by Ava Paris
By the time I was back at the university on the Monday, I was already half-forgetting how the visiting professor who sat across from me was supposed to be an alien who was here to spy on me and gather information about my work. Perhaps because it all sounded so crazy that I just didn’t make enough space for it in my brain to bother remembering. It was only when he asked to shadow me for a lab I had that afternoon that I remembered his alien ways.
Even as I remembered them, part of me was thinking that if I was too cheeky, he would just erase my memory and start again. It was something I told myself to force myself to laugh. Only, I couldn’t really laugh about it.
I was torn in two between my logical scientific brain and my gut.
My gut said everything he had said was true, my brain told me it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Surely if there were aliens researching humanity and its mistakes, it wouldn’t be a secret. Surely I would have heard something about this as a scientist, or even as just a person existing on this planet!
Or would I?
In the end, I told William he couldn’t shadow me. I really didn’t want him near me as I worked through whatever was going on.
That day a number of students asked me if I was okay. I knew I was zoning out, that I must seem as distracted to them as I felt internally. My mind was reeling with questions.
Could this be a joke?
Could this be him having a break down?
Or, could he have always been mentally ill and I just didn’t see it?
Could this be part of the weirdest game of keep-away ever, where he is making this up just so he wouldn’t have to date me or take me seriously?
Was this made up?
Was it real?
One moment I would think it was real, and the next I would think it was made up. My mind kept flip-flopping between the two possibilities.
If it were real, that would mean, a lot. That would mean there were aliens who were maybe being kept from humans. I guessed you would do that if you were any government who knew about this, sure. That made sense.
But, were humans really special enough to warrant aliens coming here to study us? Wasn’t it a bit egotistical for me to buy into that idea?
Then I reflected on what he had told me. I reflected on how he had made a point of telling me he was studying humanity because we were a species whose societies were relying heavily on technology and often technological advancement meant species would wipe themselves out.
I thought of examples from our own history where small populations had wiped themselves out. Easter Island, warfare, disease and famine all came to mind without effort. Sometimes you can grow too big and nature strikes back to find a balance again.
But then, that was what climate change was about. Nature couldn’t strike back to fix things and find a balance again. Things had gone too far. What would happen here ultimately was that nature would just wipe humans out. The climate would change, the world would change as a result. Humans probably would be done for.
I knew it, which was why I couldn’t commit to studying climate chance soley, and why I studied its impacts rather than the mechanism itself. Like someone who wants to be in denial about how bad her relationship is, but wakes up every day and tells her partner she loves him anyway I was hooked on this, but wanted nothing to do with it at the same time.
All throughout that day I managed to avoid William. He seemed to be acting deliberately aloof when I came back into the office between classes or was near him. I wondered what he was doing if he was supposed to be studying us anyway. He couldn’t really be using the universities computers to study humans as he said he did.
But then I remembered how quickly he could move, and thought that perhaps he wasn’t using the computer half the time. Perhaps he was doing other things then would just go to the computer when he knew I was coming in. Perhaps he just wiped the memories of anyone who saw him doing anything else. That was a useful and convenient skill, wiping people’s memories.
Then as I felt my heart race and mind not far behind it, I knew I needed time off from this. It was all just too much.
But I couldn’t get time off from whatever was going on with William.
There was really only one way to deal with him.
Chapter Sixteen
I awoke from dreams of space ships and little green men to my alarm rudely buzzing beside my head. I reached for it and flicked the alarm off as I steadied my breathing. The alarm had startled me because my dreams had been too much.
In my dreams I had been anxious, stressed. Waking from those dreams, I didn’t fee much better.
It had been the better part of a week since ‘the conversation’ and we had managed to avoid one another pretty well. Or, I had managed to avoid William, and he hadn’t made a big deal about it.
As much as I appreciated that of course what he had told me was entirely a possibility, I had not wanted to believe it at first. When I had started to come around and accept that maybe he hadn’t been lying, everything began to slowly shift, and get scarier.
If my very idea that there were no aliens, or at least that the aliens were not coming down to earth to study us was being shaken, then what other things did I believe that were possibly wrong too? The idea didn’t make me feel any more comfortable.
As a scientist, I knew that all humans held bias and that bias was something we had to work through in order to be good at our jobs. Bias could get in the way of wonderful science, and a good scientist did their best to make sure their bias didn’t wind up impeding their work.
When I awoke from my dreams though, I both held the idea that this was real and William was an alien beside the opposing idea that perhaps I was just dealing with a little too much work stress and none of this was real. Sure, he had said it, but the truth could be that he was not doing so well and it was only my stress that made any of the crazy things he said make any sense at all. Mostly because the later felt a lot more comfortable than the former, and a lot easier to go along with, I wanted to believe it was true. It was a shame I just couldn’t do that though.
Even so, the initial reasons to not get involved still stood. Or did they?
Initially I had not wanted to get involved because of my career. But if my career in the sciences was different to his - him being some sort of alien scientist - what did it matter if we got involved?
The idea made me laugh out loud. I wondered if I had fallen off the deep end to be thinking that way.
My not wanting to be seen as unprofessional suddenly paled in comparison to the idea of me having worked side-by-side with a space alien for months. It’s funny how that will happen.
The two of us were still doing some work together, although in truth that work wasn’t done with any zeal. I imagined he was just waiting for me to blow up about him being an alien.
At the same time that this was all so intense and over-the-top - an alien! - I was still laughing at how ridiculous it all was. It was like he was some kind of jester and I was the queen, looking on as my jester performing tricks and making me laugh on purpose just by virtue of who he was.
At the same time though, when I came into contact with him at work, those familiar feelings were there. I still wanted him, space alien or no space alien. I still couldn’t quite manage to get him out of my head.
He probably couldn’t manage to get me out of his head either. Or, at least that’s what my ego hoped. My ego certainly didn’t want to be left out in the cold.
Chapter Seventeen
It was more than just my ego though. The whole time even as I didn’t quite believe him and didn’t really want to accept what was going on, I still had that burning in my tummy. The whole time as I kept pushing him away and made myself too busy for him, I still had the burning in my tummy. It never left me.
One morning I went into work and found William predictably busy at his desk. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned towards me. I motioned with my head for him to come with me. He followed me out of the crowded
office and down all the stairs onto the ground floor. We were walking out of the building together and towards my home when he finally spoke.
“Are we going where I think we are going?” He asked me.
“Yes, we are going where you think we are going.” I confirmed.
He nodded and we kept walking until we were across the reserve and at my front door. I opened the door and motioned for him to enter first.
I entered my home right behind him and we were silent right up until the door clicked closed behind me.
“Why am I here?” He asked, rounding on me.
I gave him a smile and told him, “Because I wanted to give you a chance.”
“A chance?” He asked.
I nodded. “I wanted to give you a chance to revel yourself, to show me what you are.” I told him.
“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” He asked me, sincerity in his voice.
“Yes. I am ready.” I told him, although my mouth was incredibly dry.
William stared at me for a long moment, then he took something from his pocket which he passed over his arm. There, on his arm which had previously been a pale pink of a Swedish man was blue scales.
I suppressed a gasp and nodded, staring down at his arm as my head spun.
“Can I touch it?” I asked him, genuinely curious and aching to touch his scales.
William nodded and I reached out and touched his arm. The scales felt soft, softer than I would have expected by looking at them. Once I started touching them, I couldn’t help myself. I was running my fingers and my hand all over his arm, it felt so nice.
“They’re - so beautiful!” I exclaimed.
William chuckled, “wait until you see my face!” He told me.
I stared at his face. “Is it much different?” I heard the disappointment in my tone. I didn’t want his face to be different. This was the face I had grown accustomed to. This was the face I liked! Why didn’t his face look how I wanted it to?
He chuckled at the expression on my face and told me, “It’s okay, we don’t have to do that now.”
He was using the device to turn his arm back to normal, or, I guessed not-normal, for him. He was turning his skin back to Swedish white from alien blue and scaly.
“So you believe me now?” He asked me.
“Yes. I do.” I told him.
“I am surprised. It only took ten days.” He told me, more sarcasm in his voice than I appreciated.
“Was it ten days?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
He nodded. “Sure was.”
Of course it was I told myself. Of course it was ten days. I knew that. Girl, snap out of it. You know what’s up!
“Do you want to sit down?” I asked him.
William shook his head slightly. “We’re supposed to be in the office.” He told me. “It’s a work day, and I can’t do anything about time.”
“You can’t do anything about time?” I asked.
“No, I can’t.” He told me.
“Why would it matter that you can’t do anything about time?” I asked, not quite understanding what he was saying.
“Because we’re supposed to be there, and if we’re not, people will notice. There is nothing I can do to make them not notice, and I can’t take back time if they do.” He told me.
I thought about what he said for a long moment before telling him, “Yeah, I don’t care.”
The look of pure shock on William’s face made me laugh out loud. He looked more shocked at the idea of me not caring about what my colleagues thought than I felt about him being an alien.
“Relax, I only have one lecture today and it’s after six PM. Besides, this is of much more curiosity to me than that.” I told him.
“Is it?” He asked me.
“Yes, it is.” I told him, staring into his deep blue eyes with the kind of fierceness I hoped was obvious when he stared back at me.
I wanted to know about him, he should know that I reasoned.
“Okay.” He relented and walked into my home as I directed him to sit on my couch, make himself comfortable and that I would go make us some tea.
“No coffee?” He asked me.
I let out a laugh. “No coffee.” I told him, turning back towards him as I was already half way to the kitchen.
When I returned a short time later with our cups of tea, William looked more at ease than he had when I had initially left to get the tea. I wondered to myself how he could be so worked up when it was me who was being told that she had fallen for an alien, and by the way he was studying the downfall of humanity, could I give him a hand with that?
When I put the tea down on the coffee table, I sat on the couch with a little space between us.
“So, you’re an alien…” I started, but had to stop myself because I felt like I was about to giggle. I cleared my throat and began again, “so, you’re an alien and you’re here to study humans. Your ship broke and you’re stuck?” I asked.
“That is correct.” He informed me.
“How long have you been stuck?” I asked.
“Since a few days before you met me.” He informed me in a matter of fact tone.
“Right.” I agreed. “How long will you be stuck?” I asked him.
“I will be stuck for a short time longer, but, you know already that I don’t want to go when the ship is ready.” He told me.
I stared at him for a long moment. He didn’t want to go I thought. Of course I already knew that but it was still a big deal for me to hear him say it out loud.
“I wouldn’t want you to go either.” I told him, telling him the most honest thing I felt I ever had to date. It was true, I didn’t want him to go after I had found him. Even if he was a scaly blue alien, I did genuinely care about him. That’s a sentence I never thought I would think or say.
But I couldn’t tell him my feelings, not out loud. Not right then when I needed to.
I just nodded. “Do your people know about this?” I asked him.
I looked at him just in time to see his face. He looked sad, and, there was something else there only it was there for an instant before he regained control of his face and just made it blank in time to answer my question.
“They know that I do not want to go with them.” He told me.
“Do they know why you do not want to go with them?” I asked him.
William stared at me for a long moment before finally answering, “They know I have met a human female who I want to stay here for, yes.” He told me.
“They know that?” I asked, shocked. I wasn’t sure why I was so shocked about that, considering all the other far more shocking things he had said so far, but I was shocked none the less.
“Yes. They know that I want to stay here for you.” He told me.
“What do they think of that?” I asked.
He shrugged slightly before telling me, “They don’t like it, but they understand.”
I nodded. Sure, whatever.
There was a silence between us as we sipped our tea. I felt like I had taken a lot in in a very short time and I was just letting everything settle inside my head.
It had taken me a while to have everything else settle, ten days in fact. I was giving myself some time to let this settle, too. I knew I needed that at least.
But, at the same time that this was a normal earthly thing - a guy liking you and evidently wanting to be with you - it felt so much bigger than the other news. It was personal, and even though my heart seemed to know what it wanted, my head was in a completely different place.
I finished my tea, smacked my lips then told him, “maybe we should go back to the university.”
William looked genuinely disappointed at what I had said. I held his gaze for a long moment before he finally nodded and we stood up together to walk back to the university, reversing our journey exactly. Right down to the not talking to one another all the way back.
Chapter Eighteen
Although William was confused about what
was going on with me for the following days, he seemed to be giving me the benefit of the doubt, and being patient. I thought that perhaps he thought I needed more time to take in his scaly skin as it had taken ten days just to accept that he was telling me the truth.
What was actually happening though was something completely different. I took what time I could in the few days between our chat at my place on the Monday and when I invited him over on the Friday evening.
William went along with it without even the mildest sign of protest. I was sure he would have gone along with anything I wanted at that stage, he seemed to understand intuitively what I needed and was happy to give it to me. Right now I wanted - I needed - time. Time was something he was giving me in abundance and I was so grateful for it.
He came around to my home when invited and I told him I had a few things to show him. Things that were non-scientific, so he wouldn’t come across them when he was scanning the scientific literature, but also that weren’t old news, so he wouldn’t come across them when he was listening to old records or watching silent film.
The first was a documentary on NetFlix. William had never heard of NetFlix, but he had heard of the famous documentarian who made the documentary I wanted us to watch. Without Sir David Attenborough’s work, we would not have wildlife documentaries. He literally created the genre. He was also the embodiment of the genre with most of the best documentaries being narrated by his familiar voice.
For a long time, when I was an undergraduate I wanted to be part of his team. I daydreamed about traveling the world to seek out and take footage of the worlds most interesting species doing things that I and others found to be fascinating. But, that was before I had got caught in academia.
This particular documentary was quickly becoming famous in its own right though. It was a birds-eye view of how the climate was changing, with Attenborough using his own lifetime to demonstrate the changes he had seen and to show predictions of how these changes would continue and increase going forward.
