Sulking in the city of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Sandra was sitting on
her floor. It was a particularly nice floor except for that odd brown spot
that you only notice when you walk towards the television. She glared at
the brown spot and knew what it was doing. It was out to get her. She knew
it. Everything was the brown spot's fault, everything was the doing of this
brown spot. EVERYTHING WAS CAUSED BY THE EVIL BROWN SPOT OF DOOM. It was
such a random and improbable thing that it had to be the reason for
coincidental bad happenings in one day. Death to the brown spot.
She calmed herself down. Being an adolescent was hard. Trying not to show that you're becoming an adolescent was even harder. Well, being an adult was hardest but mostly because it just gets so boring and repetitive that it's difficult to cope with. The teenage years consisted a lot of this: assumed rebelling, presumed rejecting, and the "how soon" feeling of pain and isolation that too many people get paid for having because they've grown up to write songs about it.
"How soon?" she wondered aloud. "How soon?"
Quickly, she wrote a little note to her mother saying "be back in 25 minutes." Somehow those 25 minutes would turn into five hundred and seventy- sex thousand million years.
As she walked down a gravel road with a vast field of wheat beside it, her eyes looked up into the stars of the dark blanket that swaths the Earth and thought. Just thought. Suddenly, something that would only happen in imagination, or in a dream popped out of an eventfully deranged day, a spaceship landed.
Before a funny sort of ice-cube lump rose in Sandra's throat, she felt her stomach stir and roll like a Very Reliable Nice For Quick Breakfast Blender. A sort-of funny moving alien walked out, actually, quite like glided, down an escalator type thing which had descended from the spacecraft. She forgot what else to call it. Not an escalator. A portal? No. A conveyer belt? Nooooo. A stair case? A moving stair case? Yeah, that seems about right. Oh wait, that's an escalator. Damn.
Then she remembered life forms from another planet were probably more important than a moving portal stair case transporter doo-hickey whatever it was.
"Merniquisherrrrrrmp," said the alien.
"."
"Merniquisherrrrrmp, lattak," it said again.
"."
The alien handed her a fish that materialized smoothly in his hand.
Hesitantly, she took it, and gazed down at it's oddly shaped mouth and yellow exterior.
She didn't know what to do with it, so she asked.
"What.do I do with it?"
Other aliens began to emanate from the spaceship, watching her confused looks with the fish and what not.
"Um."
One of the aliens pointed to his hand as if the fish were in it, and then the his ear. The hand, then his ear. The hand, then his ear.
"Put the fish in my ear?" she asked nervously, thinking it was going to kill her or something.
They all nodded and waited.
She put the fish in her ear.
She felt silly after that.
"Mer.n..'lo, Earthling," it said simply, with conforming English. It's voice was slow and sedating.
"Oh! You can understand English?"
"Yes. We can now understand you, and you can understand us."
"Nice..Are you going to abduct me?"
"Yes, actually."
At this moment, one of the aliens protested because all the way through the trip he had felt this was a bad idea and unfair to the human, and rambled about Intergalactic Rights and such.
"Ah, one moment," spoke the alien who had first spoke to Sandra, and took the fish out of her ear so she could not understand the talk among it's own kind.
Bizarre sounds elicited from their mouths (or thin lip-less slits, whichever one works best) such as "opish y taker-moom" and "Yertoplomykah" and so forth. After a long while of this she grumbled and cleared her throat.
"Ex..excuse.me?"
They didn't notice.
"Erm, pardon?"
No response.
"ARE YOU STUPID FACELESS ALIENS GOING TO ABDUCT ME NOW OR WHAT?"
They all turned their heads, which were evidently, faceless, and gave the fish back to her to answer.
"I think, yes, we are."
So the aliens and the girl went into the spaceship.
The inside of it wasn't very clean or presentable. At one point in time, it must have looked like a comfortable, futuristic, and enjoyable to travel in spacecraft, but everything looked quite rusted and, well, like shit.
Sandra didn't know whether to take this whole abduction as a surprising event, or a scary event, or another depressing event. Actually she didn't feel induced to make it feel like any of those types of events. She felt quite calm, really, because she mildly expected something like this to happen anyway.
Instantly, on one of the rather dusty computer screens, data came up on Sandra. It had it all on there: what humans called her, what humans thought what age she was, what humans were her mother and father, blonde hair, hazel eyes, shortish height and quite troubled. Ah, she thought, that's me. Nice.
"Our monitoring system immediately detects any unidentified being or relatively large object that comes in here, and the computer identifies it," informed the leader.
"I noticed. That's amazing. How long have you had this ship?"
"Oh, about 1 over 30. In Earth time."
She thought about this for a second. Math, beh. She didn't like it much.
"That's a month, right? 30, as in days. Yes, OK."
Sandra examined the spaceship again.
"A month. You've got to be kidding me. Couldn't you keep it just a bit cleaner?"
"Well, it's a rental."
".Makes sense."
Some of the aliens sat down on the tattered old sofas built into the walls, while others checked the computers and commenced rising the ship into the air. Fancy hi-tech noises were heard, flashing lights and the lot.
Sandra saw a rather old bed, with legs that looked too high to be an average bed, but too low to have been a bunk bed. Ah, she knew what this was.
Putting some effort into hopping on the bed, eventually she completed the task of laying down on it. The aliens, who realized abduction of humans was much easier than they had assumed, sensed her climbing on the bed and wondered why she was doing it.
"So, what are we doing today guys? Dissecting my organs to examine the human digestive system, impregnating me using fancy alien utensils, searching into my mind for secret subconscious messages, what?"
The aliens looked around at each other with their non-existent eyes. They weren't planning to put any harm to her. So, the third option sounded nice.
She calmed herself down. Being an adolescent was hard. Trying not to show that you're becoming an adolescent was even harder. Well, being an adult was hardest but mostly because it just gets so boring and repetitive that it's difficult to cope with. The teenage years consisted a lot of this: assumed rebelling, presumed rejecting, and the "how soon" feeling of pain and isolation that too many people get paid for having because they've grown up to write songs about it.
"How soon?" she wondered aloud. "How soon?"
Quickly, she wrote a little note to her mother saying "be back in 25 minutes." Somehow those 25 minutes would turn into five hundred and seventy- sex thousand million years.
As she walked down a gravel road with a vast field of wheat beside it, her eyes looked up into the stars of the dark blanket that swaths the Earth and thought. Just thought. Suddenly, something that would only happen in imagination, or in a dream popped out of an eventfully deranged day, a spaceship landed.
Before a funny sort of ice-cube lump rose in Sandra's throat, she felt her stomach stir and roll like a Very Reliable Nice For Quick Breakfast Blender. A sort-of funny moving alien walked out, actually, quite like glided, down an escalator type thing which had descended from the spacecraft. She forgot what else to call it. Not an escalator. A portal? No. A conveyer belt? Nooooo. A stair case? A moving stair case? Yeah, that seems about right. Oh wait, that's an escalator. Damn.
Then she remembered life forms from another planet were probably more important than a moving portal stair case transporter doo-hickey whatever it was.
"Merniquisherrrrrrmp," said the alien.
"."
"Merniquisherrrrrmp, lattak," it said again.
"."
The alien handed her a fish that materialized smoothly in his hand.
Hesitantly, she took it, and gazed down at it's oddly shaped mouth and yellow exterior.
She didn't know what to do with it, so she asked.
"What.do I do with it?"
Other aliens began to emanate from the spaceship, watching her confused looks with the fish and what not.
"Um."
One of the aliens pointed to his hand as if the fish were in it, and then the his ear. The hand, then his ear. The hand, then his ear.
"Put the fish in my ear?" she asked nervously, thinking it was going to kill her or something.
They all nodded and waited.
She put the fish in her ear.
She felt silly after that.
"Mer.n..'lo, Earthling," it said simply, with conforming English. It's voice was slow and sedating.
"Oh! You can understand English?"
"Yes. We can now understand you, and you can understand us."
"Nice..Are you going to abduct me?"
"Yes, actually."
At this moment, one of the aliens protested because all the way through the trip he had felt this was a bad idea and unfair to the human, and rambled about Intergalactic Rights and such.
"Ah, one moment," spoke the alien who had first spoke to Sandra, and took the fish out of her ear so she could not understand the talk among it's own kind.
Bizarre sounds elicited from their mouths (or thin lip-less slits, whichever one works best) such as "opish y taker-moom" and "Yertoplomykah" and so forth. After a long while of this she grumbled and cleared her throat.
"Ex..excuse.me?"
They didn't notice.
"Erm, pardon?"
No response.
"ARE YOU STUPID FACELESS ALIENS GOING TO ABDUCT ME NOW OR WHAT?"
They all turned their heads, which were evidently, faceless, and gave the fish back to her to answer.
"I think, yes, we are."
So the aliens and the girl went into the spaceship.
The inside of it wasn't very clean or presentable. At one point in time, it must have looked like a comfortable, futuristic, and enjoyable to travel in spacecraft, but everything looked quite rusted and, well, like shit.
Sandra didn't know whether to take this whole abduction as a surprising event, or a scary event, or another depressing event. Actually she didn't feel induced to make it feel like any of those types of events. She felt quite calm, really, because she mildly expected something like this to happen anyway.
Instantly, on one of the rather dusty computer screens, data came up on Sandra. It had it all on there: what humans called her, what humans thought what age she was, what humans were her mother and father, blonde hair, hazel eyes, shortish height and quite troubled. Ah, she thought, that's me. Nice.
"Our monitoring system immediately detects any unidentified being or relatively large object that comes in here, and the computer identifies it," informed the leader.
"I noticed. That's amazing. How long have you had this ship?"
"Oh, about 1 over 30. In Earth time."
She thought about this for a second. Math, beh. She didn't like it much.
"That's a month, right? 30, as in days. Yes, OK."
Sandra examined the spaceship again.
"A month. You've got to be kidding me. Couldn't you keep it just a bit cleaner?"
"Well, it's a rental."
".Makes sense."
Some of the aliens sat down on the tattered old sofas built into the walls, while others checked the computers and commenced rising the ship into the air. Fancy hi-tech noises were heard, flashing lights and the lot.
Sandra saw a rather old bed, with legs that looked too high to be an average bed, but too low to have been a bunk bed. Ah, she knew what this was.
Putting some effort into hopping on the bed, eventually she completed the task of laying down on it. The aliens, who realized abduction of humans was much easier than they had assumed, sensed her climbing on the bed and wondered why she was doing it.
"So, what are we doing today guys? Dissecting my organs to examine the human digestive system, impregnating me using fancy alien utensils, searching into my mind for secret subconscious messages, what?"
The aliens looked around at each other with their non-existent eyes. They weren't planning to put any harm to her. So, the third option sounded nice.