Vaulting Ambition
General Sir Gordon Ainsworth, President of the Administrative Board of Cygninia, was in high spirits as he eased himself into his seat at the town’s cinema to watch the newly released sci-fi film The Last Apprentice.
The adverts hadn’t even started yet, and Gordon was already laughing.
“This will be marvellous fun, won’t it?” He said to the person next to him before again filling the auditorium with his booming cackle.
The cinemagoer next to him didn’t know how to respond, so he smiled and nodded.
Gordon scanned the seats around him as if he was searching for someone.
“I wonder if Bob will grace us with his presence tonight?” Gordon said.
By Bob, Gordon was referring to semi-retired Hollywood actor Bob Hunt, who now resided in Cygninia and presented a movie review show on Cygninia constituency’s local TV station.
He had agreed to briefly return to the screen as Benjamin Thomas, the lead character in The Last Apprentice—an animal trainer who befriends an alien and trains a starfish to perform tricks.
Occasionally, Bob would visit the local cinema to watch films with his neighbours, but whether he would sneak in to watch his movie remained to be seen.
The adverts and trailers came and went, Gordon making mental notes of what to buy and what to watch next.
But then, the lights dimmed, the cinema reminded the audience to switch off their phones, and the film began.
”Haw! Haw! Here we go!” Gordon said, adjusting himself in his seat as he did so.
A wave of nostalgia overcame him as the opening titles were accompanied by a soundtrack reminiscent of the sci-fi movies of his youth.
”What is this?” Benjamin Thomas said in the film as he examined an old torn photograph of what seemed to resemble an alien.
”Bob certainly hasn’t forgotten how to act, has he?” Gordon said to the person next to him before giving a hearty guffaw.
The person next to him grinned before focusing on the film.
Gordon’s shoulders dropped, and the tension left him as he watched Benjamin creep up towards a beautifully created flying saucer in an old barn.
Benjamin smiled as he saw the UFO. “Now we’re talking.”
”This is an incredible film,” Gordon said. “Five stars all round.”
A woman behind him told him to shush, unfazed by the fact that he was the second most senior authority in Cygninia beneath the MP, and he obliged.
Benjamin lit a cigarette on-screen, setting off the smoke detector on the spaceship.
Gordon chortled with excitement as Ben tried to turn off the detector.
But it was too late. The alien who owned the ship had spotted him.
A young girl next to Gordon began to cry because she was frightened of the alien.
Gordon was irritated by this. Undoubtedly, the alien deserved more respect, as he had taken the time to star in a film with one of Hollywood’s finest before disappearing to his home planet.
Silence fell upon the cinema as the Alien flew the UFO and whisked Benjamin across the stars.
”What I would give to be abducted by an extraterrestrial just for one night,” Gordon said, transfixed by the film before him.
The man beside him eyed the General, his forehead wrinkled, and an eyebrow arched above an eye.
The Alien showed Benjamin a starfish inside a tank on screen.
”You might be able to train my starfish to perform some tricks,” the alien said to Benjamin.
Benjamin grimaced at the alien. He tilted his head and pursed his lips.
”What are you talking about?” Benjamin said.
“I have to say this Jovian is a terrific actor, and his command of the English language is superb,” Gordon said as he stuffed his mouth with popcorn.
A cinema goer a few seats away from him sighed, shaking their head.
In the movie, Benjamin picks up a small ring hidden behind a control panel on the spacecraft.
Gordon hooted in his seat, overjoyed by the visual feast before him.
Angered by Gordon’s behaviour, an audience member seethed as they squished a popcorn kernel like an ant.
In the universe of TLA, Benjamin knelt by the fish tank, holding the loop above the water.
”You can train the star,” the alien said to Benjamin.
Benjamin turned around and examined the alien.
”How do you know I have doubts?” Benjamin said.
An enigmatic smile appeared on the alien’s face. “I can read your mind. All your thoughts are available to me.”
”Of course, he can!” Gordon said, his booming laugh disturbing the people around him. “It’s wonderful that the screenwriter incorporated the alien’s natural abilities into the plot.”
Benjamin slumped onto a bench in the spaceship. He bent his body inward and brought out a phone.
On the phone, he sent an email to a woman he loved on Earth, telling her how much he loved her and that he didn’t know when he’d see her again.
”Of course, they had to shoehorn a love story into it,” Gordon said. “I would have been fine with the alien being the sole character in this film.”
A woman behind Gordon leant over her seat, placing her head close to Gordon’s ear.
”You don’t have to do a running commentary throughout the film,” she said.
Gordon smiled and nodded at the woman. “Your complaint has been duly noted.”
He sat back in his seat and stuffed some more popcorn into his mouth.
The woman behind him sat back in her seat and enjoyed the film.
”I don’t give a damn what trash operation you’re running,” Benjamin said to the alien. “I done with it! Take me back to Earth right now!”
Gordon made a mental note to arrange to meet Bob in a coffee shop so he could ask him what it was like to act alongside an otherworldly life-form.
The alien stared blankly at Benjamin before giving him the order to resume training the starfish.
Gordon guffawed. “Yes. You go back to the starfish, Mr Hunt! Retreating now is nothing more than an act of cowardice.”
The man next to him leaned towards his ear.
”In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t your house,” the man said. “Some of us are simply trying to enjoy the film!”
”My apologies, sir,” Gordon said.
The alien decided that Benjamin would make better progress in a more comfortable setting, so he eventually took Benjamin back home to Earth.
The animal trainer was now stuck in his basement, having no luck getting the starfish to jump through the hoop.
Gordon was a bit annoyed that Bob hadn’t suggested to the producers that the scenes be filmed on Earth in Cygninia rather than Los Angeles, as it would have enabled him to achieve his dream of meeting an actual alien, but he was willing to let it slide.
Benjamin observed the dirty concrete floor beneath him and sighed.
By doing so, he missed the starfish jumping through the hoop.
But his ear pricked up at the fish splashing back into the water.
The sight of this caused Gordon to have quite a severe laugh attack.
Members of the audience groaned and gave him the evil eye.
Eventually, Gordon was able to compose himself.
After his breakthrough, Benjamin got some well-deserved rest. But he received a call in the middle of the night from none other than the alien.
”Aha,” thought Gordon. “Bob must have the Martian on his list of contacts. Perhaps I could get his number from him?”
Morning broke in the film, and Benjamin was back with the starfish.
”Can you talk?” He said to the fish. “Considering you’re an alien and all.”
The fish did not respond, making Benjamin wonder whether it was a starfish from Earth that the alien stole.
A little while later in the film, following a heartwarming montage of Benjamin training the starfish to do the same tricks he’d taught other animals, he took the fish to the zoo.
Although he admitted that a zoo was a more novel setting than a circus, Gordon couldn’t help but think that the Butterfly Farm in Cygninia would have made an even more dynamic choice.
In a shocking twist, a gunman shot Benjamin midway through the fish’s performance.
Both the characters in the film and those watching it emitted audible gasps.
”I was beginning to forget this film was set in America,” Gordon said. “What a clever way to remind the audience.”
The man next to him glared at Gordon, considering whether to vote him out when the time came to elect the President of the Administrative Board.
Benjamin was rushed to the nearest hospital and immediately placed in a ward.
At this point, Gordon believed the film was becoming a bit too fanciful, with little regard for reality.
The doctor opened the door before the alien had arrived to visit Benjamin.
Gordon giggled, delighted that his favourite character had arrived to save the day.
The slender green man breezed into the ward. The hospital staff could do little to stop him.
The alien held out an old chess piece.
”Place this in his wound; it may save his life,” the alien said.
”I’d bet you ten pounds that this fellow was RADA trained,” Gordon said.
A few people seated around him growled, wanting to focus on the film’s tense events.
Although they thought the idea was ludicrous, the doctors decided to do as the alien said and place the rook into the bullet hole.
Miraculously, the wound healed, and the blood disappeared.
Benjamin burst into life, hyperventilating.
”I see Bob’s insistence on never dying in his films is still in his contract,” Gordon said, eating the last bits of his popcorn.
Benjamin, the alien, and the starfish appeared on CNN to talk about the seemingly impossible feat of training a starfish to perform circus tricks, all of them seeming to forget that Benjamin had almost died from a gunshot wound.
The film concluded with the alien bidding Benjamin farewell and returning to space in his craft.
A tear left Gordon’s eye. Ever since watching ET in the eighties, he has felt emotional whenever an alien leaves Earth in a film.
Benjamin gave the starfish to the local aquarium and returned to everyday life.
The audience gave the film rapturous applause during the credits; some even offered a standing ovation.
”A marvellous return to form for Bob Hunt,” Gordon said as he clapped.
But then the audience was silent for the mid-credits scene.
Bob was in a library, leafing through books on the shelf for some reason.
“Ah, so Benjamin is a studious so and so, is he?” Gordon thought to himself.
A door opened out of view, and a familiar voice called out to Benjamin.
Benjamin’s head shot up, and he smiled.
The whole cinema was shrouded in darkness.
Gordon smiled to himself as he vacated the cinema.
He had enjoyed his little excursion to the cinema and was one step closer to achieving his lifelong goal of having an audience with a man from beyond the stars, thanks to his connection to a man he had just seen a star in a film with one.
However, he didn’t realise that the people he had irritated by commenting and laughing throughout the film might wreak their revenge at the ballot box in the upcoming local elections.
But that was for another time.
The Robinsonverse 