Category: fiction

Wednesday’s Bumper Sticker

I’m curious about the genesis of this one. Makes you speculate, though….

 

Having secured the windows, and alone in his house, he opened the secret compartment that held his coffee stash. Breathing deeply of the smell released, he gasped with delight. It’d been two days, and he needed a cuppa.

Pounding on the door kicked his heartbeat into a gallop. Closing the compartment, he waved away the smell. Thinking more clearly, he turned on the exhaust fan.

They pounded again. As he said, “Coming, just a minute,” a woman on the other said side,  “Caffeine police. Open the door, or we’re kicking it in.”

The day he’d feared had arrived.

1

Prove It

The first thing he thought of, after recognizing where he was, and what he was doing, was the Rolling Stones song, “Get Off of My Cloud.” Not really correct. Does correctness have degrees? Sure, they give partial credit to partially correct answers. Yes, but not in this situation. So, he corrected, not correct. He wasn’t on a cloud. He was on a contrail, as he’d learned they were called, a chemtrail, as others called them in the second half of his life.

Poisonous air vapors, they were. Surrounded by blue sky, he was walking on them. As he didn’t know how he’d reached them (nor how he could be walking on them), he believed he was dreaming. How high was he? Well, very high. He’d read that commercial aircraft generally fly over thirty thousand feet in the U.S. He assumed he was in U.S. air space, although nothing supported that assumption.

Physically, then, he wasn’t doing this, couldn’t be doing this, unless it was a dream or virtual reality. There was no way he could otherwise be surviving so comfortably at such an altitude. At this altitude, if it’s over thirty thousand feet, he was higher than Mount Everest. The air would be too thin for normal breathing, he was breathing normally, he ascertained with tests. At that altitude, the temperature would be forty-nine degrees below zero, or worse. He wasn’t dressed for that kind of cold.

But here he was, in his Lee jeans, knit shirt, Nikes, and Columbia Wear fleece, striding along without issue. Which presented the idea that maybe these contrails were far lower than they should be. That was absurd, of course; that’s not how they worked. Nevertheless, he stopped walking, turned, and looked over the side.

Big, big mistake.

He’d been able to see mountain tops and distant horizons of clustered buildings and farmland when walking along. But now, looking down, he found a true sense of his altitude, and it freaked him out. He was so freaked out, he should awaken at any moment now.

He waited.

Nothing changed. He looked back and forth along his contrail. It stretched on for a long distance. He could do three things now. One, step off the contrail and see what happens. Two, follow the contrail and see if it led anywhere. Three, he could stand there and do nothing until the contrail faded away.

0

Rapport

The dark-haired feral girl’s name was Courtney, a tidbit discovered via computers when she stormed into his office.

“I should have a computer, too,” she said. An edge of angry tears quivered in her tone. “I have friends. I miss people. That’s not just your computer. It belongs to both of us.” She smirked. A tear rolled down her face. She wiped it off. “We’re both pets.”

This was a change. He’d seen her three times since her arrival. Once when he was eating, she stamped in and started going through the cupboards and refrigerator. The second time, he saw her prowling the cage’s perimeter. Guessing she was looking for a way out, he watched her a bit. When boredom crept in, he drifted away.

The third sighting was a little later. Cleaning in the kitchen, he looked out and saw her trying to shimmy up a cage bar. Idiot, he thought.

“Of course, you’re right,” he said, standing, trying to be reasonable, friendly, and diplomatic. “My name is Thomas, by the way.” He put out his hand.

She pushed past him to the laptop – his laptop. “Whatever,” she said.

Je-sus. “Do you need help with anything?”

Stopping everything, she said, “It’s a computer,” as if that answered and explained everything.

She typed in her name. Courtney. 

“Your name is Courtney?” he said.

“No, that’s my alias,” she said. Swinging around, she said, “Do you mind? Can I have some privacy?”

“Yes. Of course.”

This set up the constant battle. She was always on the computer, getting on the computer, or asking him to get on the computer. He liked his computer time . Now he had to share it with her. Courtney.

He knew he was being irrational and selfish. Didn’t matter. He used the network for porn, games, and searching for news. His friends weren’t on Facebook. All those accounts for the relationships built through the years were listed as inactive. Many emails bounced back. None of his friends tweeted back to him.

Must be something the aliens are doing, he figured. The aliens were damn cunning.

Like the language thing. He was pleased his owner (God, he hated to think of that) had learned his name was Thomas. He remembered, though, the aliens were using a device to speak the languages of Earth when they arrived. That included English. Where were those devices now? Apparently people authorized to have human pets were not allowed to openly communicate with them. Bet it’s worries over the Stockholm Syndrome, he figured.

They didn’t want the masters and their pets to develop a rapport.

****

Previous Pet stories

Pet

His House

His Name

Her

0

Her

Noises awoke Thomas.

He was a little embarrassed by that. He’d been pleased to find “Unforgiven” on the streaming offerings. This dovetailed with his recent thinking that being an alien’s pet wasn’t that much different from being retired. There were some restrictions, like he wasn’t allowed to travel, and he missed his coffee shop and going to the movies and concerts, but on the other hand, he had no money worries, and his health seemed better than it had in years.

Yes, there were no people around, but he’d never been a people person, as the phrase had been popularized. People seemed like energy vampires, draining him of some essential, personal essence. The trend had grown worse as he’d aged. They seemed so shrill, and had such flawed thinking and expressed it poorly. That trend developed a new practice for him of avoiding people. So the lack of people now was…not…bad.

Bottom line, this life wasn’t that bad. He’d decided to enjoy it.

So he’d broken open a bottle of California red wine, found some Colby cheese and crackers from the supplies they’d given him, and watched “Unforgiven,” in the middle of the day. And he’d fallen asleep, right when William Munny was coming into town after Little Bill because Little Bill had killed Ned Logan. In other words, close to the end.

The movie was over. Now, there was this. Noises.

The noises were coming from above. Disconcerting. He’d never heard anything like them. He went out into his yard to investigate.

What he saw was two of the grey-green aliens with yellow eyes. His master — or mistress, if the alien was female — or should he bother with such sexist distinctions? — was standing to one side. “Thomas,” she said.

Thomas nodded, and waved. “Hello.”

She and the others made the noises that Thomas had indexed as laughing.

She held up her hand. In it was a female.

A young one, by appearances. Perhaps a teenager. He wasn’t competent when guessing others’ ages.

“Oh, no,” Thomas said. Understanding was rising. They were removing the top to deliver a new person to his set. The new person was a female.

Yes, on the cusps of that understanding, the top was raised, and a small, white girl was hand-delivered to the yard not far from him.

“No,” Thomas said. “No. I’m gay.”

Laughing and talking, the aliens returned the top to the cage. Fucking alien morons. 

Thomas looked at the newcomer. She looked as angry as a feral cat.

This was going to be fun.

1

His Name

His grey-green master came to see him in the morning.

The sun was up, and it was eight thirty by his clocks, which seemed accurate. He’d just completed showering, shaving, and his other personal matters when he turned and saw her. His house was at a level where she could comfortably look in on him without bending much.

The intrusion infuriated him. Shouting profanities at her tempted his tongue, but he held back, instead smiling at her. Still smiling, he gave a mock smile and bowed. He wondered how she would take that, and then turned his back on her to go down and make breakfast.

“Tolleaf,” she said.

She’d said that before, he remembered. Stopping, he turned and looked up at her.

“Tolleaf,” she said.

This is probably his name, he realized. What she’d decided to call him. He shook his head. “No. No.” Pointing at himself, he said, “Thomas.”

“Tolleaf,” she said.

“Thomas,” he said. He hit his chest with his fist. “Thomas. Thomas.” He hit his chest again. “Thomas.”

Bending closer to his house, she opened her yellow eyes wide. He watched her irises and pupils change. The capillaries and arteries in her eyes looked like a garden hose.

“Thomas?” she said.

Thomas nodded. “Yes.” He nodded again and pointed at himself. “Thomas.”

“Thomas,” she said.

He felt sick that this made him feel happy.

1

His House

Comfortably furnished, he was starting to like his house.

He was less certain that he liked his host. (Hostess?) He didn’t know her and little understood her, or even if it was a female, or if they had sexes. In his words, she was grey-green with yellow eyes. Unlike the invasion’s early day descriptions, though, he saw that they weren’t all the same color. One of his host’s frequent visitors was very light grey while another was forest green. Grey, green, and in between, that’s what they seemed to be. They all had yellow, parietal eyes, and were hairless, of the parts of them he saw. They liked watching him. In the early days, he’d sat motionless, glaring back at them. Once in a while, he shouted at them. He quit shouting at them because he thought they enjoyed that. Now he treated them with indifference and went about his day as if his captors weren’t present.

His house had running water and electricity. Located in a cage that presented him with a large yard all around it, his house was built for a family of five. About twenty-one hundred square feet, the split level featured three bedrooms and two and a half baths, along with a two car garage. There wasn’t a car. A full complement of appliances, dishes, and cookery was made available to him. They liked it when he cooked and ate.

The house’s front had been removed and replaced by a fine screen. He guessed that was so they could see in and watch him all of the time. Food was delivered in a shopping cart once a week. It was funny to see these creatures, twenty times larger than him, push a shopping cart his size into the little secure delivery area. They only opened the outer door on it when the inner door to his area was closed. It was a prison.

Besides frozen pizzas and dry cereals, they gave him cartons of milk and juice, bottles of wine and cases of beer, and fresh meats, snack foods, and produce. He didn’t know where these goods came from.

He didn’t have a phone, but he had two televisions, and a laptop, and he was connected to an Internet. Streaming shows were available, but nothing new. At times, ruminating about his existence, he mourned that he would never know how “Game of Thrones” ended. He posted on a blog every day, and others commented, and he shared emails. None of that helped them understand. All were in cages like him.

From the scenes and events described by others, he was beginning to picture entire human cities in cages.

 

1

Pet

She’d never had one before, but she thought it was time. Everyone else had one. That made it time. Otherwise, she was not part of the norm. She liked being part of the norm.

They were so tiny, they amazed her. She walked past their cages, looking down and studying the inhabitants. A few made noises at her, but most stayed back, wary and watchful. It was one of the latter that attracted her.

Stopping before his cage, she knew he was the one. White, with brown hair and a beard, he looked older than most. Older ones were rarely adopted. His clothes smelled; she would need to buy him new clothes. They took care of themselves, but often needed supplies. Besides food, he would need grooming materials and clothes. The Center sold it all, goods the Forces had captured and brought back with them for the pets.

“Open the cage,” she said. “I want to see this one.”

He seemed to realize something was going on because he stood and stepped forward. His tiny hands were balled into fists. The inhabitants of the other cages began making noise as his cage opened. He stared up at her as she leaned in and picked him up.

“Careful,” the slave said.

“I am,” she said, resentful of the other’s tone and words. “I know what I’m doing.”

The slave scuttered back.

The human fit in her hand. He was so small, delicate, and light. “He has blue eyes,” she said.

“Yes,” the slave said.

She liked his blue eyes. “How old is he?”

“He’s fifty, in human years.”

“How long will he live?”

“He’s been treated. I’ll probably live another hundred human years with proper care, which is about twenty-five of our years.”

“I know. Do you have clothes for him?”

“Yes, I think so. He’s average. I’m sure we can find something to fit him.”

“Then I’ll take him.” She held the human up so he was level with eyes. “I will call you Riajin,” she said.

He squeaked back.

He was so cute.

 

1

Portents

He couldn’t quantify how long it took — minutes, certainly, but how many? — but it required some time before he could gather enough information and thinking to perceive, something was wrong, and then to specify what it was. That, he told himself, was because it was morning, he’d not had his coffee, he was hungover, and this was weird. Then his thoughts were, I must be wrong. He sought to understand what was going on by learning how he was wrong.

The thing first noticed was that the sun was coming in the wrong windows. For that to be happening, it had to be past noon. This time of year, the sun didn’t move to the front windows until the mid-afternoon. He’d just arisen, so he must have slept in past noon. That made sense. The clocks said seven oh three, but they must be wrong.

Armed with a cup of coffee, he went outside to vet further observations. Nothing was really there. It seemed like morning, with the most obvious clues being that his neighbors’ cars were parked as though they had not left for work yet. Unless…was it a holiday?

His Fitbit said it was November fourteenth. He pondered whether he could accept that its calendar was accurate while its time was wrong. Either way, November fourteenth wasn’t a holiday, was it? None that he could recall.

To the computer! It would explain it all. He couldn’t really think what it was going to explain. From his simple observations, the sun was rising in the west.

That didn’t portend anything good for the remains of the day.

0

Decided

Anger and anxiety paraded through him. He’d heard a noise. The noise caused him to think, the fucking raccoons are back. But the sound seemed to come from the front coat closet, which harpooned that raccoon idea and punted him back to, now what the fuck? He didn’t need any more shit in his life.

With that coursing through mind and simmering in blood, he marched to the closet and yanked open the door. It wasn’t a large space. The coats and shoes crowded it. But it was an irregular shape, so he dropped down on his hands and knees to explore the left back corner.

One, it was darker than he’d expected.

Two, it was warmer.

Three, the closet was larger that he’d thought.

The door behind him closed.

“Hey,” he said. Fury amped his motion. Someone was fucking with him. He’d kick their fucking ass. Rising into a tangle of coats, he shoved them aside and grabbed the closet handle.

The door pulled him forward. 

“You son of a…,” he said, not knowing who he addressed. Ready to see some idiot friend on the other side, he wasn’t prepared for what he found.

“Where the fuck is my house?” he said. Where it was supposed to be, he saw a gray shaft and wooden ladder.

He looked up the shaft. Probably a hundred feet above, he could see a faint white patch. So what the fuck was that? What, was he supposed to climb out of here? No fucking way. Screw that noise.

Firmly decided, he stepped back in and closed the closet door. It’d changed once; it would again.

That’s where one of his idiot friends found his desiccated body days later.

It looked like he’d been there for years.

0

What Else?

He was surprised. She had never spoken of her ex in kind terms. “Why?” he said.

She considered her words. “What else could I do? He was dying. He’d had cancer. I loved him once. We had two children together.”

It had been the third marriage for both, he knew. Each had children from a previous marriage. Lasting ten years, personal sturm and drang struck every day.

Her tired face softened. “He’d asked his children for help. They turned him down. He came to me. He said, “I don’t want to die in a little room alone.” So I took him in, put a bed in the living room, and cared for him until he died.

“What else could I do?”

0

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