The scientific community was astonished. Through many superfluous words and phrases, they eloquently expressed their opinion. In short, they claimed that they “didn’t understand how this could happen.” This alien had clearly been dead, and now, with a brand new spaceship (though smaller than last time), he landed in a small field just west of Philadelphia and was now clearly not dead. Incredible, they said.
The Church of Neal claimed it as their greatest day since the dawn of time. Not necessarily the greatest day since the dawn of time, but at least their greatest day. After all, they hadn’t been around for very long—just four years since Neal arrived the first time—and most of those days had been pretty crummy. But not this day. This day was great. Everyone could see that. So they established a mandatory holiday and drafted petitions to require its observation by every government of the world.
The governments of the world were not amused. They did their own thing. They slapped a helmet on the space alien immediately.
Meanwhile, the New Purists, those who completely rejected all teachings related to Neal, completely rejected the resurrection of Neal. Sure, there was an alien being paraded around like the latest hero, but clearly this was no more than an elaborate hoax. Either Neal had never died or this new Neal was a holographic projection intended to fool the masses. At least their guess was close to being correct, though in the end still very, very wrong.
The ufologists, who also did not trust the government because of the events surrounding and following Neal’s first appearance—they accused the government of receiving Neal and the truth about him only at the tables of shady back rooms—mounted an assault to kidnap Neal and question him in their own secret facilities. The truth, after all, needed to be made public through trusted hands. Their attempted kidnap failed.
Indeed, it wasn’t until the end of the parade when they had the alien sign a release waiver that they suddenly and embarrassingly realized that this wasn’t Neal the space alien at all. It was Neil the space alien. The spelling of his name on the document confirmed it. And now that they looked at Neil, it was quite clear that this wasn’t Neal at all. As one onlooker observed, this alien didn’t have a chronic dry skin problem.
All those who had been vociferous about the Return of Neal retracted their statements and replaced them with new, louder statements. These statements were less interesting.
At the end of the parade, the media whisked Neil into an enclosed chamber, already darkened for the impending interview. After the days of Neal, when they forgot to ask him for his proof concerning God’s existence, there had been a massive, worldwide poll taken to determine the top three questions they would have asked if they had gotten around to it. The questions were:
1. Does God exist?
2. How do you know this?
3. Can you show us your proof?
The media interviewed Neil and asked him these questions. Neil, not being Neal, responded in this way:
1. Yes.
2. I don’t know.
3. I don’t know.
This interview was televised worldwide. Subsequently, wars broke out all over the Earth. Josiah Swanson began work on his next bestseller, -EA- is for Intelligence, -EI- is for Stupidity. Those who circumcised themselves during Neal’s tenure fell into an even deeper depression. Neil slipped away to South America in the confusion. Now that’s irony, everyone concluded later.
Fortunately for Neil, he was wearing his government-supplied protective headgear. After he discovered his liking for jungle mushrooms, he spent several days—or so the story became in the retellings to follow—stumbling around and losing all sense of reality.
When the authorities finally located him, they proved that they had learned nothing from the days of Neal. In the ruckus of obtaining the poor alien, someone tackled him and knocked his head hard against a tree. Neil’s helmet saved his life, though his brain was quite concussed from the incident. Josiah Swanson felt vindicated. Children who enjoyed riding bikes decided not to bother going for a ride anymore—now overprotective mothers would certainly suck all the fun out of it.
Concussed Neil was even less interesting than the normal non-Neal Neil. During recovery, he expressed to a nurse to whom he had grown attached all of the trials of his previous life on his home planet. He told how he had been a drug addict, a thief, and eventually a murderer. He told how he wanted to be better, that he was well-intentioned, but always his good attempts failed. As a result, he was sent away from his planet and landed on Earth, hoping to find a largely uninhabited planet upon which he could settle down and live out the rest of his miserable life in solitude. He wept sorrowful tears when he told his story (or so the nurse later claimed when she sold out to the nearest news outlet to relate the tale). Journalists went to surround Neil. Neil confirmed the story.
Some people tried to muster sympathy for Neil. Hardly anyone succeeded and most people lost interest in a few weeks. At least until the release of the final version of Josiah Swanson’s book, Neal the Missionary, Neil the Outcast. The book sold well, but it received poor reviews because it was more about Neil than about Neal.
Most everyone just lost interest and went home at night, locked their doors, and tried not to think about how the world was mostly oversized and generally too scary. Neal had been a light, but Neil had stamped that light out. Most people couldn’t have even told you about how Neil ended up living in and becoming a productive member of a small Swiss town in the Alps.
Meanwhile, a boy in Peru who had recently been cured of cancer had a most wonderful thought about how he could make the world a better place.
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