Abducted!

I wrote this for a friend who needed a concept for an animated short.
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Well, it’s Saturday night, I’m home alone because I am that lame. It’s me, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia and a godawful horror movie about giant bugs invading some small midwest town on Syfy. After reaching the ridiculous climax of the movie I looked at the clock and discovered it was 2:30 in the AM. I decided I might as well go to bed, I had nothing keeping me awake besides boredom. I threw my Ben and Jerry’s in my freezer and stumbled to my sad little bedroom. Looking back, I wonder if a social life would have kept me out of this mess; probably not.

 

Wandering around my tiny bedroom I flicked on my laptop, clicked on iTunes and turned on my sleep mix, turned off my light and climbed into my lumpy old bed and within an hour or so I was fast asleep. So, according to the timeline I just set I was asleep by 3:30AM, give or take a few minutes, somewhere between then and sunrise I was taken from my apartment and woke up on a spaceship.

 

Allow me to describe my typical morning routine: my alarm goes off at 8:00AM, I ignore it for approximately 30 minutes. At 8:30AM (or so) I stumble out of bed like a zombie out of a bad B-movie. Somehow I find my way to my kitchen, grab my coffee from the cabinet and make a fresh pot. While my lifeblood is brewing I take a shower, throw my hair into a messy pony tail, get dressed and pack up my laptop and school things. As soon as it is finished brewing I find the biggest coffee mug I have and fill it up, after a few sips I am alive enough to face the day. This is my morning routine, I don’t function if I can’t complete this routine. Now let me describe what happened when I woke up on that spaceship.

 

I woke up without realizing anything was off, I laid in what I I thought was my bed, though even in my sleep-clouded mind I realized it was much more comfortable than my lumpy old mattress. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and as the static faded from my mind and the blurriness cleared from my eyes I realized I couldn’t hear the music I turned on the night before. I’d gone to sleep listening to the glorious tones of Adele, but on this morning there was no glorious music to be heard. I became as suspicious as my decaffeinated brain would allow.

 

Climbing out of the bed my feet did not touch the worn, ratty carpet they were used to, instead they stepped down onto something cold and hard. Now, as I previously explained I don’t do much thinking without coffee, so it took me a few minutes to realize the floor was not the floor of my apartment, which meant I was not in my apartment.

 

I cautiously stood up and looked around, I was standing in a circular room. The walls, floor and ceiling were all metal, dark grey in color. The bed I had been sleeping on was in the middle of the room and directly in front of me there was what appeared to be a door. To my left was what looked like some kind of control center. I walked toward it, taking note of the red and blue blinking lights and the monitor that seemed to be scanning my vital signs. It still hand’t completely dawned on my that I was not at home, staring at that control center I began to realize someone had taken me out of my apartment and put me in this little metal room.

 

I looked toward the door, considering what could potentially be on the other side. I was obviously not at home, but where the hell was I? Had I been kidnapped or something? Abducted by aliens? As I stood there just staring at the door I noticed it began to slide open. Fear gripped my insides, my breathing became shallow and ragged. A million scenarios passed through my mind: murders, rapists, crazy people selling bodily organs on the black market, aliens here to impregnate me to create an alien-human hybrid? (Yes, I watch far too much X-Files)

 

The door slid open and standing in front of me was a tall, wiry, pale skinned thing. I’d never seen anything like it, it looked humanoid but not quite. The eyes were too big, the nose flat and it had no lips, it had a snake-like quality that made my skin crawl. As the scream flew out of my lungs I thought to myself, “I’ve been kidnapped by Voldemort.”

 

I climbed back onto the bed and kept moving away from it, until I fell off the other side, landing hard on the metal floor. All the while the being just stood in the doorway watching me curiously, like I was the weirdo. I moved away from it until my back was against the wall, I stared at it as it moved toward me. It stopped in front of me and offered it’s hand. I looked up at it, seeing no sign of aggression and not knowing what else to do, I took it’s hand. I was pulled up and led over to the control center. The creature hit a button two stools silently slid up from the floor, I sat down.

 

It hit another button and the screen changed, a film started to play.

“Greetings human!” Another Voldemort-looking creature exclaimed on the screen.  I looked over at my host and he just shrugged.

“I’m sure you’re very confused, but do not fear. We are not here to harm you. On the contrary, we are here to learn from you. My name is Xluqu and next to you is Zguli, we are what you humans call “aliens.” Our people are from a planet in another galaxy and we have been charged with learning what can about other races of beings through intergalactic travel. We are here to collect samples from you for study, this will be a painless procedure…” The voice of Xluqu continued talking but I was no longer paying attention. I’d begun to laugh hysterically. Zguli just stared at me, confused at my reaction. As I sat there laughing I saw Zguli nervously moving away from me and hitting  another button on the console, a piece of the desk flapped open and a row of what looked like syringes popped up. I stopped laughing.

 

He grabbed the first one, smiled at me and jammed it into my arm. I screamed again, the room faded away and I assume I fell into a sedative induced sleep.

 

I felt myself waking up before my mind processed I was no longer sleeping. My head was pounding like I had a hangover from hell. I reached up to my eyes and rubbed them, as my vision cleared I realized I was back in my apartment. I stared up at the off-white ceiling wondering what the fuck was in that Ben and Jerry’s. I rolled out of bed, stumbled to the kitchen and started my coffee. I wandered into the bathroom, started my shower, looked in my mirror and screamed. I was bald. All of my hair had been shaved off like I had joined the Marines the night before. I looked down at the rest of my body and saw a large bruise on my arm where the syringe had been jammed into my arm. My fingernails and toenails had been clipped and there was another small bruise in the bend of my arm where I assumed blood had been taken. I stood in front of the mirror in shock, I’d assumed everything had been a dream but it wasn’t. It had actually happened.

 

Like a true X-Files fan I reached up and felt around the back of my neck, searching for some kind of implant. I found nothing, but I remained suspicious. I reached up to my head and felt what remained of my hair and began to cry. The water in the shower had gotten cold and the coffee was done, I climbed into the shower and took the coldest shower of my life.

 

I dressed and had my first cup of the day, sat down on my couch and thought about what happened. I’m a conspiracy theorist at heart, so as I sat there I found myself considering not that I’d been abducted by aliens, but rather I’d been taken by some shadowy government agency who was collecting data on people and used “aliens” to cover it up. Who would believe someone was abducted by aliens? Before this morning even I would have been suspicious, but there I was, one of those crazy abductees who end up on Jerry Springer talking about my time with the aliens.

 

Was I really one of them though? Looking back, it does make more sense that I was kidnapped by Uncle Sam, I mean really, aliens who speak English? Am I supposed to be that stupid? Sure, that room seemed a lot like a spaceship, but they had faked the moon landing, surely they could create a fake spaceship. I decided right then the government was responsible and like any good American I damned them, finished my coffee, found a hat and went to school.

 

 

Pause

I decided to take a bit of a break from poetry in order to focus my effort on some of my unfinished stories. I have quite a few and I’d like to be able to have at least one finished relatively soon.

I’ve noticed a problem with my fiction writing, I have a tendency to start off with a short story idea and as I write it just gets massive and I get overwhelmed with it. I need to re-teach myself how to create a tight, compact plot. I’m going to start working on some micro-short stories and posting them up here, I appreciate constructive criticism =)

The Sixteenth

It’s been a year, one full year since the night we fell apart.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the last year, about the choices I made, the things I did wrong and the things I did right. I know you never believed me but leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It broke my heart to realize that we weren’t working, hadn’t worked and probably never would work. I remember that night with startling clarity, when I close my eyes I can still see that look on your face. It was pure hatred, it terrified me then and terrifies me now. I meant it when I told you I thought you were going to kill me, the only thought in my head in that moment was, “I don’t want to die!” I was in shock. I couldn’t believe you, my best friend, the love of my life, the man I wanted to marry, the man I would give anything for, do anything for was hurting me. And not just hurting me but choking me, you put your hands around my neck and you squeezed. I clawed at your hands and you just pushed me down. Your eyes were cold and you looked at me dispassionately like I was nothing to you.

I know what I did wrong, I know how much I hurt you and I know in that moment I was nothing to you. When you let go of me and all you said was I deserved it I knew it was over. I laid on the floor with Kairi and cried. I wanted to leave, I wanted to run away and never look back but I didn’t. I stayed for that entire weekend, trying to figure out how you could do that to me. When Monday came and I drove away I never wanted to come back. I was so broken inside, so hurt I couldn’t even process what happened. But I did come back, I tried to fix what was broken but we had no chance. I made the hardest decision I’ve ever made and I left you, I walked away, I quit. I know you hate me for making that choice, but I don’t hate myself for making it. It was the right choice.

It’s been a year and I don’t think I’ve ever really cried for what I lost that night. For the last 12 months I’ve panicked when someone has touched my neck, dissolving into tears and feeling that terror all over again. You always thought it was easy for me to leave but it wasn’t. You were all I had for almost 12 years, you were my best friend. I trusted you so completely I never saw how we were falling apart.

You have no idea how much I miss you. I miss sitting in the Bronco and talking, I miss watching you play video games, I miss wandering around Old Town. I miss the little names you called me. I miss playing with your hair when we went to sleep. I miss going to eat Chinese food with your mom. My entire life changed, nothing is the same now and that does hurt. I changed that night and I’m still trying to figure out what I lost and I what I gained.

You’ve asked me more than once to try again, to give us another shot. I never knew how to tell you that I can’t. As much as I miss all of the good things I cannot forget the bad. I cannot forget how you called me a bitch and a whore, how you treated me like I was stupid. How you were constantly angry and how when I succeeded at something you were never happy for me. I cannot forgive what happened on July 16th, and I cannot forgive what happened in January.

It has been a year, 365 days since we fell apart. I am sorry for my part in what happened, I am so sorry for the way I hurt you and I do hope you find happiness. I am saying goodbye for the final time, these are the last tears I will cry for July 16th.