by Tiana Laveen
“Mr. Berlin, you have a visitor,” the nurse said loudly with a smile on her face.
“I’m not hard of hearing, Beth.” He looked up at the mounted television where an episode of Andy Griffith played, the sepia tones of the Sheriff rich and crisp. “You always yell. I’m old, not deaf!” he added, annoyed.
“Her name is...what’s your name again?” She shot Jayme a glance and ignored the old-timer’s rant.
“Claudia,” she answered as she stood across from him, taking notice of his unusually long hands overlapping his pointy knees. His dark, threadbare socks were pulled up high, and he wore an olive and red plaid overcoat. It clung to his emaciated, slightly hunched frame, and looked as though it weighed more than he did. He slowly turned toward her, looking up at Jayme, appearing to size her up.
“You’ve come to ask me about outer space, huh? I don’t get any respect anymore.” He smiled, showing an oversized set of dentures as his thin, dry lips widened with each word spoken. “I’ll tell what you wanna know.” He grinned and patted his leg. “It at least lets me go down memory lane without someone slamming the door on me in mid-sentence.” He laughed, but she knew he didn’t really find it funny. She waited until the nurse left, closing the door behind herself, no doubt to tend to other patients.
“Mr. Berlin, I actually do want to ask you about that, but I...”
“You want to know how a handsome devil like me got in this nursing home, right?” he joked, causing Jayme to loosen up a bit. “I guess I was too good looking for them to let me out in public any longer!”
Jayme grinned, it was hard not to.
“I know when you saw me, you thought, ‘Boy, now that’s a looker!’”
Now Jayme was laughing loudly, laughing so hard, her heart wept—relieved of the pressure.
“No, in all seriousness,” he clasped his hands together and looked reflective as he muted the television, taking a few moments of silence, “I do like the young people that come from time to time for their book reports to interview me. I used to be an international celebrity. Then just a national one, then a local one...now, no one comes but every now and again. I’ve been diagnosed with dementia. I imagine that is true, since some days, I don’t recall my wife’s name, nor our daughter’s.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Berlin.” Jayme was accustomed to listening to hard luck stories—only this time, she was the one in need of assistance.
“It’s getting worse but my memory is fine from back then, just fine. It is as if it all just happened yesterday,” he assured, tapping his temple, giving her a keen eye that now twinkled ever so slightly as he offered her a heartfelt smile.
Jayme smiled back at him, then looked at the closed door before turning back toward the man, surrounded by a small pile of books, a wilted plant, a window with greeting cards stuck in the crevice of the frame and a silver bed pan off to the side. The room was a tad bit cool, but a nice burst of warm air passed by from the nearby chocolate malt colored vent.
“Have a seat, young lady.” He pointed to a burnt orange chair across from him, with polished wooden arms. It looked like a transplant from the early ’80s and gave her a sense of comforting nostalgia. Jayme sat down, gripping her shoulder bag, small pad of paper and a chewed up ink pen she’d taken from her brother’s desk.
“Mr. Berlin, I sat for several hours trying to figure out what I was going to say to you.” She shifted her weight as he watched her every move. “I thought to myself, well, I can come here and pretend or I can just come on out with it, and tell you the real reason why I’m here. I think,” she placed her bag over the arm of the chair and leaned forward, her body relaxed, “I’ll just get right to the real reason I’m here. To ask you what I really want to know.”
“By all means,” he said cheerfully, seemingly in the moment right along with her as his worn, brown slipper covered feet pushed slightly forward.
“I want to ask you about your involvement with the FBI and the flying saucer you found, the pod, as it was described.”
His expression changed instantly. The ‘happy go lucky’ elderly gentlemen’s even temperament grew invisible fangs as he rose from the edge of the bed and peered down upon Jayme as if she’d brought him an omen wrapped in witch root, a bushel of black, dead roses or an upside-down crucifix dipped in the virus of the bubonic plague.
“Who sent you here?!” he barked, his tone a mixture of anger and fright.
“No one, Mr. Berlin. I sent myself.” She put her hand up in a gesture of assurance. “I read the 1972 article in the New York Times. I saw the photo of you, next to your find, the spaceship, and you...”
“People come here to ask me about the Juno expedition, about my relationship with Armstrong, never about what happened then! They told the world I was crazy and I could never clear my name, and no one let me live it down! I was the town kook! I wasn’t crazy, I know what I saw.” His eyes pleaded with her, begged her to not make a fool of him. “You came here to tell me I was crazy, didn’t you?” His voice seemed to shake and rattle the room, as if it had fists and the walls were lined with steel bars.
Jayme looked the man up and down, realizing now that she’d dove head first into a beehive, and she was dripping in honey. This was going to be a sticky situation, and possibly painful to get out of...
“No. I believe you and want to find out more,” she said calmly. The man hesitated, then sat back down. He crossed his leg and nervously shook it while his eyes narrowed into skinny slots, then darted at the closed door before seizing her image once again.
“Your name is Claudia, correct?” he asked calmly, seeming to have found a happy place deep within after his initial shock had sent him into a tailspin.
She nodded, now feeling a tad bit ashamed of the lie as he stared holes into her.
“Well, Claudia, what do you want to know about it? Let’s talk.”
“Mr. Berlin, I think I saw one of the same pods.”
His thick, bushy black and gray eyebrow arched in astonishment, then his expression turned to disbelief. He shook his head. “If that is so, describe it to me...every detail you can recall,” he challenged.
“I saw it up close and personal. It was about ten feet long and four feet wide,” she spread her arms out as she described it. “It’s shaped like a bullet, a big shiny, silver bullet and there are numbers, some strange code and lights, blue lights along each side. There is a thin window, just enough for one to take a peek and inside that window, I could see a seat and straps, like a seatbelt. I didn’t have an opportunity to study it further, but I suppose some would call what I saw a spaceship, despite it not being circular, like the old illustrations and cartoons depict.”
The man’s lips curled upward and a loud, boisterous laugh escaped from his lips. He clapped his hands excitedly, rocking in his seat before calming down enough to speak.
“Yes! That’s it! So, where did you see it?” He leaned closer to her. It was obvious to Jayme that the man was now hanging on to her every word. She could almost feel his exhilaration in the room. She figured, after all this time, he was relieved to finally be believed! He appeared rejuvenated, growing younger now by the second. Little did he know, however, he hadn’t heard the worst of it yet.
“Can I trust you, Mr. Berlin? Can I trust you to not repeat what I’m going to tell you to anyone, because honestly, I’m in big trouble, and I really need your help.”
The man’s mind apparently became even more lucid as he reached out and gingerly touched her hand, stroking it, his eyes serene and an understanding of the spot she was in.
“Yes, you most certainly can trust me. We will do an exchange, okay? You tell me what you know, and I’ll do the same. I will make it worth your while.”
He leaned back and listened to Jayme describe her ordeal from when she received the FBI assignment of locating the ‘XXX’ murderer, right until that very moment of her sitting before him, praying for a miracle. He’d grown pale as she spoke. Then, after a few moments of silence, he rotated
his shoulder blades and looked on the ground, seemingly devising his own thoughts. She wanted to say something, break the silence, but it was evident, he was piecing together information for her in his mind, knitting details together in her honor, so she remained quiet.
“Oh my, my, my young woman.” He shook his head, and looked away from her toward the window, out of which stretched the afternoon canvas of dull, rain-drenched sky and wet sidewalks with dips for small puddles to shimmer. “You’ve hit the motherload. You’ve managed to not only get close to one of them...you lived with him, he let you in...”
The old man’s voice grew serious and low, as if he were the narrator for a scary film. He was animated, yet the way his voice wrapped around the words forced her to stay focused and the kindly old man, didn’t appear so kindly anymore...
“You have no idea what you’ve stumbled upon.” His words poured out like a haunting song.
Just tell me!
Jayme wanted to grab and shake him by the shoulders, make him spit it out.
“Claudia, you’re in love with an alien...”
****
Xzion blinked and slowly opened his tired eyes. The bright beams of light pierced his eyes once he focused, making his eyes flicker and turn away from the piercing harshness. He felt the dull pain in his right iris...
Tapes...someone removed my camera recordings...
His naked body felt warm under the glow, and a vice-like contraption had been wrapped tight around his skull, squeezing, compressing. The coolness of his dog tags, the metal against his flesh, made a memory of her flash in his mind...
Her fingers tracing my chest...
He heard voices, muffled voices, in his native tongue.
It can’t be.
He looked down at his arms, strapped securely to the covered gurney, and his ankles, shackled as well. Weak and miserable, he yanked and twisted just the same—no use. His wrist ached for the computer system inside of his tendons had been surgically removed. All he recalled was falling asleep, and then no longer feeling anything...no pain, no misery, no happiness...nothing at all. It must’ve been days since he’d been transported. He didn’t recollect the trip back home and it distressed him.
A faint beeping noise sounded to his side. He grunted and twisted about, his thoughts scrambling to gather bits and pieces of memories, anything, of who or what brought him home...
Aton...
As he came to the understanding of what had transpired, his thoughts immediately drifted to Jayme. His eyes burned as the palpable, water-colored reminiscences flooded back, bit by bit, like a fast moving electronic puzzle with a million shattered pieces.
“Ahhh! Jayme...” He sighed, his chest heaving, his fists tight as he slowly regained his strength.
“He’s awake,” someone said. “We don’t have time to do his eye surgery, to remove the lens.”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s been deactivated. It will take him forty-eight hours to repower and by then, the matter will be settled.”
Then the footsteps, the damned heavy footsteps drew near and the hood of the bed was slowly raised, revealing a burst of cool air that crossed his body like a glacial wave. He looked up and saw Aton’s irate face, stern and pale, the man’s eyelids heavy as his expression turned grim.
“Xzion, you are home. You are back on Zarkstorm.” He seemed to wait for a response. Xzion gave him nothing. Aton sighed. “You were dehydrated and incoherent.”
He helped him to his feet. Xzion leaned on the tall, sturdy and slender man, gaining more and more strength with each step he took. His muscles had cramped up, and were now relaxing, but his mind was growing more and more concerned. He looked to his right. Nearby on a slate table was an arrangement of fresh clothing—a white military uniform laid out perfectly, with shiny, silver buttons. Xzion hissed and turned back toward Aton, his anger boiling so deep within, he could taste the bile bubbling from his stomach and surfing upward his esophagus.
The white military uniforms were for those on trial for misdeeds or insubordination. His eyes narrowed as he shot an angry glare at Aton, this time, ready for confrontation as he gathered himself.
“What is this about?” He grasped the white shirt and slid it on, clasping the sparkling silver buttons closed. Soon the pants followed, then the black, military style boots.
“You are on trial, Xzion. Surely you knew it would come to this.”
“This isn’t how we were taught this worked.” Xzion shook his head, reached down and fixed the pleat in his pants then stood erect. He ran his hand over his hair, then across his face.
They cut my hair down...and my facial hair is gone again, too...
“I am supposed to be questioned in front of you, as Commander and Chief of the Military and Science Program, and two other officers. I recall no such questioning.”
Aton shook his head, a slight smile on his face.
“You were unable to speak. For months, you’ve been doing your own agenda, putting our entire race at great risk while you wasted valuable time and resources. We did a full examination of your confines and read your eye recordings. There was no need to question you, Xzion. The tapes speak for themselves.”
Xzion ran his tongue over his teeth, smirked and pivoted around. The flashing lights of the various dashboards ran colors of red and yellow, signaling that an insubordinate officer was not contained. One false move, all they’d all be fiery red and the room would be flooded with black and silver clothed militia with their guns drawn in his direction—pointed at his brain.
“We know about the Earthling woman. We know all about her.”
“And?”
Xzion knew his response was snide and he didn’t care. He sucked his lip, turned and faced Aton again, letting him know with the heated indignation that built inside of him, that he’d crossed the line. His right eye sized the man up and fought cursing him out, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
“And? You became entrenched in her world, leaving us in limbo. Your people perished while you fulfilled your carnal desires,” he sneered. The man’s eyes scanned him slowly from his feet to his face, and back down again, judging him. “It was the police officer that was tailing you, the one you notified me about, wasn’t it? It is the same woman. You made it appear she lost interest in you as a suspect. You lied to me, Xzion, many times, and now, you will face a hearing in front of the entire panel. I am sorely disappointed in you as a pupil, esteemed military officer and Zarkstormian.”
“A hearing? As if it would be fair! Any hearing with you in charge is never fair. I see you have no loyalty to me. I thought I was different to you. I should find that surprising,” he pointed to himself as he tried to control his temper, “though you told me I was your best student, your best officer, correct? You turn on me so quickly, like a viper, after the relationship we’ve had? The years we’ve had together? You make me attend a trial, knowing that it will ruin my career and jeopardize my life!”
“You brought this onto yourself,” Aton responded coolly.
“You aren’t the only one disappointed, Aton,” he fumed. He marched closer to him, causing the lights to blink and sound louder. “Trust me on that.”
Xzion fought the urge to attack Aton and it took all of his will power. He could taste the man’s blood already. It was the ancestors’ way, deep within him—eliminate the enemy, and Aton was no longer ‘friendly fire’. The dog tags, which symbolized his warrior ancestors, were tucked away, rubbing against his bare flesh under the constraining uniform. His breathing became sporadic and he looked around for his weaponry, falling into the temptation to blast the cold-hearted ruler away. Of course it was nowhere in sight...that would be foolish to let someone like Xzion be able to obtain arms. He was the fastest shooter, runner and gunner in their history. However, none of that mattered now.
The man he adored, practically worshiped, was ensuring, amongst other dire things, that he would never step foot on Earth again. He was ensuring, through this course of action, that he’d n
ever finish his mission but more importantly, never see Jayme again—and he couldn’t have that. He rotated his shoulders and lowered his head in submission, playing along with the cards unfairly dealt.
No one will stand between her and me...
And now, he feared for her more. Even though he’d set her free, he was still close to her, in case she ever returned or needed him. Now, she was vulnerable.
He thought about making a run for it, but he’d already looked around the bright, circular white domed room, out the curved windows, and noticed that the two doors were manned by the armies...
The entire fucking army. Unfucking believable. He has the whole army here, in case I get any ideas. If I’m a monster, you’re Dr. Frankenstein. You made me, Aton.
Xzion smirked and put his white gloves on, the finishing touch to his ensemble. He waited, and then, predictably, Aton snatched his arms and placed them behind his back as another officer raced to them and violently cuffed Xzion’s wrists and ankles. They led him out into the open arena for his court hearing chock full of peers, onlookers, stoic officers, impenetrable officials and Zarkstormians who had no sympathy for a fallen comrade or understanding as to what he wished to relay. Most likely, he would not make them understand everything that had transpired—but he’d sure as hell try.
****
Jayme smiled. Uncomfortable would have been an understatement to describe her sudden mood. She crossed her legs and rubbed her knee, peering at the man who just told her she’d been having some love-nest rendezvous with an extraterrestrial being.
Ain’t nobody got time for this shit...
“What are you talking about?” Jayme finally blurted. She was at her wits end with everything and she no longer cared about respecting her elders. He told her he would give her information, if she gave him some, and all he could offer was that she’d been ‘doing the bump’ with E.T. She was ready to ‘phone home’ and call it a motherfuckin’ night.
