In addition to the serious coaching and editorial work that I do for my writers, I also engage in a lot of good-natured banter with them. Hey, why even bother if you can’t have fun! Some of our back-and-forth emails, both text and pictures, often border on the outrageous.

Recently I sent the picture on the left to one of my writers as an accompaniment to some smart-assed remark I’d made. She said that it seriously creeped her out—specifically, the EYES. Mission accomplished, I guess.

That got my warped brain thinking about an ancient 1953 science fiction movie with the creative title, It Came from Outer Space. You’d probably laugh if you watched it today, but back then this was high-tech stuff—in 3D, no less—especially when the “It”—a giant eyeball attached to a mass of goo or something—came out of the Arizona cave in which it hid and wound up out in the audience as creepy 1950s music played in the background. That eyeball made us little kids brown our shorts. Yeah, I guess eyes can be weird.

The story on which the screenplay was based happened to be written by no less a luminary than Ray Bradbury, and it shows. In an era of paranoia, where all other alien invaders were coming here to take over the Earth and/or eat your brains, the eyeballs in this film only wanted to repair their spaceship and get outta Dodge as fast as possible. Sure, they needed to “borrow” a few townsfolk to bring them stuff, but their intentions did not include hurting anyone. A radical concept for the time—but that was Bradbury.

Thinking about this movie led me to recall something else. In last year’s post, Psycho Memories, I wrote about meeting Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, at a book-signing event. At the time the first book in my satirical science fiction trilogy, Bicycling Through Space and Time, was about to be published, and I had just finished writing the second book, The Ultimate Bike Path, due out the following year. In the latter my character, Jack Miller, rides his mountain bike into a world of old horror and science fiction movies. In one prolonged scene he meets Norman Bates, checks into the Bates Motel and even becomes the Janet Leigh character briefly. I told Bloch that I did this as an homage to what had long been my favorite movie, and he seemed quite pleased.

Soon after I received a note from him indicating legal repercussions if I used the scene, since he still retained the rights to Norman. My publisher, Berkley, told me not to worry about it but changed their tune after talking to his agent. The scene came out, and my editor told me to write another one—fast. Though pissed I said, “I can do that,” and I actually came up with two new scenes. In the first Jack meets The Mummy, Im-Ho-Tep—the old Boris Karloff version. The second? You guessed right: It Came from Outer Space.

I thought you might get a hoot out of the scene as written, so here it is. To set the stage: Jack is on his way to Castle Frankenstein to find his stolen bike and to rid himself of a curse. A storm is brewing, so he looks for shelter and spots a cave. Okay, with a PUN ALERT in place, here’s the scene:

I started running as the first raindrops fell. But at thirty yards I had to stop, because that was when this giant disembodied eyeball floated out of the cave.

“What are you doing here?” the giant disembodied eyeball asked in a feminine voice.

Hey, I knew what this was! Back in 1953 there was this great movie, It Came from Outer Space, scripted by, would you believe, Ray Bradbury. It was shown in 3D, so that when eyeballs and other creepy stuff came out of the screen, you wet your pants. Anyway, it was about these aliens who land in the Arizona desert because their spaceship needs a lube job or something, and once they get it fixed, they’re outta here. They have to make duplicates of local yokels from a nearby town to bring them stuff, which is about all the “bad” they do. This was in contrast to most of the 1950s sci-fi flicks, where the aliens always wanted to invade Earth and suck out our brains.

“Did you not understand me?” the giant disembodied eyeball said.

“Oh, sorry. I just wanted in out of the rain. Looks like a bad storm.”

“Yes, I know. We created it.”

“You did?”

“Uh-huh, to keep the local yokels away. We must repair our ship.” (See? I was right.) “But we can stop the storm until you reach your destination.”

“Oh, no, don’t do that!” I exclaimed.

She/it asked me why, and I told her/it. “That’s understandable. Very well, it will continue to storm all night, and in the morning you’ll be able to see Castle Frankenstein from here. Now, come inside.”

“Hey, thanks.”

I followed the giant disembodied eyeball out of what was now a downpour and into the cave. Two small disembodied eyeballs were puttering (or something) around a flying saucer.

“Attention, pupils,” the giant disembodied eyeball said, “we have a guest. Uh, what is your name?”

“Jack.”

“Yes, of course. I am Iris, and my pupils are Fovea and Retina.”

There were greetings all around, and then Fovea (I think) said, “We can see the problem with the ship, Boss.”

“Yes,” Retina agreed, “we’ve been eyeballing it for some time now.”

“It’s just that we weren’t able to see eye to eye on what was wrong,” Fovea added.

“”Don’t jest with me, pupils,” Iris said pissedly. “I’m in a vitreous humor tonight.”

“What a shame,” Retina mused, “since only a while ago you were in an aqueous humor.”

(Is all of this too cornea, or what?)

“Just keep working,” Iris ordered. “Jack, I must help my pupils now.”

“That’s fine, I’ll curl up in a corner and catch some Zs. Uh, unless you have something to eat.”

“Yes, we are well provisioned.”

Iris floated over a big box with a hinged top. I flipped it open. There were eight compartments, each containing live things with many legs or no legs that crawled or slithered or writhed or hopped or hissed or spewed slime or . . . eeeeyoooo!

I closed the box. “Guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

Iris went to work. I lay down, my stomach growling like Papa Bear after Mama Bear told him, “Not tonight, I just started my period,” and slept the sleep of the dead.

In the morning the giant disembodied eyeball, both small disembodied eyeballs, the box of creepy-crawlies, the flying saucer—and the cave—were all gone.

Yeah, I must agree with myself: that was pretty cornea. But I had a hell of a lot of fun writing the trilogy, and that’s what it’s all about.