A short story written for #Raxicoricofallapatorius.
Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen had started life as an egg, grown up, had some incredible teenage years before taking the skin of a Welsh Politician and farting in it. Her life currently was going a lot better.
Blon had started her life again on Raxicoricofallapatorius’ twin planet, Clom. After being left as a hatchling on their doorstep, Blon had been raised by a loving family. Years later, when Blon graduated with honours, all thirty six of them were there to see the ceremony. She’d crossed the stage, posing with her certificate for Interplanetary Diplomacy, and waddled proudly over to join her friends.
After the ceremony, there had been tearful goodbyes and fights over who would start the buffet first. Blon had watched with a smile on her face, sitting quietly in a corner with a platter of beetles. There’d been a woman at the ceremony, watching her. A human woman with yellow hair. She’d grinned at Blon before disappearing into the crowd. She couldn’t have been a guest, all guests were invited to the buffet and the food at Clom Prime University was of legendary status. Unmissable. Why would a human come to a graduation ceremony millions of lightyears from Earth?
The question haunted her for solar cycle after solar cycle. Usually, she might not have worried but she’d learned about humans, how peculiar they were, how they flocked together in groups. The human hadn’t belonged to a flock and she’d known Blon too. Blon couldn’t remember meeting a human, not in her whole life.
When the human appeared again, it was a few hundred rotations later, she’d just been hired as an intern in the Clom-Earth relations office. The job was tough work, the hours were long and whenever Blon complained to her supervisor it was met with a grunt and the idle threat of absorption. One particular day, Blon worked late sending jamming signals to Earth satellites- ‘make them think they’re on their own’ said her boss. So Blon did. She interrupted the signal of every tin can swirling around the planet’s atmosphere and fell asleep on the keyboard.
A few hours later, Blon woke to a tap on the shoulder and jolted upright with a start. It was the woman with the yellow hair, walking away from her. Before she could call out, there were a dozen managers ready with clipboards to log her overnight performance.
The job went nowhere in the end. Blon got fired for incompetency after refusing to look the other way a few too many times. She rented somewhere on Clom’s second moon and tried spirituality. After God failed to appear, Blon moved back and started applying for jobs again. When she eventually got one, she kept quiet, slowly working her way through the ranks until-
The woman appeared again, across the street from Blon as she crossed the road. She looked tired this time, there were lines under her eyes where there weren’t before. Even though Blon had met actual humans since graduating, there was still the same sense of eeriness as the first time she saw her. Whoever the woman was, Blon didn’t care, but the commitment of the human had begun to scare her. Of course, as soon as she called out, her stalker had gone.
-
Time passes, Blon marries and adopts six hatchlings with her wife. The human doesn’t show up for a long time. She thinks about contacting the police, but is talked out of it- something about paperwork and not being able to trust Raxicoricofallapatorians.
It’s summer-time when Blon gets the promotion. The job of her dreams, at the very top of the Clom-Earth diplomacy office. She fires the managers immediately and completely reshuffles the company, appointing her wife as the co-owner. Blon’s policy is bold, new and adventurous. ‘To befriend and help wherever we can.’ Her actions are met with admiration, she is heralded as a pioneer and added to the Raxic 100 To Watch List. At the press party, cameras flash and Blon is swamped by reporters. A representative from the Blathereen family is here to offer her stocks in a booming new planet-melting business. She declines.
It’s a fantastic night and everything goes to plan. Blon stays to the very end, greeting and drinking with each guest. It’s the early hours when she is chauffeured back, her wife and kids must be asleep by now but she can still kiss them goodnight.
“Turn left here.” Blon says to the driver. “It’s the one on the end.”
The car stops in front of her house- or at least as close as it can get without touching the pools. Her chauffeur opens the door and escorts Blon to the door. She smiles, eyes bleary from the long night and turns to step into her house-
Blon turns back around. A strand of yellow hair sticks from the driver’s hat. The same human.
“Thank you.” It slips out without thought. She is frozen somehow and… sad, so sad. “Thank you Doctor.”
The driver nods, climbing back into the car. Blon hears a scraping, groaning sound. The car is disappearing, phasing in and out of the street until she can see through it entirely. Where the vehicle had been there is nothing, not an oil spill, not a skid mark, just nothing.
One of her neighbours stares at her, tutting loudly. Blon shakes herself, time to go now, to bed and to sleep. She has a busy day tomorrow.
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