Probably an Alien

Ali hungrily chewed on the old piece of yesterday’s bread he was having for lunch. Sweat dripped on his forehead.  “It’s hard work, working in the fields”, he thought desperately as he wiped it with the back of his hand. Finishing the rest of his lunch, he handed  the plate over to his mother who was washing the dishes at the tiny sink of their earthen hut.

Trrring!!! The phone sounded, interrupting Ali from his thoughts.  

“Son”, his mother turned to him. “Can you please get it? I’m busy.” Ali nodded and picked up the receiver of the ancient telephone which sat on a ‘stand’ made of old bricks after checking the number which looked like his friend Bilal’s.

“Hi pal, how’s it goin’?” said the voice at the other end.        

“How’s what going??”asked a puzzled Ali.

 “Come on! You know what I’m talking about!” He heard someone say.

“No, I don’t,” said Ali.

“Oh forget it. It’s useless talking to you anyway.” Said somebody at the other end. “Oh! And you said your dad was going to get you an ‘Apple ‘’??”

“An Apple???” asked Ali. “Oh yeah , he did.”

“So how is it? Did you like it?” said somebody.

“Oh, It was big and red. I liked it.” Replied  Ali, merely confused. “But what’s so big about that?”

“Big? You mean he got you a big Apple tablet?” Ali heard somebody say.

“What apple tablet?” Asked  Ali, still confused. “An apple flavored tablet? The tablet he bought for me when I had the fever? What are you talking about???”

“A tab, ya stupid!”  Said a scornful voice. “Don’t act so dumb.”

“Dumb??”  Asked Ali. “ I can’t be dumb when I can speak!”

“Forget it, Dumb head. It’s no use talking to you, anyways.”he heard a voice say. “You’re always a waste of time. Bye stupid!!”

Ali heard the call disconnect. Thoughtfully, he put down his own receiver too and pressed the ‘redial’ button. “That’s strange!” He said to himself. “ I must have mistaken it for Bilal’s phone number! It wasn’t his!”

“Ali!”  He heard his mother say. Ali flipped around.

“Yes?”

“Who was he on the phone whom you were talking with?”

“ I don’t know. It was some strange thing” he said as he wore a worn out pair of slippers. “Probably an alien”.