought he was at the gift shop.” Deadpan found dust mites on Mars; he says he’s still scratching his head.

The secret is out: Coy and Susan are getting married. I’m writing this post to let you know that all you kings and queens are invited to share in the big event. We’ve added a guest book page to the Alien Resort website and we want to include your blog name (or other preferred name) and a link to your url. All you need to do is simply like this post, and we’ll get your site info from there, or use our contact page to provide your site name or preferred name/profile name/fake name, and url. I told Deadpan that I’m even going to invite the ghost; Deadpan said that’s the spirit.

Lmao, who is Plucky’s roommate, invited me to the patio of their spaceship for a tropical drink. Plucky leaned out the window and asked Lmao if he had her lipstick. He replied that it wasn’t his color and joked that maybe Ronald Wayne Devers took it when he took her cat. “Mr. Devers didn’t take it,” Plucky replied. “The lipstick went missing after he left the island. I know where I put it, and I don’t see how it could possibly be gone.” I’ve never taken inventory; Deadpan says I don’t know what I’m missing.

I can’t believe I misplaced a pile of comics. I know where I put them but now they’re gone. I feel like I let everyone down. This was a batch that we’ve been working on for the last two weeks. We were about to put them into final form and send them to editors. We’re going to have a meeting to figure out what to do next. Deadpan said that a black hole can even consume brain waves. Lmao replied: “Perish the thought.”

About a week ago I went for a walk on the pier and noticed a ship in the distance. Other than supply ships sent by the king, we see very little marine traffic out here. But it does happen, and I didn’t think much of it until yesterday, when I spotted another ship. I told Plucky, and she deployed the radar. Deadpan decided to clean his telescope; he said it was giving him a black eye.

I awoke this morning to the sound of a frantic pounding at my door; it was Plucky. “Come down to the beach at once,” she urged. “A rubber raft came ashore last night.” She paused, looking for words. “And there was a human aboard. A boy.” I put on my shoes and we headed for the beach. I asked Lmao how his fishing trip went; he said he threw back a few.

We watched a news report today where they announced the charges against our writer David Davis: four counts of hiring illegal aliens. The Beacons of Night claim that their tip to a friend in the prosecutor’s office led to the arrest. When Lmao was learning how to make spears he says he had to ask for tips.

During our early years on Earth, when we had nothing to do, Plucky would monitor her radio receiver for signals from space. Around the year 1920 she began to pick up signals from far-off Earth radio broadcasts. We didn’t understand the language at that time, but we were able to enjoy the music that was played. These days we have YouTube: I like jazz, Plucky likes pop, Deadpan listens only to Kraftwerk, and Lmao likes punk. Back then we needed a dance floor; Lmao knew how to cut a rug.

Earthlings are proceeding along one of the Standard Paths of technological advancement. Last night Plucky spotted one of their drones in the sky near the resort, and she intercepted it. The engineering contained in the drone is charmingly quaint. Deadpan says he once caught a housefly that was on the radar screen.