On their way back to the living quarters, Homer and Ned argued over what they had witnessed.
"People don't just come back from the dead," Ned insisted.
"Jesus did," said Homer.
"Jesus wasn't people," said Ned, who then perked up his ears. "Where's that music coming from?"
"That's the next thing you're not gonna believe," said Homer.
"Sounds like two saxophones," said Ned as he stepped into the Simpson quarters. "Did Bart take up music?"
They followed the duet into Lisa's bedchambers, and found the girl jamming with a fat, balding man who wore sunglasses and shabby clothes. The stranger lowered his saxophone and smiled, exposing a set of decayed teeth.
"Hey-diddly-ho, strangerino," said Ned with a wave.
"Same to you, man," said the husky-voiced musician.
"Mr. Flanders, this is Bleeding Gums Murphy," said Lisa proudly.
"He's a real cool cat," said Rod, who was sitting on Lisa's bed with his little brother.
"I wanna play like he does," said Todd. "That's why I'm never gonna brush my teeth again."
"Bleeding Gums Murphy, eh?" said Ned seriously. "I've seen your name before. You used to perform at that club called…the Jazz Pit? The Jazz Chasm? The Jazz Inferno?"
"The Jazz Hole," said Murphy, gladly shaking Ned's hand. "I played there every night except for Tuesdays, Saturdays, and the day I died."
Ned's jaw dropped. He quickly pulled back his hand.
"Don't be afraid, Mr. Flanders," said Lisa. "He's not dangerous."
"He ain't cool with me bein' dead," said Murphy. "Give 'im time."
He and Lisa began to play again as Ned backed slowly out of the room. Unfortunately Maggie was sitting in his path of retreat, so Flanders soon ended up flat on his back. "Son of a diddly!" he groused.
"Homer, help him up," called Marge from the kitchen.
"But I like seeing him like this," said Homer, who was relaxing on the couch.
Flanders helped himself up, and glared at Marge and Homer in turn. "I can't believe you summoned me and the boys all the way into outer space just to play a Halloween prank on us."
"This is no prank, Ned," said Marge. "We're all seeing dead people. We can't get rid of them. Of course, they have nowhere to go."
"That's the most ridicu-diddly-iculous thing I've ever heard, next to the Big Bang, the Theory of Evolution, and the U.N. Charter," said Ned, turning and marching into Lisa's room. "Come on, boys, we're getting off this…er, what is the name of this space station?"
"God," replied Lisa. "Bart named it."
Ned gasped in horror. "Wh-why, that's blasphemous!"
"Not to me," said Lisa. "I'm a Buddhist."
"That's even more blasphemous," said Ned indignantly. "Did Buddha create the world? Did Buddha write the Bible?"
"Man, sounds like you ain't used the bathroom since you left Earth," Murphy remarked.
"Rod, Todd, we're going," said Ned, grabbing his sons by the hand.
"But, Daddy, we just got here," Todd protested.
"I wanna see the arboretum," Rod whined.
"Ned, won't you stay for dinner?" said Marge, laying a gentle hand on the man's shoulder. "We're having reconstituted meat loaf."
Ned's resolve weakened. "Oh, okay, we'll stay the night. But we're leaving first thing in the morning."
"Yaaaay!" cheered Rod and Todd.
"You do have morning around here, right?" Ned asked Marge.
"Yes, we do," Marge replied. "It was fifteen minutes ago."
Dinner in space was as contentious as dinner on Earth for the Simpson family.
"Hey, Lis, why don't you eat the meat loaf?" Bart taunted his sister. "It didn't come from a cow. It's synthetic."
"You're synthetic," Lisa snapped back.
"At least I'm not a girl," said Bart.
"I know you are, but what am I?" said Lisa.
"Stop fighting, kids," Marge scolded them. "You'll throw off the artificial gravity field, and we'll start floating around."
"Cool," said Bart eagerly.
"Mom, the only way to turn off the gravity is to stop the station from spinning," said Lisa as she poked at her reconstituted rice cakes.
"I don't feel like I'm spinning," said Todd.
"That's because it's spinning very slowly," said Lisa.
"Wait," said Rod. "I can feel the spinning now." Five seconds later he excused himself from the table and hurried to the bathroom.
"Who wants peach cobbler?" said Marge as a sound of retching was heard throughout the living quarters.
The "evening" drew to a close as the sax duet of Bleeding Gums Murphy and Lisa played Embraceable You.
"Thank you for the lovely music, Lisa, Mr. Murphy," said Ned as he rose.
"I'm here every night," said Murphy.
"You've been very hospitable to me and the boys," Ned went on, "but I've made up my mind that we're leaving tomorrow. What's more, I'm going to write in my report to NASA that you've been in space too long, and should be recalled to Earth."
"Hey, I'll write the report for you," said Bart. "And I hate writing reports."
"Bart, I think Ned's trying to insinuate that we're off our rockers," said Marge.
"It's called space fever," said Ned. "You've been cooped up here with no one to talk to except each other. It's only natural that you'd go a little insane in the membrane, and get crazy ideas about dead people coming back."
"What Mr. Flanders is saying makes perfect sense," said Lisa. "It's possible that Bleeding Gums is only a figment of our collective imagination. No offense, Bleeding Gums."
"None taken," said Murphy. "I gotta agree with you, little Lisa. First I'm dyin' in a hospital bed, then I find myself in outer space, and I ain't even felt a toothache since I showed up here. I ain't really alive. When you all go home to Earth, I'll still be here, all alone in the dark."
"Now don't go blowing yourself out of a hatch like the last Bleeding Gums," Lisa urged him.
"Let's go to bed, boys," said Flanders to Rod and Todd. "The strangeness is starting to get out of hand. We'll all have clear heads when we wake up."
Ned enjoyed happy dreams as he slept. He was at the church picnic with the boys and his beloved, departed wife, Maude.
"A love like ours can't be the result of random chance," said Ned wistfully. "There's no doubt in my mind that God brought us together."
"It was the reverend, actually," said Maude. "We were the only success out of his attempt to set up a Christian matchmaking service."
"I love your sense of humor," said Ned, and they kissed fondly.
"Don't look, Toddy," said Rod, covering his brother's eyes. "Mommy and Daddy are making a baby."
The dream passed, and Ned awoke smiling. How I miss her, he thought.
As he pushed his space blanket aside and sat up, an unexpected sight caught his eyes.
"Omigosh," he exclaimed. "Where did that picnic basket come from?"
He circled the woven straw basket on the floor, eyeing it suspiciously. "I brought it," came a soft female voice.
Ned turned around quickly. "Oh, good morning, Marge. My goodness, I'm still in my pajamas. Please be a dear and don't look."
"All right, Ned," said Marge, facing away from him.
Ned picked up his glasses from the nightstand, put them on his nose, and hurried into the bathroom to change. Upon looking in the mirror, he gasped in shock.
"The lens is cracked!" he moaned, fingering his eyeglasses. "And there isn't a LensCrafters for millions of miles!"
"Let me look at them," said a familiar voice.
"Thank you, Maude," said Ned, passing his spectacles to his wife.
"It's a pretty bad crack," said the woman with red hair like a cotton blossom.
"Yessirree, it is," said Ned cheerfully. "But when I wake up, my goggles will be as good as the day God made them."
"You're not asleep, Ned," said Maude seriously. "I'm really here. I don't know how, but I'm alive."
Ned stared at his wife and blinked a few times.
Then he screamed like a little girl.
TBC