My Boyfriend is an Alien
by Kim Campion
The information on metaphysics and extraterrestrials in here was related to me by my teacher, Isa. Special thanks to you Isa, for making it possible for me to write, and so much more.
I was listening to a pop song about aliens when I saw it. Crazy coincidence or maybe not. I think not. He swears he didn’t jimmy the radio waves that night. I was up in the middle of the night as usual when I saw him. A pale white light striped across the sky and landed somewhere in the swamp. The stripe stayed in the sky a long time, like a one-colored rainbow. Lucky charm rainbows, they’re supposed to end somewhere on earth- and this one did.
*
But let me back up for a moment. I should give you a little background information first. My name is Pam and I grew up in Florida with my mother, father, and little brother Mike. There wasn’t a lot of money but my parents are cool so it didn’t really matter. We lived way out in the swamp in a little house next to the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. Our land is adjacent to the refuge, which has over 30,000 acres of protected coastline, swamp, and freshwater springs. There are natural springs all over the place in the swamp and some get pretty deep. They are surrounded by mangroves and cypress, and banked with sand. The refuge is along the Chassahowitzka River which drains into the Gulf of Mexico. Manatees migrate up the river every winter because the water’s warmer.
Our post office address says Chassahowitzka but it is such a small townlet we had to go to school in Homosassa, which is a regular-sized small town. We got bussed in. We were pretty far away from civilization. I had a swamp childhood. The ground is spongy and sandy and the air smells like maple syrup and a fish tank. There are so many birds and wild exotic animals. It’s a wonderful place but very isolated. It helped me cultivate my legendary loner-lurker persona in high school.
I very successfully alienated an entire high school (love that word “alienated”). Here is what happened. On the first day of high school I was hit by a largish truck but it wasn’t the driver’s fault. He had had a fatal heart attack a couple minutes before and the truck was just barreling along driving itself. I was rushed to the hospital and the doctors did a fabulous job putting me back together again, except for my right leg below my knee, and that was hardly their fault, because it was gone and could not be located. They did a swift and thorough cleanup of the stump and I had no complications. I was pretty happy to be alive and when my parents came in to see me for the first time I was wide awake.
“Its aliiiivvve!” I started yelling “Wah ha ha!” You know, as a joke. Like I was Frankenstein or something. I was still high on the pain meds, but I thought it was funny. Mom and dad didn’t think so. Mom started crying and my dad looked like he was going to beat up the doctors.
“Well look its not that bad” I said, “I am alive after all, and the state is going to supply me with a nice fake leg. I will be able to get around as easily as I ever did.”
The parents tried to pull themselves together and agree with me. They were really freaked out. They hugged me and after a moment I saw how relieved they were that I was being so healthy and positive. And I stayed that way, even when I had to start high school. Sort of.
Only two people were ever overtly mean about my very slight limp and state-issued prosthetic which was the color of creepy old lady bras. One time on my way to class I overheard this guy named Chad Grayson call me “Lurch”. Chad is a very handsome guy and popular. I dealt with it by pretending not to care. I said “I am a human being! I am a human being!” and I started cartoon-limping down the hall. I got some laughs even though most of them didn’t know I was referencing one of my favorite movies “The Elephant Man”, directed by David Lynch and starring Anthony Hopkins. Another time a very popular girl named Annabelle Hardy whipped out her signature pink lipstick and scrawled “Pam is handicapped” on the wall in the girl’s bathroom. Annabelle never apologized. Chad did though.
See, a funny thing had happened to me over the summer before high school. My body finally remembered to manufacture some boobs. Now they aren’t huge or anything, but they are there. And by the end of freshman year all my hair had grown back (they had to shave my head after the accident on account of all the stitches) and I had grown into actually a very pretty girl. I had nice long shapely 1 ½ legs and a big mane of blonde hair and big blue eyes. And while I was intellectually able to regard my body objectively, as though it were a specimen in a jar, and agree on some level that it was attractive, emotionally I was crippled (hee hee pardon me) with self- consciousness cuz of my leg and vowed that no boy would ever see it.
So when Chad took me aside after school right before the summer began, and pledged his unrequited love, it was too late, for in my own mind I had become…a Monstuhhhh (Wah ha ha). What happened was Chad walked up to me after school and said “Pam, I’m really sorry I said what I said.” I was shocked he was talking to me. It took me a while to say anything back. Finally I got out, “But Chad, that was like eight months ago.”
“I feel really bad about it,” he said, and he looked into my eyes- and shocking again- he was doing it all sexy. Like he was attracted to me. I tried to smile like “hey buddy ole pal”. Chad was very good looking. He had a cute face and his requisite red letterman jacket fit him so good. But there was no way it was going to happen.
“See the thing is, this isn’t an excuse okay,” he said,” but my parents were going through a divorce, you heard about it right?” I nodded. Everyone knew about Chad’s parents’s wild divorce. They lived in town and people had seen his mom chase his dad around on the lawn early one Sunday morning. She was in her bathrobe and brandishing a lamp that was for some reason aflame. She managed to lob it at his dad’s head and catch the rose bushes on fire before someone called the cops. Turned out, Chad’s dad was having an a-f-f-a-i-r with his secretary and Chad’s mom found out.
“Well the stupid psychologist I’m seeing says that I had a hard time with the divorce and that being a prick was how I dealt with it”. He looked away from me and at his expensive sneakers.
“So I didn’t mean it. I thought you were hot even then. You’re um, the hottest girl in school if you want to know the truth and I was wondering if uh…”
Ugh, poor Chad. I had to stop it right then before he further embarrassed himself. It was really nice he said sorry and I know it’s scary to do that. It’s even scarier to say sorry and then ask someone out, and I figured I had to interrupt him before he actually did. Because I was going to say no, and it was not his fault. He wasn’t making fun of me, he really thought he wanted to hang out with me. But I knew he would change his mind later, once he saw the stump.
“Chad, um, you’re very nice. And I accept your apology, it’s really no big deal.” I started looking around, how could I escape?
“But listen, Pam, I was wondering if you wanted to-“
It was sheerly lucky that at that exact moment my bus rolled up. I said something about having to go, said thank you like a weirdo, and then I ran away.
I was not so hot at speaking with others of my species. Even before the accident, I had hermit- tendencies. I skipped two grades and that probably had something to do with it. The school district advised my parents to have me skip and they weren’t really sure but they ended up doing it. The kids I went to school with were always two years older and bigger than me. But I still had some friends and people to eat with in the cafeteria though.
High school was different. I had cast myself in the role of Quasimodo and I didn’t talk to anybody. And then there were all these incredible things I had started to read about and research on the internet, like about medicine and healing, and I began burying myself in books. I still said hello when someone said hello to me, but I wasn’t sure what to say after that.
One of the longest conversations I’d ever had was about six sentences. It was with some guy in Ceramics, 4th period. He noticed what I was making- a perfect anatomically correct sculpture of the human heart. If I do say so myself, it was turning out really good. He leaned over and said “That is really cool. It looks real.” I was taken aback because I was in my sophomore year and hadn’t really talked with anybody, except to say hello and/or then politely escape from them.
“Thanks” I said, “I’m having hard time with the inferior vena cava but besides that-“
I almost clapped my mouth shut, even though it was all clay-ey. Now he was going to think I was a nerd or a show off. But that wasn’t it. See, I had become obsessed with medicine, specifically concerning amputees, and I had begun memorizing the names of every part of the human body. After the accident, I decided I was going to become a doctor, and help other people in the same predicament as me. I had a doctor named Dr. Andaari Baboor (he’s Indian) and he was great. He was the one who operated on me and he saved my knee. My knee was really screwed up but he fixed it so the amputation could start below it instead of above it. That meant there was less missing. It’s a lot easier to walk and deal with a prosthesis too. I was grateful he was so skilled. Plus, he was really fun to talk to.
I liked Dr. Bamboor. He said I could call him Andaari. Andaari Bamboor is a wonderful name. I liked saying it. He told me some fascinating stories about India too. Like about his family and their religion; they believe in reincarnation. He told me this one story that he swore was true. He said there was an elephant who lived in his village and his mahout, or handler, did not always chain him up. One night, Dr. Bamboor and his family heard a knock at the door. When his mother opened it, it was the elephant! He was the one who had knocked on the door- with his trunk!
“What did you do then?” I asked.
“My mother gave him a fruit and told him to go home” said Dr. Bamboor. I laughed. Dr. Bamboor told good stories. He has a thick accent and he knew how to tell a good story, like with dramatic pauses and stuff. I really liked his accent. I like being around people from other parts of the world. Because I had only seen one little corner of it. Not that I don’t love the land here, but I couldn’t wait to see other kinds.
Anyways, back to one of the longest conversations I ever had. I had been reading medical books from the library and on the internet and enrolled in Advanced Placement Biology so I was very steeped in the lingo. But the guy in my ceramics class didn’t laugh or anything. He just said “What’s that?” and he listened when I explained that the inferior vena cava is a large vein that carries de-oxygenated blood from the rest of the body into the right atrium of the heart. I showed him using the heart as a model and he said that was interesting. Then I asked him about what he was making. “A bowl” he said and he laughed. Then the bell rang and that was the extent of our interaction. I don’t remember the boy’s name because he moved shortly after that. I still have the heart. I glazed it electric purple, which is my favorite color.
When I became focused on my goal of becoming a doctor healer, and dreaming about how someday I’d figure out a way to regenerate limbs, I began to feel a lot better. I was still a loner, but I stopped downloading pictures of deformities off the internet and making them into collages with pix cut from Teen Magazine. I got happier and everyone in the family noticed, especially Mike, my little brother. He’s six years younger than me but we’ve always been able to talk like no problem because of how smart he is.
When I came home from the hospital Mike was only seven. His most prized possession when he was little was this nasty old Barbie he’d found somewhere. Before he got into physics and engineering, he was all about this Barbie. He brought her with him when he played outside, slept with her, everything. Our parents didn’t hassle him about it, they thought it was funny but they never said anything stupid like “Boys can’t play with dolls” or embarrassed him. They had real things to worry about, like utility bills. Anyways, the day I got home, Mike took his Barbie, and he dressed her up real nice and laid her on my pillow. Except for now she had a bald head and he’d cut off one of her legs! I started laughing. I gave Mike the biggest hug, if mom and dad had found it they would have freaked out but that was the sweetest thing anyone he’d ever done. It was his way of saying “You’re still okay”.
I spent a lot of time with him my freshman and sophomore year. When I came home from school I’d babysit him until my mom and dad got home from work. We’d hang out in the den or take walks by the river and he’d let me visit his fort. Besides babysitting Mike, I’d study. Not just straight up medical books, but all kinds of topics pertaining to healing. Because I didn’t just want to be a doctor, I wanted to be a regenerator.
Now that I’ve caught you up on the last 3.5 years, I can start getting to the really good part- which begins at the end of my senior year. That summer my life- and the course of history- changed forever. It was a Thursday night in May, and I was up way late again. I can’t shake being a night owl. It sucked waking up so early for school, I was practically a drooling zombie, but I don’t like getting to bed before 3:30 A.M. usually. Dad doesn’t get it, because he actually likes ambulating around the house and operating the coffee grinder before the sun rises. He’s always worked the early shift at the plant.
Like me, mom would sleep in if she could. I think if mom hadn’t gotten married and pregnant and had two kids plus a full time job as a secretary by the time she was 30 she would have enjoyed some crazy glamorous times with dastardly men late at night. Maybe on the Rive Gauche (the left bank in Paris) or in Monte Carlo. Not that I think she’d change anything, I know she is in love with my dad, and real happy with us and her life. You can tell when someone has that happy energy vibration hum inside them and she definitely has it. I can hear it, coming out of both my parents actually.
They are pretty lucky, I mean to be relatively happy adults. I wanted to give them a lot of money but besides that, they had it made. They enjoy each other. They both like doing outdoor stuff like walking on the beach or having cook outs. And they like the same tv shows. I think they have a healthy love life.
They like their kids. They call us eccentric, and I hear pride in their voices. It’s interesting because they both did not have creative childhoods or anything. They both had to support themselves really young and hadn’t been out of central Florida very often. But they are both smart. They just had kids super young. There are probably lots parents maybe more “sophisticated” than mine who would not have encouraged my master plan doctor dream or would have been mean to Mike about his Barbie predilection, or not understood about his maps and diagrams.
Mike is probably going to be a genius engineer when he grows up. Since second grade or so he’s been drawing what appear to be blueprints of machines. Mike drew a picture of our washing machine (“pretend the side is see-through okay?” he said as he walked me through it) and inside it was a bunch of wires that Mike had painstakingly colored with different crayons. Next to the wires was a wheel that had bumps on the outside of it. It looked like a hamster wheel but also a gear. “This is what makes the washer run,” he said, “This is where it gets its power”. And inside the wheel was something that kind of did look like a hamster, because it was yellow and it had eyes. I asked him what it was and he said “Electricity”.
He’s done the engines of airplanes, automobiles, and plus he designs machines that come out of his imagination, like a microwave that also is a rocket launcher. He does major variations on the microwave, sometimes it’s a fully automatic weapon, other times it can fly. Mike dug the microwave, probably because all of his favorite foods came out of there.
Mike liked hearing about what I was working on too. He’d listen intently as I explained things like how scientists are able to grow human ears on mice using technology called tissue engineering (what they do is they create an ear-shaped ‘scaffolding’ of porous polyester material and then they impregnate the fabric with human cells and implant that onto the back of a hairless mouse. This mouse has been specially bred to lack an immune system that would reject foreign bodies. The mouse’s body nourishes the ear as it grows and the mouse is okay even after they remove it). People who are born without ears or are damaged can have a new one grown for them. I became obsessed with this. I had a few other interests though. For instance, I liked to dance.
I saved up for a used laptop with the money I make from my part-time job. I needed it for my research, and also so I could listen to eighties music on speakers. It has a jack for headphones which is good for school but the reason I bought it was so I could listen to it like a stereo. I liked taking it out in the swamp and listening to the music with the sounds of nature as a background. I like dancing to fast and slow songs. I was actually pretty good, I practiced doing it real sexy especially. Of course I never let anyone see me- I only danced in the privacy of my room or the swamp.
It took a while to save for the laptop because my job was very very part-time (just ten hours a week because the rest of the time I had studying to do- both my own and for school). I worked as an answering service girl one evening a week and all day Saturday. Its for this big medical plaza in town and all I had to do was say “Citrus County Medical Answering Service” and then transfer them to the right voicemail. It beat flipping burgs, it coordinated with the bus schedule, and I didn’t have to be amongst my peers.
I was more comfortable being by myself and thinking about things like, what would be the best music to operate to? Who has more ectoplasmic joodge- Billy Idol or Beethoven? I say Billy for sure. I’ve read that patients can hear things even when they are under anesthesia; and they remember whatever it was in their subconscious. That’s why you should never say someone isn’t going to pull through or make bad jokes about them while you’re in surgery- because the patient can hear it and it affects their healing process.
But back to Thursday night. It was 3:30ish A.M. and I was still awake, just listening to music and staring out the window finally getting sleepy. That’s when I saw it. It looked like a shooting star, except it left a path that remained in the sky, faintly glowing. It was silent and really fast. “What the!” I said. What was weird about it was, it came in at a very severe angle, almost parallel with the earth, and it seemed really close to the house. I saw this light shoot down from the sky and then continue on. It appeared to be flying through the mangroves.
I sat up in bed and peered at this sky stripe. It was so strange how it stayed in the air, kind of like an airplane trail, but so low to the ground. I rushed as fast as I could outside without waking anyone up. First I had to stick my leg on (when I was alone in my room I liked to relax and just hang out in my underwear and let my leg breathe. It was much more comfortable without it). Then I found a sweater and some sneakers and I snuck outside. It was so late it was early and even dad wouldn’t be up for another hour and a half.
It wasn’t cold out, it never really is here. The middle left coast of Florida never really gets colder than fifty degrees, and that is in the deepest of winter. Some people remember frost on the lawns one year but I’ve never seen it. In the spring, the days can be in the 60’s up to the 80’s and it gets positively tropical in the summer time. This particular night/morning was in the 70’s, with a clear sky and minimal moon. It was pretty dark out. All the birds were still asleep. I looked up and located the stripe. It was right over my head, as if someone had hung a bleached out rainbow right over the house. It seemed to begin west out by the ocean and then curved north into the refuge.
From our backyard, you only have to walk about an acre and you’re on protected land. Some gross people still go in there and poach wild animals and some even sneak their powerboats up some of the wider waterways, which spells certain doom to the manatees. That’s the number one cause of death for the manatee- getting sliced by a boat propeller. In the part of the refuge near my house, I’ve seen manatees before. There are a ton of deep springs pretty close and the manatees like to swim in them. Me and Mike used to make signs that said “NO HUNTING AND NO POWER”. We’d cover them in plastic and hang them in the trees along the edge of our property, just in case someone tried to get in there by cutting across our land.
Anyway, I followed the path over my head, deep into the mangroves. I fell down a lot and got soaking wet. It’s easy to trip over mangrove roots underwater, especially in the dark. They extend for several feet in every direction. I hiked through the swamp for what seemed like forever. I kept looking up and there was the stripe, like a glow-in-the-dark ghost of a garden hose. It angled lower and lower, and then was almost touching the tops of the trees. If the stripe connected with earth somewhere, it would be pretty close to this spot.
I hiked a little further and would have kept going but I came across a spring and I wasn’t about to swim it in the dark. I’m chicken about some things. So I decided to come back when it got lighter. I took off one of my socks and tied it to a tree as a marker and I sloshed back to the house. This works out better, I thought, because now the parents won’t wake up and find me not in my bed. I snuck back inside and got back in under the covers. It was always real easy for me to sneak out, if I ever needed to, because my room was actually a converted screened back porch and it had its own door opening to the back yard. The floor sagged a little but three whole walls were windows and the sunsets were beautiful. As for sneaking out, its not like I ever had anybody to meet, but I liked the fantasy of it anyhow.
That morning I got back in and jumped into bed. It was close to five. I formulated my lie and then caught a snooze for a few hours. Even though I was so excited about what I’d seen, I was still able to fall asleep. As long as it’s in the daytime, I can always fall asleep if I want to. I think its kind of like meditating except for I don’t sustain it long enough. I go into this empty peaceful place in my head but instead of maintaining it, I opt to pass out instead. Mom didn’t notice I hadn’t gotten ready for school until she was about to drive me and Mike to our respective bus stops. Dad had already left for work, which is good because he’s more of a stickler about going to school whether you feel like crap or not.
“Pam why aren’t you dressed?” she asked.
“I don’t feel so good” I said.
“What, you feel sick?” she said. She said it warily, see, I used to pull a lot of pretend sicknesses freshman year. You’ve got to be careful about abusing this or pretty soon you have to go to school with the worst farty stomach aches and cramps or whatever, because they just learn to say no. But I hadn’t played this card for a while and with my background in medicine, she really didn’t stand a chance.
“When I stand up I feel dizzy” I said, “I haven’t thrown up yet but I feel like I’m going whenever I elevate my head”
“Pam you really feel sick huh?” mom said.
“I sure do” I said. I always feel a teench bad lying but come on, this was important.
“Okay, well stay home then. Give me a call in a couple hours and let me know how you’re doing okay?”
“Okay mom. Thanks.”
“I hope you don’t have the flu” said mom, and she leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“Well don’t kiss me if I’m contagious you sicko” I said.
“I’ll bring you some soda water and Saltines okay. And then I have to go.”
“Thanks mom” I said, as Mike peeked his funny face into my room. He was 10 then and in the cute goofball phase of his morphic development. His ears stuck out and his hair stuck out worse.
“Why don’t you have to go to school?” he said.
“Because I’m sick” I told him.
“Lucky” he said.
“If you’re not afraid of my germs I’ll play Scrabble with you when you get home” I told him.
“Come on Mike” said Mom, as she brought the crackers and water in. “We’re going to be late”
I waited until I couldn’t hear the car’s rubber band engine anymore, and then I got up. No one had suspected. Normally I would have told Mike about something unusual I’d seen, but this time it didn’t even occur to me. It was like it was just meant for me or something. Once they’d gone, I hopped out of bed and got dressed. It was shaping up to be sunny and in the 80’s so I just wore jeans and a tee shirt, and my waders (waders are big rubber boots that come up over your knees, sort of like pirate boots. You can even buy some that are like pants with suspenders; fly fishermen wear those. Mine just are the over the knee kind and they look very cute with just a bra and panties).
I brushed my teeth real quick and was about to leave and then I remembered my digital camera (also used but it’s a good brand). I located it in its appointed space in my desk drawer and put it in my pocket. I mean, who knew what could be out there? Everyone has at least one moment in their life where they regret hugely that they didn’t have a camera. I didn’t want this to be one of those.
So I set off. It was past 9 when I left and the sun was so yellow and bright. I couldn’t see the stripe at all. It must have diffused in the night, or maybe the sunlight was just too bright. I remembered which direction I went, I knew this part of the refuge really well. I found my tied- on sock in less than a half hour. It took another twenty minutes to skirt around the spring and then I looked around. If the stripe hit earth, it would have right around here.
And that’s when I smelled something. I was in the middle of a sunny Florida swamp, where it always smells like bird feathers and sweet low tide. But what I smelled was new computer. It was the smell of a brand new warm laptop. I’d know that smell anywhere because there was a new computer I wanted real bad and I’d pay it visits at the computer store after school. I couldn’t afford it but I was always skulking around the place anyway. I’d type on the keyboard, and even smelled it when the sales guys aren’t looking. Well that’s what I incongruously smelled in the swamp. Warm plastic and wires and motherboard. Weird, I thought.
I just followed the smell, it got stronger and stronger. I walked into a sort of glade that was raised up a little, the ground was dry and sandy and there was even a pine. Another spring was there, and had formed a deep bulging pool big enough to swim in before it stretched out again into a mini river and continued on to the gulf. And that’s when I saw it. Felt it first actually.
When I walked into this glade it took me second to register it but I realized I felt funny. Like good. This is embarrassing but I noticed that the moment I got there I began feeling really peaceful and a little turned on. It was the weirdest thing, I almost felt a little high- and horny.
“What’s going on?” I said. The smell of electricity was so strong and the feeling was pronounced. That’s when I saw it in the water. I knew exactly what it was- it was totally a spaceship. before I saw it. It was half submerged in the spring but it was a spaceship. It looked a lot like the ones you seen in movies and comics. Silverish and domed. It wasn’t one of the flattened flying saucers, this one was more round and semi -spherical, and sort of silverish. Why didn’t I freak out? I think because of the weird peaceful feeling I had. It really was like being drugged a little. I didn’t even want to run away.
I kept staring at it. It was the first time I’d experienced awe. It was beautiful. The top of it was shining in the sun and I noticed it seemed to be emitting a faint light in the water, but I could barely see it because of the sun. And it was just sitting there. The water lapped against its sides quietly and the glade was very still.
That’s why I didn’t notice the animals at first. They were so still but they were right there. There was a deer standing in the trees, very close to the waters edge. And another was kneeling next to the ship. Two wild deer were less than fifteen feet away from me and they hadn’t run. Then I looked up and saw the squirrels and the bird. There were three grey squirrels sitting on a mangrove branch hanging over the water. And in the water, actually in the water, stood a whooping crane! It was standing on one leg right next to the spaceship! This was almost as shocking as the spaceship itself. These creatures are so rare and endangered and it was right here. And it wasn’t afraid.
I stepped closer and the animals didn’t move. They didn’t take any notice of me. It was like they were just soaking up the good vibes. I stepped closer and closer to the ship. It was sitting in about six feet of water and there was something in the water near it. I squinted and saw three manatees underwater, practically resting their muzzles against the spaceship. This was so strange because they only migrate this far up the spring in the winter months, in order to escape the colder ocean water. What made them want to swim all the way up here? I looked to them and then back at the ship.
Upon closer inspection it’s color was silvery but it didn’t look like it was made out of the metal itself. Silver is a dense material. It’s heavy and hard. This wasn’t dense like that. The outer part of the ship actually looked more like a gasoline rainbow, it had some shimmer to it. It reminded me of the inside of an abalone shell, like Mother of Pearl. Kind of clear, but not see-through. And it looked soft somehow. I don’t know how to describe it, but the structure didn’t look like it was made out of anything I’d ever seen before.
The only reason I was able to take all this in so calmly was because I was calm. I felt no fear at all. In fact, I felt great. I felt like making out with someone. This is so weird I told myself. Then I remembered the camera. I’ve got to get shots of this. It could be a top secret government invention. And it had an accident. Or, it could be… a real spaceship. From outerspace.
I got the camera out of my pocket and held it up to my eye. I looked through the lense. There were the deer and the crane and the spaceship in the frame. I stuck my finger on the button and pressed. The camera made a click sound and the moment it did something happened. Something moved on the ship. I didn’t know what it was I just saw movement and this time I did run.
But I didn’t make it far. About three feet if you want to know the truth. I pivoted on my peg leg wrong and fell flat on my face. I made it to my feet and turned around. The animals had backed up some because I startled them but they were still there. Even though there was something extending out of the side of the UFO.
I probably would have run and never come back. I would have gotten too freaked out. Like what if it was some giant radioactive bomb? Or a top secret new war technology system that could blow me away at the slightest provocation? I mean, its not like you can trust everyone in our government. There are cover ups all the time. It’s been proven they’ve tested chemicals on members of the armed forces. Why not some kind of new secret weapon tested on poor backwoods Floridians? Or what if it was an alien craft with hostile aliens on board, also willing to blow me away? Or what if they were those kinds of aliens that kidnap humans and stick probes up their butts?
But here is why I didn’t run. Two reasons. The first one is that nice vibe I mentioned. It was really nice. I felt peaceful and unafraid and like, here is the best way to describe it. You know how right after you have an orgasm, you feel all tingly and warm still, all the way from your crotch to the top of your head? Well that is how I felt. I guess the animals did too because they were sticking around. Here is the second reason I didn’t run. The thing protruding out of the side of ship looked like a giant eyeball on a stalk. Suddenly, the front of it became translucent and the words “HELLO” appeared in it.
The screen swayed slightly in the breeze. It was perched on a very skinny metallic stalk that seemed to grow right out of the material the ship was made of. The color of the screen was the same silvery gasoline rainbow non-color as the ship and the words were a neon lavendar.
“HELLO” it said. I didn’t think. I just said “Hello” back.
“I’M SORRY IF I FRIGHTENED YOU” said the screen.
“Um… I’m okay" I yelled, and I stood up.
“OH…I CAN HEAR YOU PERFECTLY” said the screen. I blushed. I was yelling because I wasn’t sure if it could hear me. Whatever it was.
“GOOD MORNING” it said.
“Uh, good morning” I said. This was peculiar. But not scary or anything.
“HOQ ARE YOU?” it said. “Sorry, HOW ARE YOU?” This was definitely not scary. It was weird, it asking me how I was doing, like it was in customer service or something. But it didn’t feel dangerous. If this thing was hostile, wouldn’t it have blasted me already? So I answered it.
“I’m good” I said, “How are you?” This was absurd.
“I AM ALRIGHT, THANK YOU” said the screen. I waited for a few minutes. Nothing new came on the screen. Maybe it was waiting for me to say something.
“Have you come from really far away?” I said. “Where are you from?”
“YES” the screen said. That was all it said.
Then the screen didn’t change again. Maybe I’d offended it. I was never the smoothest communicator. I was always real brief at school. Being robotically blunt is a good way to alienate people. Speaking of robots, what if this thing was a robot? It could just be some real sophisticated computer program. Maybe that would explain why it seemed to be having a tough time or something. It seemed like it took a full minute and then all this came on the screen.
“I DIDN’T EVEN THINK ABOUT HAVING TO ANSWER QUESTIONS…..AND I SHOULD HAVE……..SORRY WHAT DID YOU SAY?” it said.
I tried not to laugh. Whoever was in there seemed nervous.
“Oh, I was just asking where you are from” I said, “Are you really an alien?” I hoped that wouldn’t make it angry. It didn’t. After some moments the screen lit up and said:
“YES I AM…. WHAT YOU CALL… AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL….BUT MY FAMILY, WELL NOT MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY… THEY’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE…IT’S MY FIRST TIME THOUGH.”
Wow this was crazy! I tried to stay real business- like though.
“So you’re really not from this planet?” I said, “Are you sure you aren’t just from the government or something?” I said.
“ER…NO” said the screen.
“Are you a uh,… friendly?” I asked. It seemed friendly. But there wasn’t anything wrong in asking, just to make sure.
“SHOULD I SAY ‘I COME IN PEACE’ OR SOMETHING CHEEZEBALL LIKE THAT?” said the screen.
I started laughing. It made a joke! And I was surprised it knew American slang. Then I wiped the smile off my face. Shouldn’t I be acting dignified? This was a historical event. I didn’t feel very dignified. I was in homeless person jeans with no bra. Also, I didn’t have any concealer on. And I don’t ever let anyone see me with my zits blaring around.
“I COME IN PEACE” said the screen again.
“Okay okay” I said. I think my subconscious knew I wasn’t in any danger, but it was nice to see the screen say it. This was so wild. Mike would lose his mind he’d get so excited. Then I thought of something.
“Did you crash here?” I asked. The screen took a long time replying again. Finally the electric lavender words changed again.
“TECHNICALLY, I DIDN’T CRASH” it said. Hmm, a little touchy.
“Are you okay though? Are you hurt?” I said. I couldn’t believe I was asking it these questions. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Here I was in the swamp talking with an alien. And the animals were still all here. It was beyond weird. But what was the weirdest is that it actually felt normal. I felt comfortable talking with this thing. The slightly high feeling made me feel a little fuzzy and also not as self- conscious.
“I’M OKAY… THANK YOU….COULD I TROUBLE YOU….. TO DO SOMETHING THOUGH?”
“Um okay” I said.
“FOR THE NEXT 23-26 HOURS…. I HAVE TO REST…………..…. INCOMMUNICADO………WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR YOU………………….. TO COVER THE TOP OF MY CRAFT WITH SOMETHING?”
“Okay,” I said. I watched the screen waving in the air like a big goofy flower but no other words came on. It must be tired, I thought. Then I laughed again, due to the weirdness. After a minute, I started gathering up a bunch of dried branches and pine needles and putting them in a pile. The deer finally ran off when I got too close but not until I was within six feet of them. The crane watched me from the water with a saurian eye (saurian means dinasaur, I recently looked it up) and the squirrels watched me with squirrely eyes. It took me like twenty minutes to drag enough dead foliage together. Then I looked at the screen.
“THANK YOU” it said.
“It’s okay” I said, “Do you want me to start covering it now?”
“YES……………AND…WOULD YOU…… COME BACK TOMORROW?”
It took me a second to register what it just asked me. It asked me to come back tomorrow. Wow how flattering. It wanted me to come back, and maybe help it some more. That meant it like, trusted me. I had decided for sure it didn’t have evil intentions. I seemed nice. Overly polite, actually.
“Sure” I said, “Sure I’ll come back. And I guess you don’t want me to tell anybody, about um, you being here right?”
“THANK YOU” it said again. “GOODBYE UNTIL THEN.” Then the stalk descended back into the side of the ship. I watched it go down and there were no sliding pieces of metal or cranks or anything. But it didn’t move all liquidy like the Terminator either. The whole screen and everything just sort of lowered down and rubberly popped back into the wall of the ship. It disappeared into the gasoline rainbow glint. I stared at it. It definitely wasn’t from around here, I mean, from this planet. I had to get really close to the ship when I threw the branches in top of it. The twigs didn’t make a scraping noise across the roof the ship, I noticed. They didn’t make any sound at all, it was like I was laying them on an animal’s back.
When I was finished it was still very apparent that something bizarre was in the water, but it helped a little. I don’t think an airplane or something else would be able to see it from above. It now resembled a giant soft semi-flattened silver pearl, sitting in the water and covered with branches. It wasn’t making the water glow anymore either. I walked over to it again and looked through the water. The manatees were still there. In fact, there were four now. I wondered if the ship was warm. Manatees will congregate next to industrial power plants because the plants squirt out really warm water during the electricity generating process. The manatees will just float around these big pipes and enjoy themselves. They hang around the plant my dad works at.
I put my hand on the ship to see if it was warm, and to see what it felt like. This might make you squirm but you know exactly what it felt like? Human skin. Warm, slightly sticky human skin. I just stood there with my hand on the ship and the manatees swimming at my feet and thought about what had just happened to me. I just met an alien I thought, and its right here! The only thing separating us is its space ship! I took a step back. This was so heavy. At least that’s what my head was saying. It didn’t feel heavy though. Like I said, I actually felt very light. And good.
When I got back to the house the clock over the kitchen table said it was 11:09 A.M. That meant I’d been gone for about two hours. That made sense. I hadn’t lost any time. It took at least 25 minutes one way just to get to the glade where the space ship was parked. And 25 minutes back. And I know our interaction took at least twenty minutes. And me piling up all that underbrush was additional 15 or 20. I made a mental note to look up time stuff up when I started my alien research. People who have had encounters usually say they lost some time. I was going to stay up late tonight reading about aliens.
The next thing I looked at in the house was the bathroom mirror. It had gnarly interrogation-type lights in it and was perfect for popping zits. I wanted to see how gross I looked for this alien. I mean, I was sure it was green and three feet tall but still. I surveyed myself in the mirror. My hair was wet from the humidity and looked like a peasant’s from medieval times. Sure enough I had a giant red zit on my forehead and the healing ones everywhere else were extra red.
One of the medical issues I researched frequently, besides anything that had to do with organ or limb transplants, was zits. Good ole acne vulgaris. Zits suck because not only do you they make you look like a pustulent diseased person, when they finally heal they don’t just disappear. They leave behind a discoloration called “hyperpigmentation”. On white people the hyperpigmentation looks red, on black people it looks brown. Either way it’s lame and I plan on doing something about it. I wanted to come up with a way to just transplant new skin onto hapless teens’s faces. Screw all the creams and crap, just replace it. Like my leg.
After I inspected myself I went back into my room and masturbated. I still felt kind of turned on. It was from whatever vibe was out there in the swamp, around the spaceship. I did corny stuff when I had sex with myself. Like sometimes I’d dress up in fancy lingerie and then pretend a rock star was undressing me. But this time I just got under the covers and did it real quick. One time I tried to masturbate to Chad but it didn’t work. He is gorgeous but he’s real, do you know what I mean. I was convinced I’d never be able to have sex with a real person. Because then I’d have to worry about the peg leg around him.
For someone who had never kissed a boy, I had a very active sex life. It was all in my mind, but any competent psychologist will tell you that that is where 99% of sex occurs anyway. I mentioned lingerie. Besides music, and saving up for my family’s birthday and Xmas presents, I spent my money on lingerie. I figured that just because no one was ever going to see me in it didn’t mean I couldn’t have some. I have green satin panties with black stripes and see-through bras and white lacy ones. I just wore jeans and teeshirts to school but underneath I always had at least one fine article on. It made me feel very feminine and dangerous, like Catwoman, or Mata Hari, or Marilyn Monroe, if she’d ever gotten a good therapist.
After I was done I fell asleep. My experience with the alien had been exhausting. I wasn’t sure why but after a few hours I felt a little fried and disoriented. When the family got home I told them I was still sick and didn’t come out and watch tv with them. I was tired and afraid I’d spill the beans. I’m a good secret keeper but not when it is of megalithic proportions. And having an alien land almost in your backyard qualifies, I’d say.
The next morning I feigned illness again but I told the parents I was all caught up on my homework and wouldn’t be missing any tests or anything. They both said I’d have to go to the doctor if I wasn’t better by Monday and I solemnly agreed to go.
“But I’m sure I’ll be fine by then” I said.
So everyone went off to work and school and I got to stay home again. The only hitch was dad’s car wouldn’t start and he had to carpool with a buddy who’s shift starts a little later than his. Mom would have given him a ride but she had to leave ultra early that morning and was already gone with Mike. One thing I got so excited about was thinking about how my parents wouldn’t have to drive used cars ever again, once I became a physician. Doctors make a lot of money. I hoped that by the time I was practicing the US would have universal healthcare. I know doctors won’t be making multi-millions every year once that happens but they’ll still make a lot. I believe everyone should have access to health care, whether they can afford it or not. My parents couldn’t afford my operation and my prosthetic. Mom didn’t get insurance through her job and dad’s was crappy. The state paid for a lot of my treatment and I’m really grateful. I never had to make some crutches, or push myself around on a skateboard using my hands.
Finally dad got his ride and he left. Then I hurried into my jeans and waders. I threw a towel and a bottle of water in a small backpack too. Then I hiked back into the swamp. I couldn’t wait to see the spaceship again, and communicate with whatever was inside. I found the little glade fast this time, and this time the hot new computer smell was gone. Also there were three deer and I couldn’t believe this- a Florida Panther. They are beyond rare. They are rarer than Whooping cranes and manatees and even pandas. Supposedly there are less than 70 in the wild. I don’t know anyone who’s even ever seen one.
I knew I was in the presence of a spaceship but seeing a FLA Panther up close was almost as incredible. Especially since it was sitting by the deer and they didn’t seem bothered by it. The cat looked over at me when I stepped into the clearing but it didn’t run away. It was huge, like six feet long with the most beautiful smoky-beige fur, and black eyeliner around its champagne colored eyes. It blinked at me in the sun. I instinctively reached for the camera and only then remembered I’d dropped it the day before. I looked around and spied it on the sand near the ship. I hesitated, and then walked over to where it lay, very slowly.
As I crept over to the camera, the screen on a stalk came out of the ship again, and this time I watched it. It elongated right out of the side, like the fast motion photography of a growing flower.
“GOOD MORNING” it said. It shocked me a little, even though it had said the same thing the previous day. The apparatus itself and the fact that an alien intelligence was actually wishing me a good morning was no less surreal than the day before.
“Good morning” I said back to it.
“THANK YOU FOR COMING BACK” the screen said.
“Oh, well… you’re welcome” I said, and I blushed again. I didn’t even know why.
“DO NOT BE ALARMED BY THE PUMA CONCOLOR CORYI” it said, “IT WILL NOT HARM YOU.” I paused. Puma con….Oh yeah, it meant the panther. It was using its Latin name.
“How’d you know that’s what it was?” I asked, “I mean, how did you know what species of cat is out here?”
“I CAN SEE IT” said the screen. But there were no windows in the ship. And half of it was underwater.
“Um, how?” I said. It was a little difficult conversing. My brain felt partially fuzzy.
“ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE FILM ‘PREDATOR’ ?” said the screen.
Uh oh. Why is it bringing up that movie?
“REMEMBER HOW IT COULD VISUALIZE ITS PREY BY SENSING HEAT? IT WAS ALSO ABLE TO ‘SEE’ GREATER BANDWIDTHS OF THE LIGHT SPECTRUM THAN A HUMAN EYE IS CAPABLE OF PROCESSING. INFRA RED AND SO ON.”
“And that’s how you see?” I asked, “Like we look like orange and red splotches on a screen?”
“YES” the screen said, “HOLLYWOOD DEPICTIONS OF ALIENS ARE SOMETIMES VERY ACCURATE” it added.
“Why?” I said.
“BECAUSE MANY DIFFERENT BEINGS VISIT YOUR PLANET” said the screen, “AND MANY HAVE MADE CONTACT WITH HUMANS.”
“What kind are you?” I asked.
The screen’s letters didn’t change for a while. Oops, was I offensive this time? Maybe it didn’t want to get very personal. It was an awkward moment, but not that awkward, on account of the vibes. Yes, they were still there. I had that slightly woozy and sexy feeling again.
“SORRY, BUT I’M NOT SURE HOW TO EFFECT A PROPER INTRODUCTION YET. I NEED APPROXIMATELY TEN MORE MINUTES. THEN I CAN COME OUT.”
That blew my mind. We were going to meet face to face? I guess I’d assumed whatever was in there wasn’t coming out, I don’t know why, maybe because it had stayed in the ship the day before. Or maybe it hadn’t occurred to my brain because it was too busy processing the fuzzy, pleasant feeling.
“You mean you can come out?” I finally said.
“YES. I HAVE BEEN RECUPERATING INSIDE MY CRAFT FOR THE PAST 24 HOURS. MY ENERGY LEVELS WERE LOW AFTER MY LANDING” it said.
“I absolutely can wait” I said, “I skipped school so I could um, interact with you.”
“THANK YOU.” said the screen. Then it darkened. In a moment, the screen and its pole retracted back into the wall of the ship. It just sucked back in and dissolved. I put the camera in my pocket. Then I decided to sit down and lean against a tree while I waited. The force field or whatever it was emitting made me a little shaky I noticed. I wondered how gross this being was going to look. I’d have to be polite no matter what. I didn’t want to make it feel like it was its first day of high school. It already seemed nervous too. Though not as bad as the day before. The words on the screen had come quicker today.
I settled back against the tree trunk and enjoyed the vibes and the sunshine. I couldn’t take my eyes off the spaceship, but I had to keep staring at the panther too. It was the most bizarre and the most beautiful scene. The sunlight spattered across the whole thing, making the spaceship shine. Bubbles rose around it, as the manatees breathed under the water. The panther lay very still and gorgeous, in the posture of the Sphynx. It faced the ship and stared at it. The deer were only a few feet away. They were chewing some grass by the water’s edge.
I looked up and noticed there were more squirrels and some smaller birds lining the branches. And the Whooping Crane was back. He was sitting in one of the branches of a mangrove overhanging the spring. He was so heavy the limb bent under his weight. It was like freakin Snow White or something.
This is the wildest, most wonderful thing to ever happen to me” I thought. I felt so lucky. And special. Yes, its something they don’t mention in books and movies about alien encounters. People never say what an ego trip it is to meet an alien. Of all the humans in the world, only a few get to actually converse with a real live alien. As I lay there, I thought about this and wondered if it meant I was some kind of evolved being myself, like maybe some dense choad from school wouldn’t even have been able to even see the ship, much less make contact with it. I knew that was egotistical of me, but I couldn’t help it. My parents have always told me no one is better than me, and I am not better than anyone else. I wasn’t thinking I was better than other people around Homosassa exactly, but I was feeling pretty special. That feeling was replaced with shock when I saw the alien.
Because he was beautiful.
And he looked like he was my age.
I was expecting something that didn’t look human. I had prepared myself for being grossed out by like, a big pulsating head and insect eyes. With a wanky little skinny grey body. Or even slimy tentacles. There was no door in the spaceship opening with lights flashing and a fog machine, although his entrance was dramatic enough. He just came out of the side of the ship, like he walked through its walls. I saw the wall of the ship sort of split apart for a moment and then there he was. Walking toward me.
He had sculpted muscles, and that v-shaped body that guy swimmers have, with the narrow waist and broad shoulders. His skin was a little funny. It was the same color as the spaceship. Even from 10 feet away I could see the grayish-pearly gasoline rainbow sheen in his skin. It actually was really pretty.