Ngoc Chau does not own District 9.

My updates are going to be much slower since I've started high school.
Sigh.....
I hate high school now.
Can you guys give me your opinion?
I went to this reach ahead course during the summer and got 87% on it for math. Should I stay in the grade I am or go ahead? What do you thnk?

First, I've posted up a fanfic called, "Letting Go of the Butterfly in My Hand." Please read about it.
Another one is "The Grace of My Days" Check that out too.

Monday.

There was work again. He woke up early as usual. The morning sun that shone from the small window and cracks above awoke him up along with the screeching wailing signal of the morning that came. He forced himself up, hating himself and his bones for being so weak to be so uncomfortable. The familiar newspapers -along with new ones that he found blowing around the neighboring hovels- and small scraps of the thinnest of rags blanketed him fell off him with crinkling that buzzed at his ears like someone had thrown rocks at him.
It was too early for this. His legs were bent up stiffly against his chest. All the while, his long spindly arms hugged around his thin form. Fatigue yelled and wailed for him to just drop; pinching at his eyes and begging him to keep the leather-like hide over them closed like he had in his dreamless sleeps.

He pushed out his legs and knees that it hurt when he stretched; his thin ligaments expanding and feeling like it was going to rip. His wide mouth opened in an exhausted yawn and the air tasted of compost on his sandy tongue.
The morning siren, this time it was the alarm for the start of working hours, shrieked and urged each one of them. He strode over to the door. Just before leaving his disheveled home, he looked down at the ground, knowing that beneathe it was a literal treasure. A smile that only their kind could display grew on his face as he remembered the human woman who gave it to him. He wondered if he would see her again that morning. He shook it out of his head and breathed in the thick morning air.

Going out of his hut, he soon joined a small crowd of the other non-humans who were going to work in the mines once more. Many of them were perfect for tedious labour, having been something of drones that simply followed orders on their home planet. Few of the 'leaders' and 'elitists' had survived and came. Some were going into the factories to work besides just the mines and fields.
He hated the factories most of all. Of course it had cooler and cleaner conditions than the rest of the labour oppotunities, but the feeling that he always had of being surrounded by concrete, steel, and mercenaries made him edgy. Unbelievably, the treatement from the guards from inside working were even harsher than it was in the outdoors. He liked the mines because it was more open and it felt as though you could just go into hiding down in the crevasses and tunnels. Although the factory pay was much better than mining pay.

The sun was just gleaming through the high buildings and skyscrapers of Jo'burg and the skies were painted with dripping orange streaks. He squinted his golden eyes to see the dark obliques of high towers overpowered by the light.
Such a scene had him fall in love with the city. He had thought that it all was going to end and everything would get worse. But this sight inspired him that although the darkness had come, it could also easily be changed like the night to early morning. The first time he ever saw it such a heart-warming scene was early in morning from the hospital windows of the MNU with the cold serious Doctor Chun-Fen Wu.....
He felt almost torn recalling the memories of being in the hospital in the few years arriving on Earth with his people. They were all so sick and so was he... and yet fate had it so that she would be his doctor. She, who always stood so cold and spoke so sternly, would've opened something light and warm inside of him and treat him so kindly that he remembered silently tearing up remembering the gestures she gave directly to him without anyone knowing or seeing.
Unfortunately, the anti-nonhumanists had interfered with her thoughts and their friendship. Again, he shook that pesky memoir out of his green-coloured skull.

The morning felt colder than it had yesterday. He almost shivered; Christopher felt weak of himself that he still had the scraps of clothing on his back while most had resorted to going almost nude and were not even shaking.
There was no talking. There was no socializing. There was not even a simple greeting amongst them. Too much paranoia in the human public and the military figures were too harsh to even talk to.

Going close to the entrance of District 9, men in black uniforms that hid away their identities stood like gates and pickets. Guns were held so diligently in their trained hands. Hardly an ounce of expression could've been seen on their plastic covered faces. Each man stood shoulder to shoulder with the next; they made an unpenetrable path for the non-humans to follow and obey. Not one of them dared to look at the men -taller that they were than the MNU workers- and chose to focus their attention to the ground. The buses were rumbling and growling, jumping from the grounds like it was so excited to haul them away to potential death.
As each non-human got up onto the step, the bus was weighed down and then rose back up. The men at the doors held papers and would ask to each one coldly, "Name."

Clicks would be their replies and a checkmark would go to an assigned code that was accompanied with a name.

While he was close to the doors and had given the men his name, he quickly tried to see if she had come back. He knew it was more likely that she would be back between the evening and late in the afternoon like yesterday, but she had left so abruptly for some uncalled reason that he thought she would still come back.
She wasn't there. Of course, she wasn't.
She had better things to do in the morning than come see something like him; making the silliest hand-gestures and noises to try to talk to him. She was probably more preoccupied with something else like her job she had mentioned yesterday other than meeting him and he had get to to work and supposed even if she had come, the most he could've done was wave. Going onto the bus and finding his seat, he was hyped up about working inthe mines again, he was sure that he would be so busy with his labour that she would hardly be on his mind like the other day.

Yet it was so stupid for him to think that such a woman like her wouldn't leave some impression on him. All during the work hours and the much too short breaks, he could imagine that he heard her whistling and his head would perk up to try and see a bushy top of hair. Or when all seemed too quiet, he would look around the cracks and hiding places all throughout the hills and mountains to see if she was there again like she was before.
Each rock and wall he looked behind rewarded him with disapointment and a feeling of hurt.
Some of his companions who he worked with had asked, "What's wrong with you, Christopher? Old age catching up to you before your time?"

He would not even respond, just silently hoping to see the bushy-haired woman sitting behind a rock or a wall.
Sara was the first to remark so harshly, "You're acting like a damn fucking fool. Get your head on straight or the MNU will detain you for recklessness." She was one to speak.

In the evening when he boarded the bus home and sat with Sara, he would look out the window again. Every figure in the moonlight, against the walls, walking up and down the streets was her to him. He couldn't even focus straight and the memory of her face was slipping away from him like fine sand. All that he could remember was that bushy hair which seemed to unruly to tame or even comb and the strange splash of jealous green in her warm brown eyes.

Tuesday.

Work again. He woke up; already working close to 3 weeks straight in the mines. His limbs and joints were stiff together and he painfully torre them apart to get his moter skills back. He slowly got up, taking in his surroundings like there was a suspicion that something could've been bugged or something was different. He stretched upward; his shoulder plates touching the ridges of his spine.
The morning air felt more humid than usual; the air almost thick enough to lean against and cut through with a knife. He wondered if it was going to rain. He liked the rain. The feel of the moving water going down his body; cooling him from the boiling African sun. It would feel like all the dirt and bad things were leaving him; drop by drop by drop, sinking into the ground to be buried and forgotten. Yet, tomorrow would ressurect the wounds and he would be riddled with them again.

Going outside, the same crowd of people bumped into him and he bumped back. Some he recognized and some he knew were going back to work for the first time in 2 months. The same guards were there, though there seemed to be more than ever and he avoided them like just looking could be the cause for a bullet in the brains. Hearing running footsteps outside that sounded too eager that it couldn't have been them and so light that it must've been humans; he looked up and down the legnth of the chained and barbed fences that seperated the district from the towns.
He half expected her to come so close to the fence with her eyes lit up bright just to see him, her hair looking even more messy like she never combed; entangling with the thick black bending metal or possibly just passing by and glancing with half hidden eyes under her lashes that could have sent jolts of fear and intimidation into the bravest of hearts. But no, she didn't come. If he had fully expected her to come see him, he would've been torn to pieces inside and fall to his knees. Luckily, he had remarked that he only half-expected her to come.

In the mines, he had heard a long twang of a whistle and thought that she had decided to finally come, to find him where he had found her before. But no..... it had simply been the wind passing by and mocking his infected thoughts. He felt let-down, like she had promised to teach him how to fly in instead flew away herself. Again, Sara was quick to remark his distracted mind and he wanted to punch her in the tentacles and break a few canines to have her shut up. He couldn't take her talking.

Even coming back, he was tormented with the thought of her. She had appeared too suddenly and her leaving was too sudden for him. She didn't even tell him when she would be back and the very idea that he would never see her again annoyed him greatly. Instead of resting in his drafty hut, he exposed himself to the cold moon and freezing air; letting his body go numb and hoping that his mind would soon as well. The feelings of abandonment were too strong and fiery for him to handle and control without precautions.

Wednesday.

Going to work on the bus, his joints were stiffer than ever and he was still freezing cold from last night. Each step was murder on his ankles and his feet. On the bus, he looked out through the barred and fenced in windows. It was more like he was going on a trip to a much worse jail than the factories that provided for all of Johannesburg.
The faces out on the streets were wary people, staring with gaping eyes and clenched mouth. Facing them was like facing a guillotine that was waiting for him to lie before it on his knees. But he willed himself to meet their expression and bear through it; fed by the urge that one of the faces out there would be hers -friendly and warning and so innocent. He thought he would see her walk the streets at least, even if she wouldn't acknowledge him, he thought that he would be able to see her at least one more time.
But no.
She still didn't come. It was as though she had disappeared from existance; like he had simply imagined saving this woman to keep from killing himself from boredom.

Instead of the expected anger rushing over him, he felt a feeling of worry and empathy. He wondered why he should feel such things for a dumb woman.

Thursday.

Work again. Bought 2 heads of cows after work when he came back home. Could barely eat it, though. She still didn't come; neither in the morning nor the evening. He was still cold from Tuesday. Fuck it; why was he feeling so depressed about disappointment?
He had been disappointed plenty of occasions. Why was it he felt even worse for this time?

Friday.

Work

Home.

Dinner.

'She's already thanked you. Why whould she come back? She has no reason to..... no reason.... no reason.... no reason....' the words repeated over and over in his head until they were blackened and drowned out by tired sleep. The wind did not comfort him with sweet soothings, but left him to suffer the drafts in silence.

Saturday.

Last day before ordained break. He hoped to see her. He promised to himself that if she didn't come today, he would still wait until tomorrow for it would be the very end of his patience for her. The he would have to forget about her completely, shun the gleam of her eyes away from his mind and the pits of his stomach. He would force himself to forget about her, even if it meant beating the memory of her out of his head with a stick.

Sunday.

Before he counted, the days without her had turned into a whole week. He sat on top of a pile of trash as some of his colleagues were scrounging through the dumpsters and hill. He would look up every so often, hoping to catch a glimpse of that ridiculous bushy hair and shiny brown and green eyes. He thought he saw her biking down the street, but it was his imagination playing tricks on him again.

Until the very evening when his bones were well frosted and his hide plates were frigid enough to stick to metal, he stayed out.... The wind spoke to him once more, 'You are alone..... You are alone...... You are alone..... You are alone......'

He actually obeyed and left his solitary spot to go inside and give up, determined to find a big hard stick tomorrow.

Monday.

She was completely gone from him now. He was sure of that fact. He would never see her again or hear her whistle, even see her wild acts of writing in the little notebook of hers. It wasn't too tragic, was it? They had met. He was able to play the role of the dashing savior twice. She had come to see him a day after. She had thanked him and smiled at him.

It honestly wasn't so bad, he kept telling himself.

Yet, no matter how convincing he tried to be to himself and how composed he was around his companions, he felt like he had been betrayed; the feeling of a knife twisting harder and deeper into his back stung.

The days had turned to weeks, and before long the weeks had turned to a whole month. He knew that then, he would never see her again. He would never ever see her again. he was able to find the strength to push the memory of her colourful expressions out of his head -his thoughts. He felt almost better without her haunting him.

With the yearning to do more work to keep his mind focused on something else, he found himself to be a very effecient worker and his friends even commented on why he was more hard-working than usual.
Only in brief moments when everything turned blank and his mind was clean, the thought of scratchy bushy hair and cat like eyes came to him. He would slap himself hard to erase the image out.

It was on one normal day, a day that felt the same as any other day -although a bit cloudier, he stayed at home to go scavenging again. In his 3 fingered hand, he carried out a dented rusted metal pail that he had found a few days again when it was raining. The pail was ideal for carrying water back and forth without spilling a drop, but he discovered its uses as a container for what he found better than one used for water.

He remembered that a few weeks ago, he had found a part from their alien world that MNU had overlooked and he carried it to Charles' hut in the bucket. The way to anywhere in District was always bumpy and it was more easier to lose than to recover amongst the piles of debris. He carried the cubic part; it clanking and jumping all around as he ran. Storming safely in into Charles's hut and quickly explaining that he had found something, he entered the room and helped remove the hidden door that masqueraded as the wall.

Charles Dickens -so sarcastically named because the name database of MNU had randomly chosen the name for him with no prior knowledge or humour- was another chemist who was closer to Christopher than Mike was. Charles had a rather dirty colour to his form; patches of blue, black, green, and yellow. Although the combination of black and yellow appeared more dominant in his patterning. With smart reasoning and a quick fist, he destroyed one of the huts behind his and fashioned an extension to house the secret chemistry set he made himself from tubes, garbage, and the occasional trash from the hospital that ended up in District 9 or anywhere around it.
Though friendlier to the non-humans and higher ranked than Christopher had been, he had a foul mouth and often swore. He chose to wear nothing, claiming that he could blend in more easiler than with patches of colour and human logos on his body.

Charles had demanded like a young impatient child, "Show me! Show me! I want to see it!"
Carefully, taking out the alien object from the bucket, he realized in horror... that it was leaking. Both non-humans looked at each other and neither said a word. As Christopher gripped it hard and opened it up with a sharp cracckk a drop escaped out and the entire thing was empty. Christopher was shocked. One drop and it was gone; every drop counted. He looked his friend dead in the eye and was met with a slap across the face. "You fool! You lost every single drop! Who knows how much we could've gotten from it!"

His head whipped back and then recoiled down His eyes widened as he exclaimed, "No! Look, in there!" Both peered their heads close to the dented bucket and saw a lake of the black concentrate fuel at the bottom.

His mouth dropped and he carefully reached in a finger to test the fluid. Charles face washed over with relief and he moaned, "Oh thank the worlds! It hasn't been diulluted; quick, pour it into the netting."
From then on, he always used the dented bucket to go scavenging.

Jumping through the trash dumpsters and swimming in dirt, he hadn't filled the bucket with alien parts as he had hoped. Although he was full of tire rubber patches and wrappers with food sticking onto the greasy paper. Rubber tires were something that he liked. The taste of it was smoky and it always gave him the impression that he had something to eat in his mouth. The texture of it was bumpy and tough. Their spit made it feel slippery and the sensation of it moving all over his mouth was enjoyable. The equivalent of tire to a non-human would've been gum to a human.
The skies and everything around seemed to be a bit darker, looking more blue. Even without a clock, he figured it must have been around 6 or 7 by then. Another clue that told him how close it was to 8 o' clock Curfew was how he could already see some of the helicopters fly out, hovering around District 9.

Picking up a large shattered piece of a computer hard-drive, he heard yelling and he probably assumed that the last cockfights of the day were starting again. However, his ears picked up on a few words, "Can't.... You.... Read...."

Certainly the word 'read' didn't belong in a crowd of cockfights. He was curious as to what could've been the source of the word in District 9. He decided to investigate.
Picking up the grey tin bucket, he followed the drifting words until he came to a fence. He almost laughed at how well it was set up. He saw a tall non-human, a plain black one in the nude, and in his hand was a large breen bottle. Already from where he was, he could smell the alchohol and piss that was the non-human's scent. He could hear the slurring in its clicks, "What? I.. I dunno what izzit you want.... Just shpeak up!"

'It couldn't be, It simply couldn't be.' he thought to herself as he imagined who it might've been that the non-human was talking to. 'It can't be her. The odds are too great. Then, what would she be doing here?'
He came a little closer to the scene, the drunken non-human obviously didn't notice him. It raised the heavy bottle high up in the air and took a swig; drips of the bitter smelling liquid spilled at his feet. He heard something like rustling and the fence ringing out. what was happening over there? Coming closer, practically standing right behind him; his eyes widened to confirm who it was the non-human had been speaking with.

It was her!

The young woman looked so different than before. before she had resembled something that might've been seen in fairy tales about the great spirits of Africa and the such, but in front of him, she looked like any sort of woman. One that belonged hiding in the corners of buildings and consorting with dark-skinned men who wore do-rags on their bald heads and carried guns in their pockets.
She wore a dark black and white plaided hoodie and a long flowing red skirt that stopped right below her kneest; the hoodie, its white colouring looking a light tinted blue in the darkness, was pulled over her head and the thick bushy hair crowded her face in the oh-so limited space. Although, her exotic brown and green eyes still appeared so clearly behind the black and dark. In her hand, she held the same wrinkled notepad of paper he remembered when she came inside District 9 that read in big letters;

Where is he?

The non-human was swearing and asking, "Fuck off! If you a whore, I don't need one!" He lunged his arm out through the holes of the fence and the woman gasped out loud, backing away. Even from his view, he could see the paranoid fear in her eyes and he was worried if he made himself known to her, the same look would be presented to him. "Fuck off!" the non-human cried out again. The young woman made a face; her arched eyebrows coming together and her mouth pouting as though she had seen something particularily nasty. She turned around; a black back pack with red hearts decorating rested on her shoulders. She was leaving.

Christopher jumped out to the fence, pulling the drunken non-human out of the way and throwing him off. He didn't fight back; he was weak-willed and intoxicated. He simply threw up at his side and crawled away. The trash played a tell-tale sound, telling him that the non-human was getting farther and farther away.

"Wait!" he called out to the young female.
The young woman turned around and looked at him; he could see indifference in her expression. The same crescent smile appeared on her face, but she hesitated in coming over to him. He dropped the pail at his side, it clanked loudly and he was sure that a few of his findings fell out. He didn't care. It was his turn to ask her. He almost imagined how nervous she must've felt then; wondering if it was the right thing to approach and talk. He openly held out his hand to her -palm up- and soothed, "Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. Do... do you remember me?"

She seemed more excited and she went quickly to the fence, almost placing her hand right on his and coming so close to him that he could smell the flowery scent of laundry detergent from her. If the metal wire hadn't had seperated the both of them, he would've been tempted to just pull her to him and embrace her. She smiled a wide smile, her shiny white teeth peeking through. Her lower jaw moved up and down as though she could've been.... laughing? She was even mute when it came to laughing.

"It's been a long time, have you... been well?" he asked her nervously.

She nodded and laughed, though her laugh was silent. Her head directed down, but her eyes turned up under those lashes and her look was something devious and cunning. She reached behind her back and a black marker suddenly appeared.
She flipped to another sheet -stained but clean- and wrote again. She seemed more in a rush to what she was writing than if she simply been writing and entertained whoever it was watching her. The same flicks of her wrist and liquid movements of her arms contouring and bending. He knew that behind the little show would be one or 2 simple phrases. Even a word. Still, he loved to watch her write; to imagine those arms naked and drifting in invisable circles above her, like she was drawing an entire barrier around her.
She quickly finished and turned the page over to him. In those beautiful flowing words, it read;

I've been well.

Yet at the same time, she responded in her strange tongue, "Of course."
It was odd now. Even without the written translation, he could still understand her. Whenever she spoke, she attempted to use whistling and clicking her pink tongue on the roof of her mouth. Ridiculous as it sounded, it was endearing and it showed some sort of effort. But hearing her 'language' and understanding it sent his brain in spirals. He could hear what she was saying, but at the same time it was as though something else was whispering raggedly in his ear -translating what she was saying. The writing summed it up for him, but it was almost reading the word 'blue' in green ink.

"It works." he blurted out.

She slanted her head and bits of whistling came from her pursed lips, "What did?" She took the notebook back into her view and she flipped the pages wildly. The paper sounded like the shifting of the waters he heard when he was in town or close to the factories. When she flipped the sheets at one end and apperently saw that there was nothing she was looking for, she went to the other end and quickly found it. Holding it out again, there was a page filled with scribbles and crosses over past notes and phrases. The only thing darkened and noticable out of the sea of black ink was;

?

It would be difficult to explain exactly to a human. He expected that most humans would be shocked by the idea of a non-human getting inside their heads to understand them. Then again, she seemed to be a dumb naive thing -she was standing so closely to a resident of District 9- and perhaps she wouldn't be so creeped out by the idea.
I.... uh... that is to say, I...."
What was the best word to use for 'merging minds' without it sounding too intrusive or perverted? He thought up of every single way he could say it;
-I melted my brains with yours. Too disgusting.
-I probed your mind. Too 'alien'.
-I came inside you. ... Too perverted!
-I performed a neural-brain transfer that would complete the task of elucidating our vermacular hence we could come to a mutual comprehension. Too long and she wouldn't understand.
-I went on a funny little trip into your head to a place called 'Grey matter-ville' where I left a tiny translator inside your skull so we could talk to each other. Too childish!
He gulped and continued nervously, "I did something... it's harmless, by the way!.... I did it so that whatever you said would be understood perfectly.... It's just that last time, I could barely understand you and my intuition didn't help much, so I thought that... if I did that for you, it would be much easier to speak to each other."
'If you ever came back.' he added in mentally.

A certain sort of look glazed over her face. Her eyes suddenly went dead with her lips parting so briefly from each other. He wondered if she really did understand what he was saying. She blinked like he expected how a child would blink when they were confused of confronted with something beyond their comprehension. Slowly, she raised the notebook with the decorated ? between the 2 of them and pointed verry keenly at it; almost like she wasn't sure if she should've been asking again or she was embarrassed and ashamed to be asking.

"I can understand you better than before." he summarized for her.
The question mark stayed raised between them, like an annoyance of a reminder. 'Goodness, how can I explain it much simpler than that? That's basically it; I can understand her.' He thought hard on how he could speak more basically to her.
"Um... you don't need to use your notebook with me. I can understand whatever it is you're saying. Without your notebook."

It seemed that she finally understood. For the dull look sharpened to one that had a sudden epiphany. Her lips rounded in a circular O and he smiled at finally having her understand. She bared those white teeth at him in a crescent grin. She struggled to speak with him again.
Her words were still agonizingly slow and butchered like she had no idea how to pronouce -merely having watched the mouths move and trying to imitate- but his understanding of hers was much more fluent. He was sure that in the future perhaps, if she came once every so often to see him and tried speaking, her tongue would master the complex movements, she would be adequately acceptable in speaking and the others would be able to understand her as well.
"You can understand me?" she asked after what seemed like an eternity of trial and error.

He nodded his head. That was what he told her, wasn't it? He could understand her -at least better than before.

"That's amazing." she remarked. She came even closer to him; her face just about an inch from the rusting metal of the railing. Instinctly, he moved closer to her as well; bending slightly lower to come even closer to those strands of hair that refused to be covered by the cheap felt of the hoodie and his antennas lightly tapped against her head. She backed her head up, obviously surprised by the feeling of his antennas touching her. He was about to move back, but seeing her smiling like a kindly nun that he had seen before and returning back to her position, he didn't back away and his antennas sat still at the sides of her head.

"So scary." She whispered in a low key.
He wondered what exatly she thought was scary.

She looked up at him and her hands hesitantly carressed the space around his face. Her palm hovered about, almost unsure if whether she should actually touch him, if she was allowed to. He could see from her long neck, the little muscle moving down and back up; she gulped. He himself was unsure on how to give his permission if she really was going to or wanted to. He was tempted to take his own hands and place it over hers to bring to his face, but he stayed still. Her eyes scanned and jumped over his face.
A human's expression was almost too easy to read with their skin always changing and moving and those eye brows that hung over their eyes. He could just see fear in her eyes, even if she had acted kind to him.
His pincers and mandibles clicked over his tentacles, producing that light tapping sound and apperently it found for her that confidence to touch him. She lightly traced his tentacle and her other hand joined the exploration of his head.

Her hands felt rough and almost rubbery. He had expected -looking at her -that her hands and tips would be the softest like the finest marbles and so elegant. But his thoughts on what a woman's skin ought to feel like was changed by her natural feel. Christopher mentally laughed; everything was so different with her and nothing was what it seemed.
A demure woman who was both brave and almost stupid.
A graceful touch that was rough and real.
A curiosity that was too pure to believe.
She stared deep at him -he was almost cross-eyed- and she pointed out, "It's like.... you're.... reading my mind, isn't it?"

Her fingers curled into her palms and she placed her hands to her side. He could see a sort of shuddering feeling from her. Christopher felt slightly offended but he understood. They were silent, simply looking at each other. She seemed well, her face seemed full and there weren't any bruises. He felt shy being so close to her right out in public where everyone could see the 2 of them -albeit in the dark- and without even thinking, he asked her out loud, "What have you been up to?"
He wanted to bite off his mandibles because he just felt like an idiot in front of her. He didn't want to say anything stupid, but at the same time, he just wanted to distract her long enough so she could just stay around him longer.

"Just been working." she answered so casually. How smooth and clear her thoughts were. Much as her words and phrasing were horrible on the ears, she had answered very quickly. It was like she had rehearsed her lines for that sort of situation. "Busy more. You?"

He tactfully replied, "Same as you; working."

Her smile quirked and her eyes darted to the ground, "Something for you." She moved away from him and bent down to pick up a box, simutenously putting her notebook and marker behind her, in her bag he supposed.

Strange how he didn't notice that. He was excited. What did she have for him? More catfood? He was down to his last 2 cans and he hoped that she had brought more for him. "What is it?" he eagerly asked her. He felt almost embrassed that her gesture was once again overshadowed by the thought of catfood. Catfood was just an addiction to non-humans with the wet moist pieces and the tongue-curling saltiness.

She suddenly produced a large box from behind her and she held it up to his view for him to see, "A jacket."
What was between the 2 was a large flat box. It was white and there appeared to be some crinkling on the faces of it. She brought it against her chest and opened up the box, dropping the paper cover of it on the ground and the wind blowing away. He was about to say something about the trash, but decided it wasn't worth it. His eyes widened at the sight of contrasting red barricade by the sides of white paper. The jacket was a rich crimson and it looked remarkably new. He could almost smell the manufacture on it; so reminiscent of the time he worked in blasted factories, but so much cleaner. On the left of it was a very small logo of something called "The Lions". Strange, the name sounded familiar in the city, but he just couldn't place it. In the way that the jacket was folded, he could see the white fluffy fleece lining that went with the outer wind-proof material. He could just imagine how warm it would be in the nights. She bucked up the box so that one arm could hold it against her chest while her other hand pulled it out and help it up.
"You like it?" she asked him with hopefullness in her gaze.

He responded immediately, "It's.... wow."
He wasn't sure what to say. Most people -whether their intentions were good or bad- usually gave the non-humans cans of food and cat-food, rarely anything else. And to receive something that would last longer than a meal was something certainly special.

Suddenly, she huffed out and asked, "Don't want to give it.... through the gate. You think... I can go... into District 9?"

He was taken aback. Why would she be asking his permission whether or not she could enter District 9? It was basically a place that was free to the public, whether they dared to go into it. For humans, it was like suicide -a death wish. He encouraged her though, "They won't attack you as long as you're with someone here. But you must never come in here alone."

She nodded. "You'll be here.... there... waiting, right?"

"Of course, I will be." he promised.

She looked up and down -both ways of the street, "Walk with me?" She pointed to her right and he followed her as soon as she took her first step.

Walking next to her felt nice, albeit there was a barricade between them. She carried the jacket to her body as though it was something -someone- she wanted to embrace. The way that her arms crossed over it and bent at those alluring angles made him think that she must've been used to having a body close to her at all times. He wondered -if there was a man somewhere out there who was missing her body from his, her arms around his neck and her warm breath whispering silently in his ear, tickling.
For an average person, her steps were smaller than what he expected; he had to try to slow himself down before he walked too far from her.

Why did you suddenly come to see me after all this time?
Would your family scold you -worry about you- if they saw you now walking alongside a non-human?
How old are you?
What are your hopes and dreams?
Do you like the night?
Have you ever see the dawn and twilight of this city?
Aren't you scared of me?
Were you ever scared of me?
Why are you mute?
Your eyes are so different; has someone ever told you that it makes you look like a cat?
Were you ever thinking about me for the past month?
Did you have nightmares of me as your bogeyman instead of the one who saved you?
What is your name?

All those questions jumped and dived into the pool that was his subconscious. He wanted to ask every question he could think of, have her answer them so well that even after an hour, he would know her. He wanted to ask her for her name, but this came out of his mandibles in lieu of it, "Have you ever been in District 9 before?"
Stupid! He blew the first spark of his confidence on a stupid question like that! Of course, she had been in District 9 before, she came to bring him cat food. She must've thought by now that he never paid attention and he was as absentminded as the drones that made up more of the population of the non-humans.

He was about to tell her to forget about that question and fix up his mistake by asking her name then, but she interrupted him by her whistling response. "Honestly; never been in District 9 before. 'Cept the last time I brought cat-food. District 9's been this scary thing for me since ever."

"I bet that before you were born, the news was already spreading that non-humans destroyed everything that came into their paths."

"Actually, was about 3 when.... the... when you guys came. Can still remember everyone screaming." a worried look came over her face as she finished.

"You were 3... when we first came.... so by now that would make you-"
She interrupted him by a sharp whistle and holding up her arms -her elbows clenched to her body to keep the jacket from falling. Her hands were held out in a strange way; her palms faced him, on her right hand, she left down her 4th finger. The rest of the fingers on that hand stood so erectly but he could still see the taut skin stretching. For her left hand, she held out a rosy pink palm. With her tongue, she clicked against the roof of her mouth 18 times.
"You're 18 years old." he repeated out loud.

Now, that was one thing he knew about her.
All at once, he felt old; his 140 years compared to her young 18.
"So..." he hesitated in asking. Perhaps he should talk about something else before asking her another question. What if the time difference between each question was too short and it would be awkward to ask about her -almost interrogate her?

"So..." she echoed. He was still stuck in the calley of his thoughts; wondering whether or not he should talk or ask. She decided for him. She asked him something with that twisting tongue of hers and those unbalanced clicks.

He didn't catch it, "What?"

"Name. What do they call you?" she asked patiently.

"Oh. Name, my name! Johnson. MNU calls me Christopher Johnson." he informed her.
She pulled out her notebook and marker from behind her again and held it out to her. She faced him like she could've been the devil and he was about to sign away his soul to her. He looked at the clear slate of white paper that was already out for him and the black capless marker in her hand. "You want me to write my name out? You can't understand what is it I'm saying?"

She shamefully nodded her head and gestured the paper closer to him.

Feeling like he had no choice; he slowly took ahold of the marker and paper and carefully wrote his name. In camparison to the non-human alphabet, the human letters were so simplistic that it was confusing.
He drew a half circle first; then a seperate long stick with a small hill at the base of it; he did another seperate hill, but this hill stopped just half-way; a small little stick with a dot this time. He continued writing his name in English until finally he finished.
Before handing it over to her, he took a look at his hand-writing. It was scrawly and almsot resembled the printed letters seen on the little sheets of children's drawings that he saw in the garbage. He felt disgusted with his writing, but he knew it was the only thing that she would be able to understand.

"..Christopher Johnson..." she repeated almost breathlessly with her whistling so faint. Although, if there was a literal translation for her whistling and blows, his name would've sounded something like 'Creeeky Far Joes In'. Her tongue bounced against the roof of her mouth, producing that hollow sound.
"Something to do with Jesus?" she asked. Though it sounded more like she knew but only wanted to hear the answer from him.

"Yeah... how do you know?"

"Christopher. Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus was the Son of God. You knew that?"

"I did." he replied proudly. He told her that when he first arrived to Earth, he had read 2 books and one of them had been the Bible for Christians. She sounded impressed that he had been able to read the bible for she explained that she never got the will power to get past the first 5 pages.

But her surprise turned to curiosity, "What else besides the Bible?"

"The Princess and the Frog." he answered timidly.

"Good story." she commented. She sighed and whistled loud, looking at him so tiredly like she tried so hard not to laugh at him. "Now know who to pray for..... Christopher."

They passed the beam of a large metal sign; its message warning in English "Danger. You are about to enter restricted area. District 9 ahead."
He felt nerved that she would have to pass such a sign but luckily she didn't seem disturbed by the fact that she was about to enter into dangerous territory again.

"Are you religious?" he asked her. He was suddenly struck by the memory of his first doctor -Dr Chun-Fen- and he remembered how passionate she was about the feats of Jesus Christ. She was the one who had read the bible out loud to him after all when he was stuck in the hospital room. There were a few times when they would stay across from each other and she would twiddle with the carved wooden cross that hung around her neck on a rosary; she would mumble small words and when he asked what she was talking about, she would respond that she was praying.
"Would you pray for me?" he had asked her then. And she had replied that she wasn't sure if she could.
He remembered how hurt he felt when she told him that. But to hear that the woman at his side wanted to know his name so that she could pray for him was enough to disappait that unfond memory.

She laughed her mute laugh and said with pursed lips, "Never heard a prawn say that word. Never thought they knew it."

He wanted to teach her. He wanted to let her be well informed that it wasn't prawn; it was non-human. His hand clanked against the metal fence and she jumped startled at the sudden action. He hoped he didn't scare her too much.
Christopher amended to her, "Non-human."

She cocked her head and did a questioning little tweeet...

He explained to her, "Prawn... is a terrible term for us. It's better if we are segregated -divided- by the terms 'human' and 'non-human'."

She nodded and did a sorrowful wheee...

They started walking again and they could already see the opening gate doors that had yet to be closed and locked in times of curfew. He reassured her, "It's fine. That's just something you should know for next time."
They walked a little farther and they were just about a step away from seeing each other -unrestricted by fencing and metal and anything else; just standing face to face like they had long ago.

She reached out her thin fingers to the post standing straight at the doorway and swung in like she was dancing. Her mouth opened in giggles and for a few brief seconds, he swore he could've imagined the sweet sound of a girl's laugh like silver bells. She stopped right in front of him, his hands almost caging her for he was afraid that she would crash into his hard anthropod body. Yet he never touched her.

She clicked worrisome clicks, "Still scared..... Can we stay at the door?"

Christopher nodded immediately in response, though he slolwy just registered what she had asked. He thought she would think herself safe with him. But she was scared of going into District 9.. It wasn't exactly her fault; she had almost been attacked in broad daylight and he assumed the night was feeding her fear of the non-humans.
The native woman looked up demurely at him. she held the jacket up. He carefully slipped his fingers under the nylon-like material over her warm hands. Christopher felt her stiffen under his touch and he was nerved again by the fact that this woman -though brave for entering back into District 9 and interacting with him again- was still afraid of non-humans. She seemed oblivious to his thoughts and as soon as he held onto the jacket, she shot her hands back at her side. She whistled and motioned with her hands; palm up and rising in a pendulum motion towards him.

"You want me to try it right now?" he asked her, wanting to be sure that he did everything right and wouldn't offend her.

She nodded eagerly and gestured again. It was odd how the jacket appeared to be oversized for her when she clutched it to herself like a lover's form, but when he wore it, it ended right around his lower hands. Still, it was a good fit with the sleeves going at mid-arm. The fabric inside felt fluffy and soft, so nice and gentle, though it almost gave him an itching fit from wearing something like that compared to the usual starchy things he wore.
He touched the jacket, it really did feel so nice and the emotion that it envoked in him made him almost want to cry. His gaze from the shiny red went to the woman again; he was taken aback to see a scrunched up look on her expressive face. "What is it?" he clicked.

She whistled a long drawling whistle.

"What?" he repeated himself.

"Doesn't fit." she told him.

"It does. It fits very well." He pinched a small bit of the outer fabric with his long green fingers and tugged gently. "There's a lot of space in it."

"Too short." echoed the clicking of her tongue along with her palm towards him and her other hand on its side slicing across her palm. It resembled as a sort of 'time-out'. "Thought it would be perfect size for you when I bought."

There was another silence. It was mostly odd to speak with somebody who was mute and communicated with the weirdest sounds and a dirty old notebook. It was even odder to speak to someone that you had to stay away from. Now... he wanted to know her name. She knew his name, yet he didn't know hers. It wasn't fair. He considered just asking her for her name, but thought that suddenly asking would sound too random. He could try and trick her to reveal her name, though that would make him seem like a freak. Christopher thought it over and decided how to obtain her name and he wittily asked her, "I want to thank you, but I don't know your name."
Her eyes widened as though she had suddenly been pinched but then a relaxed look came over her. She pointed to herself and clicked something out with her tongue. He couldn't understand what she was saying.
"Sorry, can you say that again?" he asked her.
She furrowed her brows again and took a deep breath. Her mouth opened wide and long, but he still couldn't comprehend what it was she was trying to say. He cocked his head and was about to ask her to repeat it one last time when she suddenly held up one hand and picked up her notebook to write in it again. She stood closer to him -side by side- so that he could read as she was writing, in lieu of waiting for her to finish. With quick downward motions she wrote in a slanted font a strange word;

Abeni Marik

He didn't know what to say until re-reading over it again and again in his head. He finally understood. "Abeni.... Abeni... Abeni Marik! That's your name, right?"
She smiled a canine smile and nodded excitedly. On the same sheet, she wrote in little bubbly words where some of the spaces for the curved lines were blacked out and he had to go with his intuition to read it. It wasn't one of her best writing moments. His golden eyes scanned over the little space of spreading black words and he asked her, "But you don't want me to call you that? Is that right? You don't want me to call you that?"
She shook her head and wrote another word for him. her wrist moved in fluent circles; her fingers bending like they were dancing and her skin folded at all the right creases and joints. This time, the word was more curvy in a flowery sort of text. The black lines grew full at curves and then thin at straight lines. There seemed to be a sort of glow on the paper around the second single word.

Fumnanya

"Fumnanya?" he asked. She nodded again, tapping on the new word. "It's a name, right?"

She nodded, clicking out a simple word, "Yes."

"You want me to call you this?"

"Yes." she repeated with clicking noises.

"It's a very nice name." he complimented.

They stood there at the gates like strangers; twiddling with their fingertips and looking all around except each other. He wondered why it was so hard to try and talk to her. Every question could be taken wrongly while some questinos could be too deep for small talk or just a conversation piece. She suddenly looked up to the sky and said, "Late."

He asked her what she meant by that. The glazed look over her eyes and the dull expression that was on her heart-shaped face scared him; perhaps she saw someone sighting the both of them together.

"Late for work." she told him. She kept looking over her shoulder and he imagined in his proud ego that perhaps she didn't want to leave him but had no choice. She would rather stay with him than go.

The look on her face seemed like she was in a sort of turmoil. She turned away from him, her back to him, and the pattern of the back pack almost making fun of him in an insane way. She was writing something apparently. He saw the way the fabric of the hoodie twisted to almost resemble the lines of a turned twisting head and he heard the scritch-scratching of the felt marker tip over the old paper. Abeni... Fumnanya.... looked very secretive about what she was writing, he wondered what could it be exactly. Her elbows jutted out at strange angles and her wild hair that could not have been tamed by the hoodie looked be to getting bigger and bigger. How she fidgeted and how her torso would stretch over a side as her elbow came up in a sweeping motion made him feel nervous and almost lascivious for watching her write. It seemed like something that was private and not fit to be seen by a man's eyes. He remembered watching her write on tin with all those exagerated movements where her hand looked much farther than where the letters started and ended.
In her dance of literature and writing, her hoodie suddenly flipped back and the mop-top of hair sprung up.

He flinched at the sight of all that springy hair on her head. He pondered if she ever combed that hair or perhaps broke a few brushes trying to get the bristles through those thick locks. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to really touch it. He wanted to run his long plated fingers through that hair and confirm whether or not his fingers would be trapped in it like a bug on a spider's translucent web. It was so weird to see that sort of hair on a human's head.

He stepped closer to her and asked, "What are you writing there?"

She turned around and the gleam from her brown eyes and the shine of the emerald colouring from that dark ashy skin suddenly made her loook almost savage instead of etheral as he would've recalled. She quickly raightened her posture and tore out what she was writing with a long scratchy rriiipp.
She handed it to him; her small ashy human hand almost being swallowed up by his 3 alien fingers. She laughed silently and went away. She waved to him and he couldn't help but wave back. She ran away quick like a jackrabbit who had narrowly just escaped and vowed never to be caught there again.

The skies were already darker than before and her dark form disappeared all too quickly behind a corner away from District 9. He wished her safety in getting to where she had to be. He looked down at the note and read it with utmost care. Re-reading each line and burning it into his brain to remember. He felt his stomach drop to his knees and his hearts jumping all around his chest cavity;

Christopher Johnson,
I really like you as a friend and I hope you think of me as a friend too. I'm so glad to have met you. I hope that the next time I come, we will have more time to talk and learn more about each other. I'll come by whenever I can to say hi.
If you're still cold from the jacket the next time I see you, I'll bring you a scarf after.

love, Fumnanya

He scrunched the note in his 3 fingered hand and touched the jacket that was certainly going to keep him warm. He was suddenly feeling hungry and he felt that it would only be satified by crunchy cow bones and a nice can of catfood.

"Fumnanya -she called herself Fumnanya. In the tongue on Earth, 'Abeni' means 'You asked for her, and behold, you got her.' so you can see why she didn't want me to call her that." he tells with some sort of humour on his voice.

A few chuckles scatter around from the crowd. He laughs as he recalls her shy expression not too long after that meeting when he slipped up and called her 'Abeni' instead of 'Fumnanya'. She had laughed and scolded at him to never call her that. So curious as to why such a perfectly suitable name wouldn't be cherished by her, he nagged her to tell him what was so awful about the name. She told him it was the meaning it presented. He persisted in asking her what could it possibly mean that was so horrid. Fumnanya finally confided in him that her name meant 'You asked for her, and behold, you got her'. He had laughed at the irony of the name; when he had been waiting for her and wishing, he finally got her.

A young poleepkwa asks hesitantly, almost nervous if asking it would be too stupid, while raising his dark yellow arm, "And what did Foomnannie mean in Earthen language?"

"Her name was Fumnanya." he corrects. "In the Earthen language, it means..."
He again recalls another memory of the human woman. After she had told him her most embarrassing secret, she told him the meaning of her second name. With wide eyes that were mesmerizing and a smile that begged to be traced by an artist's fingertips or better yet, lips, she uttered, "Love me." His green face turns red as he remembers that he had mistaken the meaning for her name as her telling him to love her.
".. it means 'Love Me.'"

A light romantic sigh passes from a few in the crowd. One asks with ardency in the voice, though like an unsure suiter, "And... did you love her?"

Before he can respond to the question, his son stumbles over to him and sighs with his baby blue eyes shining brightly from the light of the 3 moons, "Father, I'm so tired. Can we go to sleep now?"

He is slightly embarrassed that his son would walk over to him and say out loud that he wanted to go to sleep. But he finds it endearing to see his child look so innocent and simple, although his child could already assemble a small ship if he wanted to and knew all about the truths of wrath and revenge. He picks up his son's little form and tells all, "My young one is tired. I think it's best if we call it a night and continue this another time."
He rubs his son's bare back and walks off.

Asaedayu rises, "Here, let me show you both to your rooms!"

That was chapter 4. I hope you enjoyed reading. I hope I have stayed true to their characters. Please review and tell what you did like and what you didn't like about the chapter so far. Thank you for waiting so patiently. I also did a bit of research and found out that there's a rugby team in Johannesburg called The Lions -though it was originally called The Cats- and the team colours are red and white. Looking at pictures of Christopher of deviantart and google, I noticed that the yellow wasn't part of his vest, but it was yellow duct tape. So... there's a little bit of a back story where his red vest came from and how it started. Neat, huh. So his red jacket was originally a gift from Fumnanya.

I'm sort of at a blank for what Christopher and Fumnanya could do whenever they meet, so if you have any preference as to what you want to see/read in the next chap, please tell me in your review.

I'm taking oneshot requests.... if you know what that means. wink, wink, nudge, nudge