Disclaimer to any goldfish reading this: Any resemblance to real or other fictional goldfish is purely coincidental.
All intelligent beings of the universe are different. For example, my species are geniuses, and humans are dumb.
Somewhere in the wild New Mexican mountains, a lone hiker climbed a lesser-known trail in the bright cold morning. He leaned over a cliff's edge for a selfie. No way Brenda could ignore him now.
That is why they have yet to invent a manned spaceship that can make it past the moon, while my species has been to Heaven itself and back countless times. Spoiler: angels are not great at avoiding windshields.
The hiker took a step too far and slipped; screaming, he unfortunately made a downward trajectory right for Harry's missing ship engine piece; the Antigravity Pad.
But despite our vast differences, one truth connects all beings across the universe; life never goes as planned.
His fall stopped abruptly. He opened his eyes and found himself floating 20 feet above the ground, as though time stopped.
"H-huh?" He looked around. The wind blew gently through the trees, birds still chirped and fluttered about. It seemed he, the hiker, was the only one frozen in place. He tried to move out of this strange physics-defying bubble, but his body remained stubbornly stuck in mid-air.
He saw his phone a couple feet away, still recording him. This was his perfect chance. He started his ballet routine, for the first time unhindered by gravity. He was more elegant than a baby seahorse. Brenda would surely notice him now.
I had never planned to get lost on my way to Europa, or to crash on a planet full of stupid naked monkeys. One random lightning storm and my trajectory went way off course. That is why I lose sleep every morning. After searching half a dozen mountains in the span of four months, I had finally found one piece of my spaceship. That is all that matters. Well, that and faking it at work to get Asta off my ass.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH KILLER CLOWN-!"
"Hold still! I need to remove your eyeballs so you do not have to look upon my visage-"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"
Max Hawthorne made a mad dash to the other side of the room, prying a window open.
"I promise you will grow fresh ones!"
The patient proceeded to jump out a third story window. Harry stood there, trying to remember the calculative ratio between a human's weight and the planet's gravitational pull and whether or not that kid would survive when Asta walked into the room.
"What's going on? Why are you holding an ice cream scoop?"
"It is okay, it was sterilized inside the autoclave."
"Why was it in the autoclave?"
"There it is!" Ellen walked into the room. "Gimmie that. I have a raging hemorrhoid."
"What grade?" asked Harry.
"At least a VI."
"Holy shit."
"Yeah."
Mayor Ben basically dragged his son by the ear to his office. Where did Max get his sudden delusions about clown doctors? And why was he still in a patient gown, covered in twigs and dirt? Did the Mayor not have enough problems?
Apparently not. Max ran into Sheriff Mike's office before Ben could stop him.
"Sheriff! I know who killed Dr. Hodges-"
"Max, no-"
"What?"
"It was the new doctor! He's an evil clown!"
Sheriff Max glared at him. "Do you have an appointment with me, son?"
"So sorry," said Ben, trying to usher his son away. "He gets straight A's, you know." Ben vaguely wondered to himself if Max had inherited the habit of lying from him.
"What kind of movies you showing him?" asked Mike. "Is it that clown fish from Finding Nemo? Motherfucker's terrifying-"
"Sheriff!"
"I'm sorry, I meant 'motherducker.'"
"There weren't any ducks in that movie," said Deputy Liv, who was standing there the whole time but remained largely ignored. "Or mothers," she added.
"He has a fever," said Ben, dragging his son away. "He has nothing against clown fish, or Pixar ™."
He led Max to his office.
"Now, take a Children's Tylenol and lie down on the couch here until you stop hallucinating evil clowns." Ben paused, frowning. "It's really weird how that's the fifth time in my life I've said that sentence."
"I swear I'm not lying," pleaded Max.
"You stay right here and I'll get you some water."
Max sat playing with the zipper of his jacket, thoroughly annoyed. How could no one else see it?
"You know…" Liv ambled into Ben's office. "When I was little, I was scared of the doctor, too."
"I'm not scared of doctors! That new doctor is an evil clown, I swear it!"
Liv looked surprised in a gentle sort of way.
"You don't believe me."
Deputy Liv gave him a smile. "I had imaginary friends too when I was a kid. I once had a floating puppet following me around and telling me I would die in a house fire like he did, and then I would become like him…. Come to think of it," she stared off into the distance and her smile faded, "he was more of an imaginary enemy."
"He's NOT imaginary!" exclaimed Max. "He's real and he wants to kill me and harvest my eyeballs!"
"Now why would anyone want to kill you, Max?"
"I don't know! Maybe because I can see him and no one else can?"
Deputy Liv thought for a moment, then pulled out her sketchpad. "You know what? I bet we could fix that. Why don't you describe this clown to me, and I'll sketch him out?"
The rest of the day at the clinic did not go smoothly either. Harry looked out from between his office blinds into the full waiting room of patients.
Humans are so stupid they need years of training to become a doctor. My people learn anatomy and medicine before they even learn how to walk. Plus, I was a scientist on my planet. I specialized in mermaid anatomy, to help efficiently annihilate the mermaids on Europa. Doctoring should be easy for me. Let us hope that the rest of these patients do not have coulrophobia.
"Room 2," Asta handed him a file. "Judy Cooper, here for a pelvic exam. I would double glove if I were you."
Harry entered the room and pulled aside the curtain to see a patient prepped in lithotomy position.
"Hi doc, how are you?" asked Judy.
"How am I what?" Harry sat down on the rolling stool and went through her medical file.
"When was your last period?"
"At the end of this sentence." Judy gave a snort-laugh.
"I mean, when did you last menstruate?"
"That's a big word. I don't like that."
Harry skipped the question.
"Have you ever given birth?"
"Yes, to my cat."
"Any concerning discharge?"
"I found a penny in there, couple times."
"Any unusual odors?"
"Is a popcorn smell unusual?"
"How many sexual partners have you had?"
"I'm not good at math."
"Male or female or both?"
"I'm not good at math."
"Any history of STDs?"
"I'm not good at math."
Harry made a note in her file, snapped it shut, and tossed it in the trash.
"Why don't we go straight to the exam, then?" Harry rolled the chair towards her. "Now, have you been polishing your scales regularly?"
"Every day."
"That is too often, patient. They will lose their protective lipid coating."
Wanting to get this over with, Harry dove right in.
Poor, deformed girl… No teeth, no tentacles, no pincers, no vestigial eyes, not a single penis down there… and her blowhole appears to have been transposed here from the top of her head. It does not even respond nor spray biological toxins when I whisper greetings to it.
"Well, doc? How does it look?"
Harry pulled away and stood up.
"I am prescribing you antidepressants."
"Room 3, patient here for some breast lumps."
Harry again pulled back the curtain.
"I am the doctor. Why don't you tell me about these breast lumps?"
The middle-aged woman looked nervous.
"Well, I was taking a shower, and that's when I felt them. I'm really nervous. It runs in my family, I try to be on top of my mammograms and everything."
"I understand why you would be concerned. It is very good of you to keep on top of your health. There is no shame in seeing the doctor for anything that worries you. Now, please allow me to examine you."
The patient disrobed. Harry yelped.
"Those are two massive tumors! Why did you not come in sooner?!"
Asta cleared her throat.
"Those are her breasts, Doctor."
"Oh."
Harry handed the patient a loose pizza slice from his white coat pocket.
"Room 5, scheduled pediatric vaccinations."
Harry felt a bit of trepidation since this would be his second time ever encountering a human offspring. He hoped that it would not demand him to breastfeed it or something.
He walked in and introduced himself to the little girl's parents, glancing at her vitals in her chart.
"It appears that your daughter's height and weight are on a normal projection when compared nationally to her peers of the same age and gender. I am sorry that she is so average. You must be quite disappointed that she is not a behemoth."
The parents stared, then looked at each other.
"That's… good?"
"If you say so."
He went ahead and started the standard wellness check questions while examining the girl, looking inside her ears and mouth.
"Any recent fevers, diarrhea, fin rot, or other illnesses?"
"Uh, no."
"Any recent behavioral changes, including but not limited to acting out, poor focus, crying spells, lack of energy, swimming upside down, or screeching at the other moons?"
"No."
"That is good. Did your child have a normal hatching?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I mean, an uncomplicated birth?"
"Yes, she was born at 36 and a half weeks."
"How many of her siblings did she eat?"
"What?"
"Both in-utero and after birth."
"I, um… she doesn't have any siblings."
"I'll put down in-utero, unknown number. And how old was she when she shed her dorsal fin?"
"Look, could we, er, just get the shots?"
"I don't want any shots!" shouted the little girl stubbornly, tearing the paper on the exam table.
Harry looked at her. "Shall I describe to you what polio and tetanus do to the human body?"
The girl left crying in hysterics, vaccinated and given a pizza slice as well.
"Room 6, deep cut on forearm."
"Fantastic. I will finally have an opportunity to practice my French knot stitch."
"Um, I'm not sure about that, Harry."
"Well I could do a feather stitch if they prefer, but it is not as impressive."
"Seems like a waste of sutures."
"You are using sutures now to tie up your hair. I can see it."
"Ellen swallowed all my hair ties."
"That could explain her hemorrhoids."
"If you tell her to stop eating them, she'll throw a fit."
"She is not my patient. I do not care."
The next 15 patients of the day each presented with identical complaints; "Foreign body in rectum."
"What is going on with these people? Did they all come from the same party or something?"
Asta shrugged. "It's a common problem here, people get bored."
"Did Ellen finish running the plungers through the autoclave?"
"Ew, what?"
After work, Asta decided to treat Harry at her father's restaurant. Dan greeted them at the entrance of Joe's Diner.
"Hi Dad, this is Harry. He's the new doctor at Sam's old clinic."
Dan, holding a stack of pancakes in one hand and a dreamcatcher in the other, gave one look at him and walked away.
"I think he likes me," said Harry.
Asta gave him an apologetic look and went to follow her father into the kitchen.
"Dad, what the heck? You know it's hard for me to make friends."
"There's something wrong with that guy. Don't you sense it?"
"What are you talking about? Is this because you don't like doctors?"
Indeed, Dan held a prejudice ever since he went to Dr. Hodges for a simple blood test and left the clinic with the lab results showing he was 4% white.
"It's not that, Asta."
"It's because he's beautiful, like the dappled orange sunlight over a deer's fur, isn't it?"
"No! I have a sixth sense about these things. When I looked at him I got the same feeling as the trembling of the earth before an avalanche, or the vanishing sea before a tsunami. Or the rumble before diarrhea."
"Oh, dad."
Near the entrance, Harry sniffed a French fry. His species did not have a nose nor olfactory nerves like humans did and therefore lacked the sense of smell. He had found out the hard way the first time he experienced a bowel movement in his new body- he had thought he was going completely insane at the time. But the French fry smelled good in a way he did not really understand.
That man knows something is off. I wonder what it is he can sense in me. Maybe my prehensile reproductive organ? It is quite large. I am not just saying that.
He bit the French fry, but hastily spat it out in his hand. The texture was weird and he did not like it. He gently placed the remnants of the defiled fry upon the plate he stole it from, receiving silent looks of horror from the restaurant patrons who had ordered said plate.
Outside the diner, something caught his eye. He darted outside to confirm what he was seeing; hundreds of posters stuck to poles, walls, windows, benches, trash cans, and stray cats.
He tore one off; this must have been that kid's vision of him. Bulbous, bumpy red nose, blood-leaking eyes as black as death, disheveled bright red hair, mouth unnaturally wide with jagged teeth, and sexy blue eyeshadow, the skilled depiction printed above child's handwriting; Have you seen this clown? Call Max Hawthorne…
That little shit muffin. He is trying to expose me!
Stupid, repugnant human offspring.
Harry entered his home, slammed the door, and threw his jacket into the oven.
How dare he make those posters and hang them up for all of Uranus to see!
He half-contemplated packing his spaceship parts and leaving.
Where was all this effort when we were helping humans build pyramids, or rig elections, or hunt down the deadly, deadly dodo birds?
They told horror stories of the dodo bird to the children of Harry's planet.
I cannot leave, I am too close to finding my device and I am NOT turning into someone else. It took me weeks to figure out how to get this body to work.
He thought back to the most difficult first few weeks in his new body. The very first thing to alarm him was his heartbeat; he feared that the human was infected with some parasite trying to burst out of his chest wall. Then he remembered that parasites are delicious.
Do not even get him started on breathing. Breathe too little? He would pass out. Breathe too much? He would pass out.
His new center of balance was completely off from his true body, so he spent a good amount of the first few days just sliding and wiggling around. It took an embarrassingly long time to learn that humans do not crawl on all fours either. He had bruised his knees quite a bit.
And when he figured out running (which was pretty neat – his species could swim fast in water and walk on land, but they could not run) he ran straight into the wall; this thing did not come with brakes.
His species also did not have any bones (their bodies were held together by a combination of blood expansion, atmospheric pressure, emotional support, and star dust) and were used to fitting through any hole the size of a urethra. He nearly died getting half his foot stuck in the sink drain. He found himself disgusted by all his joints and boney areas, feeling like rocks and sticks inside this foreign body. They were weird and gross. How did humans access their own brains for extraction of information with that disgusting skull in the way? Certainly not through the nostrils, he had come to discover. But there was some nasty stuff in there, too.
His species attained water balance by releasing steam or absorbing vapor through their pores. So the first time he urinated, he thought it was human blood and, panicking, tried to stop it with some paper towels and throw pillows. He had thought that worked until it happened again, and then he laid himself down on the carpet, peeing and crying that he was dying alone on this planet.
Through watching TV, Harry had also learned that humans relied heavily on facial expressions on top of speech, so he practiced extensively in the mirror. But he could not quite get the handle of that skill. He laid on the carpet again, crying that he was ugly.
Figuring out nutrition was an entirely different beast. He consumed many organic materials throughout the domicile before he deduced that the fridge was the food storage compartment; He chewed on wood, he licked the leather furniture, he drank shampoo, he swallowed a dead roach… He ate some pills he found in the bathroom before he knew that was how humans made medicine. He threw up, passed out, became aroused, cried again, doubled his heart rate, damaged his liver, and lowered his cholesterol. All at the same time. Speaking of bathrooms, he had thought the toilet was a water fountain. How else was he supposed to just know that one?
When he finally got to the fridge, he ate raw frozen meat. Relief washed over him. He had staved of starvation for now, although he ate it along with the plastic and foam packaging. Again, it was not something that could have been immediately obvious to anyone.
After he finally handled human kinetics and its ins and outs, he deduced from the magazines and photos laying around that humans covered themselves in colorful textiles for some reason. It sort of made sense, he had been feeling a bit chilly. He nearly strangled himself trying to put a curtain on.
Last to develop were his fine motor skills; this was where learning embroidery had come in.
That was it, he was going to have to kill that human child.
Author's Note: I had way too much fun describing Harry discovering the human body. Like, imagine going from a squid to a primate. Poor Harry. Can you tell I'm in the medical field? Heheh.