“United Mistakes of America”

There are many ways to fall from the sky.

Gracefully, like a bird.

Heroically, like a movie star.

Or—if you’re like me and my protagonist—flailing, screaming, and hoping you don’t land on something sharp or ironic.

We were somewhere over the Atlantic. Or maybe the Mississippi. Honestly, I lost track somewhere between “THIS ISN’T A REAL PARACHUTE” and “WHY ARE THE BIRDS CHECKING ME OUT?”

The point is—we fell.

Not elegantly.

Not fast enough to be cinematic.

But just slow enough to think about every mistake we’d ever made.

I remember seeing Kaito below me, spinning like a rejected carnival ride. His limbs were everywhere. His parachute was half-deployed and fully tangled. He screamed something I couldn’t hear over the wind, but I assume it was either “OH GOD WHY?” or “DAMN THAT OWL!”

And as the clouds parted, and I saw a patchwork of fields, rivers, and what I sincerely hoped was not an abandoned amusement park… I realized two things:

1.We were about to land in rural America.

2.Nothing—and I mean nothing—good has ever started with “We landed in rural America.”

He was unconscious before he hit the water. No control. No coordination. No prayer.

And I—well, I might’ve been a bitter narrator with a grudge against grammar, but even I knew:

If he dies, the story ends.

So I did something I promised I’d never do again.

I cheated. I used the last shred of omniscience I had left—the final narrative override, the backup generator of plot protection.

And I nudged him.

Redirected his fall just enough to miss the rocks.

He survived.

Unconscious.

Bruised.

Floating face-up like a forgotten pool noodle.

But alive.

And that’s when the truck arrived.

Pickup. Rusted. Flying a flag that simply said “YEE.”

Three men in camo hats climbed out. The kind of men whose favorite beer is “cold” and whose Wi-Fi password is probably just  “1234.”

They stared at the half-drowned teenager in the kiddie pool.

One pointed. “That ain’t from around here.”

The second one squinted. “That’s one o’ them sky alieners. You see them... them hoof-pants?”

“He ain’t got hooves, Earl.”

“Then what in God’s name is that?” he said, gesturing at Kaito’s soggy, half-shredded llama costume tangled around his legs like a fuzzy space parasite.

The third one whispered, “He’s wearin’ the pelt of his last victim.”

They all nodded solemnly, as if that made perfect sense.

“Yep,” said the first. “Definitely extra—extramundal… sky-boy.”

“We’re gonna be rich,” the third one said.

And I knew—with absolute, soul-sinking certainty—that this was going to be the dumbest part of this investigation.

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Kaito woke up to the smell of barbecue sauce and wet dog.

Also, he couldn’t move his arms.

Sunlight stabbed his eyes. He squinted and looked around. He was sitting in a folding lawn chair. His wrists were zip-tied to the armrests, and someone had re-dressed him in the worst parts of his costume. Llama fuzz, banana shirt, duct tape.

Also: there was a paper plate taped to his chest. It said “SPECIMEN (???).”

“...I’m awake,” he croaked.

No one heard him.

The backyard was alive with chaos. Lawn flamingos. Rusty BBQs. A kiddie pool full of green liquid that probably wasn't water. And—most importantly—three furious rednecks, two sweaty federal agents, and five glitter-covered activists currently screaming at each other over a fold-out table covered in Slim Jims and tax forms.

“We founds him first!” shouted Buckley, thumping his chest. “He was fallin’! We caught him in the pool! That’s catching rights!”

“He fell onto American soil,” snapped the IRS agent, holding up a laminated badge. “Which means federal claim! Also this isn’t a real pool—it’s a glorified trash can!”

“Says the lady with government mouth!” Conehead yelled. “You speakin’ all legal-words. Sound like law demons!”

“Law demons?” echoed an activist.

“Yes,” Buckley said solemnly. “Ghosts of Constitution. I seen them.”

Kaito whimpered. “Can I—please—go?”

“No!” all three factions shouted, in perfect broken sync.

“Alien stays for human rightness!” yelled one activist, who was halfway through painting FREE SPACE BOY on their shirt using barbecue sauce.

“He’s a virus egg!” screamed the older redneck, whose hat said #1 Cousin and whose understanding of grammar was fading rapidly. “He come with the words melting! Tongue collapse! All a mouth-trick!”

“People of Babel-wind!” Conehead added. “He’s spokemancer! HE CURSE THE SYNTAX!”

“He said banana at least twice!” someone from the government yelled.

Kaito shouted, “I DID NOT SAY BANANA—!”

“You hear that?!” screamed the redneck. “He speaketh backwards lies!”

“Everybody shut up!” cried the IRS agent. “We have protocols! He needs to be taken in for researching dissectment!”

“Don’t say cut-words in front of space-people!” an activist gasped.

“It’s okay!” yelled another activist. “I read a blog about this! He might be non-binary in galactic terms!”

“I think he’s binary in the head,” muttered a redneck.

“STOP!” Kaito screamed, trying to stand. The chair didn’t move.

“Let me go!”

He panted. His llama suit was half off. His hair was full of moss. His voice cracked like a busted radio.

“...See?” Conehead said, pointing. “That not voice. That glitch!”

Everyone started yelling again.

“Glitch-beast!”

“Human hostage!”

“Sky-spy!”

“Capitalist puppet!”

And then...chaos started. Or continued. Or grew. Honestly, I don't know anymore.

Someone had flipped over a folding chair. Someone else was now dual-wielding barbecue tongs. A nearby garden gnome had been turned into a makeshift microphone. Tension crackled in the air like a greasy, patriotic thunderstorm.

“I propose,” said Buckley, pacing in a circle, “we keep him in pool until he hatches.”

“I’m not going to hatch!” Kaito shouted.

“He denying!” Buckley pointed. “This unhatched action!”

“I say we send him to Washington,” said the IRS agent, slapping down a document that was definitely just a Chinese takeout menu. “Let the labs sort him.”

“You just want his organs!” one of the activists shouted.

“Ma’am,” the agent replied through clenched teeth, “I haven’t dissected anything this month.”

“We must build him a freedom dome!” declared one of the activists. “A habitat! With mirrors! And affirmations!”

“He’s not a hamster,” Conehead muttered, gnawing on a stick of beef jerky like it was a cigar.

“But maybe he needs exercise!” someone added. “Maybe he breathes backwards! Maybe he photosynthesizes trauma!”

“I do not!” Kaito cried.

Suddenly, someone shouted, “WE LAUNCH HIM BACK!”

Everyone turned.

The speaker stood proudly on a garden table, holding an empty propane tank like it was sacred scripture. His shirt read “I YELL FOR AMERICA” and his left eye twitched with conspiracy.

“We take him to the grain silo. We fuel the tub. We sky yeet him home.”

“Yeet him home?” repeated Kaito, horrified.

“Sky yeet!” the man confirmed.

“I say he stays!” one activist said. “He could lead the county parade!”

“Can I get water?” Kaito croaked. “Real water. Not the kind that smells like old pickles.”

“HE DRINKS PICKLE TO SUSTAIN HIS FORM!” someone screamed.

A full argument erupted.

Three rednecks waving pool noodles.

Two IRS agents arguing about how they should split him according to the tax codes.

One activist was now crying into a tote bag made of hemp and shredded political flyers.

And Kaito?

Kaito was slumped in the chair, expression gone full “please just abduct me already.”

Then—

A musical honk.

Everyone froze.

At the far end of the yard, through a haze of grilled smoke and Babel-static confusion, rolled a shining gold-plated golf cart with giant fuzzy dice and an inflatable eagle tied to the roof.

The crowd parted as it rolled in.

From the driver’s seat stepped a man wearing cowboy boots, wraparound sunglasses, and a sash that read:

“MAYOR (2017–∞)”

He raised one hand.

Then, as if delivering a monologue at the county Shakespeare festival, declared:

“Peeples. Stop the shoutwords. The sky-boy… is ours now.”

Everyone stared.

The mayor took a long sip of something suspicious from a travel mug shaped like a grenade.

“He came. He fell. He no belong to you. Or you. Or alphabet gang.”

He pointed at the IRS agents, who blinked in unison.

“He no belong to space-club, or grass cult.”

The activists gasped.

“He ours. For town proud. For big show. For brochure. He—” the mayor paused for dramatic effect, “—will sit high. In middle-place. On tall-honor rock. And wear sign.”

A collective gasp.

The rednecks dropped their weapons.

The IRS agents closed their briefcases.

The activists held hands.

Kaito looked around in horror. “Wait—what? No. No! That doesn’t even make sense! I’m a person!”

The mayor turned slowly.

“You now… landmark.”

The mayor's people untied Kaito and moved him to the town square.

Which to be honest, was more of a dusty rectangle bordered by one grocery store, two defunct vape shops, and a suspiciously silent mattress outlet that was definitely a front for something.

At the center stood a cracked concrete pedestal that used to hold a statue of a Civil War general who’d been quietly stolen for scrap metal in 2012.

Now?

It held Kaito Sasaki.

He stood on the pedestal, arms still zip-tied, expression frozen between confusion and emotional resignation. His banana shirt flapped gently in the wind. His llama costume was draped like a ceremonial cloak. A cardboard sign hung around his neck, reading:

“INTERGALACTIC FRIEND (DO NOT TOUCH)”

Children threw popcorn at his feet.

A local band played vaguely patriotic music while tuning their instruments out loud.

The rednecks clinked beer bottles with the IRS agents.

The activists were sharing snacks with Conehead and debating whether Kaito should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize or a guest spot on a cooking show.

No one seemed to remember they’d spent the past hour threatening to kidnap, dissect, or launch him into the sky.

They were laughing. Toasting. Taking selfies with “the alien.”

Kaito sighed. “This is my life now.”

From a bench nearby, I watched the scene unfold. Pen in hand. Juice box in pocket. Dignity long gone.

And as I wrote down every ridiculous detail—every slurred slogan, every broken sentence, every time someone asked if Kaito “came from Uranus”—I thought:

I may not know what is going on.

But one thing is for sure.

In the state of North Carolina, Kaito Sasaki was a statue.