It sucks being homeless in Las Vegas. Two months ago, the city government made it illegal to give food or money to any vagrants, even for a low fee or for work. One month ago, all but those fit enough to catch rats and steal produce were dead. A few tried to make it out of the city on foot, and perished in the desert. One week ago the aliens arrived, and that was when we started to disappear.

The city counsel denied it flatly, saying that the homeless weren’t really disappearing, and that we’d just started eating each other. The people believed this lie, because it was awfully comforting. Awfully sensible, that. Cannibalism. Maybe if they’d used the big brains they used to think of that sooner, they’d be able to luxuriate in hookers and poker chips like the rest of us, rather than wallowing in their own amoral vagrancy.

But we didn’t eat each other. Not for the most part, at least. Three weeks ago my friend Shakes lost it and pulled the eyes out from a clown he saw performing at a birthday party in someone’s back yard, so he could feed his ailing daughter. (Hah. Clown.) We couldn’t go gambling, and we were still hungry and very much alive. The aliens had begun abducting us.

I didn’t believe it at first, of course. Not until I saw their craft of light and needles, and felt one of said needles stick into my back as I ran, crushing my body into a molecule-thick stream before spitting me back out again inside a cold room where my eyes couldn’t quite focus. The aliens moved towards me and they removed my clothes, their slimy “hands” leaving residue on my skin. Their eyes were like stars and they were completely inhuman, except their faces reminded me of William Shatner.

After my clothes were gone, the aliens surrounded me and pressed their fleshy bodies against mine for a while, as they let out noises that resembled a lady-robot masturbating. I think they were giving me a hug. When they were done with that, they tossed me into another room and left, and I started to cry and I begged for food, for it felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. A girl who was also in my room told me that they were not allowed to give me food, and that Las Vegas had lost us in a bet.

I cried some more when she told me that, as I was not used to being treated as a commodity and wasn’t sure if I should be glad that I finally had worth to the world, or sad because that worth was approximately the same as for a watermelon. The girl cried with me, and we made love, because we could only be worth anything to each other.

Every day the aliens came in to play with us, and every day they threw us back into our room with no food. Thankfully, the aliens had rats as well, and the girl and I got awfully good at hunting for them. The aliens seemed happy when I found a rat, their Shatnery faces smiled. And they always were there to see me just as I caught one, ever since they installed that wriggling, black thing in my neck. The girl said it was like a micro-chip, or a dog collar. It reminded me more of eels. A few months later, the girl started to become visibly pregnant from the love we had made, and the aliens took the baby out with their hands. They accidentally removed most of the girl’s organs, and looked confused when she stopped moving.

The aliens investigated the girl’s baby, and stuck a wriggling black thing in it as well, and it immediately began to bound towards me, trailing the girl’s insides behind it. The animated abortion cooed deceptively in my arms, and I held it close as it finally died. Seeing my fatherhood, the aliens took their foul instruments to my crotch, and they neutered me.

I stayed with the aliens for many years. I believe their life-spans were shorter than ours, as soon their faces were replaced with Leonard Nemoy, and then with Patrick Stewart, and I got the impression that these were their children. Eventually, their faces became like a man whom I didn’t know, and they tired of me, and they sent me back to where I came from. I would have said they sent me home, but I don’t have a home. When I crashed to the earth I was old, naked, and no longer a man. I was also very, very hungry.

It sucks being homeless in Las Vegas.