Captain Leonard Roswell (Eastfield Road 2009)

Back in the day I lived in Eastfield Road. It was a great place to live. It was like a little Bohemian village that just happened to be walking distance from the city centre. It’s not like that now. One colourful character in the cast of thousands that made up Eastfield Road was Mr Roswell.

Mr Roswell was completely mad. He was convinced invisible rays were penetrating his house from passing spaceships. He noticed that if he lit a candle it flickered, it was conclusive proof of the existence of aliens. Their rays making the candles flicker. OBVIOUSLY. But to Mr Roswell this was cutting edge ufology. The next day he lined up eight candles on his kitchen table. He spent hours watching them until they burnt down. Then set up eight more. Eventually he came to me to with the revelation that electromagnetic radiation from Aliens were causing the candles to flicker. He explained all this to me with complete authority. If only he could record the flickers of the candle and play it back half speed, he could count the flickers. There must be a pattern he could decode. The aliens were definitely trying to tell him something. But is it a warning or a message that could save the Earth? Then answer is in the flickering candles. I didn’t dare tell him it’s the draught from his wonky window making them flicker. I didn’t want to burst his bubble.

Leonard Roswell strides down Eastfield Road, a pair of beady eyes peering out from a filthy baseball cap and a mass of beard and hair. He seems to have a telescopic radio aerial sticking out the bottom of his cap. He doesn't break step or even look at me as he says "they're watching you".

I dramatically look about, left and right "Me? Why me? What have I done?”

But he's gone in more ways than one. He shout’s back without turning round “No one is safe.” The aliens are creeping into Eastfield Road. Should I be afraid? Sometimes Mr Roswell looks quite normal, apart from the bacofoil and the radio antenna, which poke suspiciously out from under his baseball cap. It's the little things that give him away, that and talking to lamp posts of course.