4 min read April 4, 2026

#Short Story

Wrong World At Waypoint 9

The Echo Chamber (Related)

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![right w50 | ](storage/media/wrongworld.png)

The silver capsule came down in the middle of Miller’s Cornfield at 2:13 in the morning, flattening three perfect circles into the soybeans and rattling every window in the little town of Dry Creek, Kansas.

By 2:16, every dog within two miles was barking.

By 2:21, the sheriff was there in pajama pants under his uniform.

By 2:28, half the town had gathered at the fence line with flashlights, pickup trucks, and the sort of terrified curiosity that makes people do very stupid things in groups.

The ship stood on three spindly legs, humming softly, its metal skin rippling like oil on water. A seam appeared in the side. Blue mist spilled out. Then, very slowly, a figure emerged.

He was seven feet tall, greenish-gray, and alarmingly thin, with enormous black eyes and six elegant fingers on each hand. He paused at the bottom of the ramp and consulted a glowing device strapped to his wrist. Then he looked up at the crowd.

“Excuse me,” he said in crisp, flawless English. “Terribly sorry. Is this Glorf?”

Nobody answered.

The sheriff raised a shaking shotgun. “You stay right there.”

The alien blinked. “Right. I see. Defensive posture. Understandable.”

He tapped his wrist again, frowned, and muttered something musical and annoyed under his breath.

A woman in a bathrobe screamed, “It’s reading our minds!”

“No, I’m checking my navigation,” the alien said. “Although now that you mention it, your fear responses are unusually loud.”

That did not help.

Phones were already out. Videos were rolling. Somewhere in the back, someone yelled, “Shoot it!” while someone else shouted, “Don’t shoot it, Earl, you’ll make it mad!”

The alien lifted both hands. “Please. I am not here to invade your planet. I am attempting to locate a world called… one moment…”

He squinted at the device.

“Earth?”

A silence fell over the field.

Then the sheriff said, “This is Earth.”

The alien stared at him. Then at the device. Then back at him.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

He turned pale—or at least a slightly paler shade of greenish-gray.

“Oh, no no no no. This is the wrong address.”

The crowd erupted.

“It admits it!”

“It came here on purpose!”

“It said address! It’s got a list!”

The alien made a distressed clicking sound in his throat. “Not on purpose! Entirely by accident! I was meant to arrive at a welcoming-class civilization with seven oceans, lavender vegetation, and a triangular moon. This place has wheat.”

“Corn,” said old Mr. Miller automatically.

“Yes, well, that too.”

Red and blue lights appeared on the road. News vans followed. A helicopter chopped overhead. The alien looked around in growing horror as more humans poured into the field.

“I just need directions,” he said. “Surely someone can tell me where to find the other Earth.”

At that, three reporters fainted, two deputies drew tasers, and a teenager in a camouflage hoodie whispered, “Other Earth?”

The alien stepped back up the ramp, then paused.

“I would like to note,” he said carefully, “that this situation is becoming a panic, which is the opposite of directions.”

“You can’t leave!” shouted a man in suspenders.

“I desperately can.”

He raised a finger toward the sky. “For reference: has anyone seen a large violet nebula shaped like a spoon?”

No one spoke.

The sheriff lowered his shotgun just a little. “Buddy, I ain’t even seen Nebraska.”

The alien sighed with unimaginable disappointment.

“Of course.”

He stepped into the mist, then leaned back out one final time.

“For what it’s worth, you seem lovely in a loud, combustible sort of way.”

The hatch sealed. The ship rose with a thunderous pulse of blue light, blasting hats into the air and flattening the sheriff’s squad car tires. In seconds it vanished into the dark.

For a full minute, no one moved.

Then Mr. Miller looked out over his ruined crops and said, “Well. If he comes back, tell him Glorf’s two lefts past Neptune.”

Wrong World At Waypoint 9

The Echo Chamber (Related)

The Spectacles of Tomorrow

The Mercer Test

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