Here’s my recent effort at flash fiction – with illustrations by me of course.
The Universal Drawer
By Sue Clancy
“Papadopodada” said Nanotzee, said to an adult Alienatzoa who was holding a copy of The Universal times in his four hands. “Papadopodada!” Nanotzee insisted.
“Hmmm?” grunted the adult voice from behind The Times and far far away.
“Papadopodada… where did you get this?” Nanotzee was looking at the Milky Way Galaxy which lay in chest of drawers.
Nanotzee was doing what all young Alienatzoa do – go through their adults private drawers asking personal questions.
(If you could hear them talking their words would sound a lot like this: “Gooartohozee. Nanhumota Behoobustic” and so forth, hard for us Earthlings to understand.)
A corner of The Times folded down and one of 3 eyes peered over it. “Oh. My Papadopodada gave that Universe to me for care and feeding when I was about your age. He thought it would be good for me to take responsibility” said the voice behind The Times.
Those words didn’t make much sense to Nanotzee who pulled the drawer all the way out, carried it and set it on a table carefully. After looking with three eyes a while, reading the labels and admiring the colors, Nanotzee got out the Spectacularizer. The Spectacularizer makes things appear larger than they really are. A Spectacularizer looks a lot like this.

illustration of a “Spectacularizer” for a story called “The Universal Drawer” by Sue Clancy
“Wowweezowee!” exclaimed Nanotzee peering through the three eye pieces and adjusting the Spectacularizer’s knobs, buttons and lenses, making the wonderful even more spectacular.
Eventually Nanotzee said “Papadopodada…one rock, labeled Earth, has a lot of little beings all over it. Is that normal?“ A few nanoseconds later Nanotzee added “And why is your universe so big? Mine is only half this size.”
The Times folded in half. All three of the adult Alienatzoa’s eyes appeared above the fold. “Well… it’s all a matter of perspective.”
(What the adult Alienatzoa really said was “Garbledee garbledum harumphado.” But that speech took several light years to reach Earth’s atmosphere and it is likely that much was lost in translation.)
Here below is the only known image of an Alienatzoa:

illustration for “The Universal Drawer” a flash fiction story by Sue Clancy
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