Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Then, a chair scraps behind me and I remember I am not in a room full of books but being contained in a room of uncertainties. Well then, let what we are truly here for begin.
*
A throat clears as a door clicks shut, and General Lockett takes his eyes away from me for a moment. Long enough to scowl at the young male who returned from a utility room stacked so full of boxes he struggled to get the door open.
I couldn’t help but watch the struggle. These males aren’t exactly providing me with a lot of entertainment.
“I could only find this,” the younger male says, holding a white garment that flaps uselessly above the table.
I can’t stop the curious arch of my own eyebrow at the confusing item. Similar to an overcoat or fancy shawl my kind might use for a special event, the plain white, coarse looking fabric is not at all appealing. Especially when the general takes the item from the male and shoves it in my direction.
The curious lift of my brow deepens into a knot as I stare at the item.
“Take the coat, see if you can put it on—or cover something up,” the general explains, his gaze avoiding the androgenous zones of my lower body that have clearly made some in the bunker uncomfortable. How would they react to the entire lack of modesty beneath my security suit?
The thought almost makes me chuckle.
Still trying to be careful about letting the male in on just how much I understand him, I don’t immediately take what he calls the coat. He waves at his own clothing, and even pulls on the metal buttons of his coat, but his stare doesn’t wander below my middle, and that alone explains a lot.
Unceremoniously, and without any warning, I snatch the coat from General Lockett’s grasp and before he realizes the transaction, I tear the fabric straight down the back of the middle seam. Memories of my grandmother explaining how to tear strips of fabric to fasten for ropes or to braid and turn into bracelets scuttle through the back of mind as I make quick work of turning the item of clothing into something useable for myself. Not that the scratchy fabric is anything I would have chosen to tie around my hips or let cover my intimate areas.
My new loincloth does, on the other hand, help with a few of the avoiding stares in the room. Not that I want them turning on me.
“The moon,” General Lockett says as he goes back to our previous business, and flips over another card from the pile of pictures meant to represent, in my opinion, basic things.
I caught onto the intent easily enough. Mostly because those back home with a fancy for drawing things were known to make similar games meant to teach our children, as few as they are now, how to speak our language. Except I am no child, and even if I had interest in learning that which we call Kahada, they named the moon, I would not tell this human male as much.
“We’ve gone there, Alien,” he tells me, tapping his stubby index finger against the shiny paper. Proud as can be. It almost makes me laugh. Or scoff. “Back in …”
I choose to tune him out, then.
Why I’d care to hear about his moon landing is beyond me. I am the creature that just traveled through space to land here out of necessity, and he wants to educate me on the moon? A thing my planet has an entire ring of that new pilots learning to fly ships use as practice? Their moon, and sad excuse for space exploration, is not at all impressive.
If anything, it makes them weaker.
Nonetheless, the human drones on and the translator in my ear picks up every word. I might not care to listen, but the device takes in the language and my mind adds the pictures to new words, making certain things easier to decipher and understand. I’ll have a better grasp on his language than he will shortly, depending on how long the human wants to continue his name-the-picture game with the so-called alien.
Oh, yes.
He showed me a picture of one of those, too.
Their aliens look nothing like the ones I know.
“Surely you know this one,” the male says, drawing me back to the conversation even though I would really rather not. Scanning the underground bunker full of glass beakers and glossy, metal tables for an exit plan feels like the better thing to do at the moment. Except it didn’t take me very long to realize after we arrived beneath the male’s massive home that there weren’t any windows to find underground and even fewer doors that didn’t lead straight to cement walls.
He distracts me from working on my plan by holding up a black and white image of stick figures. I can tell just by the shape of the figures alone that one is intended to be a male, or man, and the other, a female, or woman. The way the figures in the image hold hands, like lovers might or those of close kin, takes my mind back to a planet where people who look and talk like me and share my blood, have no idea that I am staring this male in his face, wondering when he might get bored and try to kill me.