A long time ago in the ancient year of 1987, I was in kindergarten. We all remember kindergarten, of course. The hardest part was nap time because you were having so much fun that it was impossible to sleep. Imagine that: having so much fun that the most difficult assignment is going to sleep! I was part of the building block clique. We built massive cities that would leave even the greatest city planners speechless. To us, the wooden blocks were towering skyscrapers that looked down upon the denizens of our fictional metropolis.

Then we would get bored and knock that shit DOWN.

I remember my teacher, Ms. Posner, handed every student these small blank books one day. The assignment? MAKE YOUR OWN STORY! She dumped a large batch of markers on a desk and my fellow students and I dashed to grab the best ones. What was my story, you ask?

Spaceship. That’s right, bitches. My book was about a spaceship. I have kept this book in my closet all this time. Keep in mind I moved to California a year after Kindergarten, then I moved back to Long Island a year after that. This book somehow survived all those moves. Now, I think I was already 6 when this assignment was given out, so the time of its creation would have to be May or June of 1988. This book is 17-years old! Do you know how lucky you are to be seeing this thing? It’s a gem! It’s a gem, I said!

The cover itself is enough to make you realize how amazing this book truly is. “Letters and illatysin by Matthew Fishman.” Illatysin is supposed to be “illustrations” but I think that’s still pretty fucking good for a 6-year old. Originally, as you can tell, I was going to write, “The By Matthew Fishman,” whatever that means. I caught it and drew over it. Maybe someone will think that it’s a supernova. Do you know what that object is in the top left corner? Because I sure as hell don’t. What is that? It kind of looks like the side view of a breast. I can only assume it’s the bottom part of a planet and that’s some form of a question mark on it, indicating a world where no man has gone before.

Behold the opening! Already the book is better than Armageddon. Apparently my 6-year old self ran into some production trouble on the second page. The orange marker must have run out or I shoved it up my nose or something. Either way, I was forced to switch to purple marker. The color of the book changes about 3 more times before the end. Those markers must have sucked. The spaceship being in the sky is a tense scene that I talk about in more detail in the DVD commentary of “Spaceship: The Movie.” I also mention in the commentary that there was some union trouble with the smiling sun, but it was all straightened out.

Look at that. “It’s in space.” The illatysin is incredible! After this, the spaceship was confronted by three space monsters. I had to cut out the fight scene with the three monsters because it was too much to scan, but I’ll describe it for you. The monsters show up, and the spaceship goes, “Fire 1!” “Fire 2!” and “Fire 3!” The monsters are soundly defeated. It’s an incredible, action packed sequence that only takes up three pages.

Wow, a planet...I think. I guess back then I thought that planets were weird shaped objects that have giant faces of smiling Chinese people on them. I also thought that the moon was a really big black guy named Leroy. Anyway, in another edited page, the man on the spaceship lands on the planet and explores, saying “Immmmm,” which I can only assume is supposed to be “Hmm...” Then suddenly...

THE PLANT IS ESPOIDEN?!?! HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK! GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! GET TO THE SPACESHIP QUIK...I MEAN, QUICK!

Wow, that was close! What was that about? It’s crazy! I was such an amazing writer! This shit has officially become better than Star Wars: The Phantom Menace...but it doesn’t take much to do that. I think the man in the spaceship knows it’s time to head home after that ordeal.

This part always kills me. The spaceship is so close to making it to Earth and then...ANOTHER FUCKING MONSTER! The bitch has big hands and three eyes, too. You would think that the astronaut inside the spaceship would attempt to communicate with this alien. It’s a monumental occasion finding life off of Earth, isn’t it? No way - we got to kill the thing. It has three eyes, so therefore, it’s evil.

I cut out two pages from the following battle. The first page is the monster shooting laser beams at the spaceship. Usually the hull integrity of a spaceship cannot even withstand a small meteor banging against it, but in my book, a spaceship can withstand a triple dose of lasers coming from a monster’s eyes. It also has machine guns attached to it, as you can see below.

Yes, those are supposed to be bullets firing from the spaceship. The monster is big alright - and somehow has the ability to not breathe since it lives in outer space - but it’s still not mighty enough to withstand a machine gun. Also take note of the “supernova” above the battle. Anyway, the monster explodes in the other page that I edited out, but I can assure you that it was something epic. The spaceship finally makes it back to Earth.

No, the spaceship isn’t taking off again. It’s actually landing. I didn’t know how spaceships landed when I was 6. I thought they just backed in to where they took off, like watching a space shuttle launch in reverse. After the spaceship landed, the astronaut - who apparently is a man in a penis suit - takes off his helmet and prepares to go home for the evening. My guess is he just left the spaceship where he parked it and had no trouble adjusting to Earth’s gravity again. Although he doesn’t know it, some punks steal the spaceship that night and take it for a joyride. But that’s a whole other book.

The astronaut - who now looks like a walking swastika - goes home to his modest house with door, two windows, and pointed roof. Not pictured: the astronaut beating his wife for not having some dinner ready for him.

Thus ends the epic tale known as Spaceship. On the back cover, my mom pasted my picture and wrote a small biography about me. The picture has since fallen off, but the biography is still intact. It reads, “Hi! I’m Matthew Fishman. I like video games and I have a sister named Erika. I live on Howard Avenue and I have a mother, Laury, and a father, Marc. I am six-years old - in November, I’ll be 6 ½!” Man, I even loved video games back then. As a special treat, I have created an epilogue for Spaceship. It turns out that the three-eyed space monster managed to implant its egg into the astronaut somehow. The seedling hatches!

Questions? Comments? Illatysin? E-mail Fishman347@yahoo.com