Upon returning home a few hours later, Royce grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down at his laptop. He opened it up, logged onto WordPress and started typing:

‘Last night, I met Boba Fett on the Williamsburg Bridge. He fell from a parapet above the walkway, stumbled onto his feet and came face to face with myself. When I asked him if he should still be in the Sarlaac’s stomach, he lunged in my direction and attempted to choke me. I struggled to breath, arguing in between breaths to not kill me. Ultimately, he relented and demanded to know how I knew about his run-in with the Sarlaac. I grabbed my bike, started pedaling away and made my way down the bridge into lower Manhattan. At the bottom of the walkway, Boba Fett appeared again. He had used his rocket pack to fly from the middle of the bridge to the end, and he landed right in front of me.’

‘Startled, I wrecked my bike and began speaking to him. I told him that I was going to call the police, and then he told me the story of how he arrived in New York. His ship had fallen into a black hole. He hid the ship in an undisclosed location which I’m not going to name here, and needed to search for a power source to recharge his ion engines. Deciding that the Williamsburg Bridge was an adequate vantage point from which to scan for power sources, Boba Fett jet packed to the center of the bridge. We went underneath the bridge at this point. I asked him to prove that he was real and so he fired some kinda wrist launcher at some pigeons under the bridge, causing a huge explosion and bringing lots of attention to us. Thinking this might be a good story to blog about, I ushered him back to my house to do an interview. We narrowly avoided the police after the explosion, and tried to calm our nerves at my house.’

‘We attempted an interview, but he kept going on and on about a power source for his ship, so I asked him to show me the ship. We ventured to Brooklyn and he unveiled the ship to me. It was huge, with tons of strange control panels and holding cells. Remember the ship Boba Fett flew in The Empire Strikes Back? This was pretty close to it. It was near this time that I started believing this strange person’s story. I mean, who goes through such an elaborate set-up to convince one fledgling blogger from the Lower East Side that he’s actually Boba Fett? And this dude was old too. Not like in his 40s or anything, but older. I’d say about 70 or 80, but in crazy good shape. We went back to my house.’

‘I broke the news poorly. Yup, we already knew about you. You’re all over movies, books and pop culture since Star Wars was released. The weird thing is that it didn’t faze him much. Maybe he already knew or maybe he didn’t wanna freak out in front of me anymore than he already did? Who the fuck knows? I got to teach Boba Fett about Boba Fett. What did you do on your Friday night?’

‘Clearly, the dude was fazed about the realization, cause he blamed it on a jedi librarian sneaking through the same black hole as himself. I laughed at his gesture, but he didn’t seem to know appreciate the humor too much. Instead, we started searching for his “power sources” on the Internet. And then I mentioned George Lucas, the creator of all things Star Wars. And everything went to shit…’

Royce paused and read over the past few paragraphs. Summarily, everything had been accounted for. Then he highlighted everything except for the first sentence and hit the delete button… Again, he started:

‘Last night, I met a man named Boba Fett on the Wiliamsburg Bridge.’

‘Two strangers from two different worlds. They stumbled, then fell, then learned from each other.’

‘I taught him about his alternative existence in this world. And he taught me about a life of purpose.’

‘Today, he knowingly abandoned his own world in favor of his life’s purpose.’

‘And right now, he’s on a bus to California to fulfill a vow he had made a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.’

‘Farewell my friend. In the words of Darth Vader, “I can see why they call you the best bounty hunter in the galaxy.”‘

He uploaded a photo of Boba Fett sitting on his couch next to the entry, positioned it at the top, and hit ‘Publish Now.’ Then he closed his laptop, stood up and walked over to the window. The world seemed bigger. And by now, Boba Fett was probably close to Pittsburgh.

Boba Fett in New York City © Brian Tunney, 2008.