Day 124 Writing Short Stories

Jellybeans

Love was one of those tricky things. Something you couldn’t really master on your own. It needed at least two, and then the interplay could begin. But love was capricious. In one minute, you could experience the greatest love of your life. Then, like that, it was gone, for no good reason. Yet I was determined to experience it. It was an important thing missing from being human. Otherwise, I had a job; humans had jobs, tasks they needed to do to exist. Just like we did, but the tasks didn’t seem to benefit their race, not in the way we worked as a unit to better our understanding and existence. My job was to sit behind a line where they brought plastic-packaged sustenance to nourish their gossamer bodies.

I had even gotten myself a mother and a father. A family unit that gave them the knowledge of how to exist. I think mine was broken despite the extensive study I did before choosing my parents, as they call them. They had seemed like healthy, fit specimens by human standards, but something was lacking. Something that was supposed to prepare a person for maturity. It was one of those things I pushed to figure out later, just before I returned to my home planet.

Love was next on my list, and I had gathered that humans chose theirs by proximity, height, and the previous models of coupling from their family units. So I had chosen the one they called Mag. She also pushed the plastic sustenance packages down the black line that kept rolling and rolling until the fluorescent lights were shut and the man, whose job was to be a taskmaster and shout at others, would say it was okay to leave.

But I couldn’t figure out Mag. Every show of my abilities made her shrug and walk off. Every gesture of kindness made her frown—a thing they do with their faces. And every attempt to bond just made her flee. I was almost ready to give up the whole pursuit of love, but one day- actually, a night- at a party they arranged to celebrate the winter solstice, I was struck by love. It was the quiet girl who barely spoke to anyone. Suddenly, there she was, sitting tightly next to me, because of the white liquid Mag’s had brought with her, blabbering about how our understanding of bodies, atoms, electricity, and time had to be wrong; that she was sure that if she was let to sit quietly and contemplate, she could figure out the equation.

Her name was June, and I wanted to scream my lungs out that I knew that equation. I did just that, making everyone from the store we worked at look at us. But June smiled. The smile I had been trying to achieve with Mag. Mag frowned at my outburst, then went back to drinking the white liquid that made me warm and giddy inside. I swore on that moment that I would do everything in my power to guide June to the equation and see her smile again. The first act of my promise was dragging June to the jar full of jellybeans I had contributed to the party. They were a perfect representation of existence, and I liked how they tasted. They reminded me of home.

I was sure that I had messed something up when June stood there silent, watching the jellybeans, but then she laughed, and opened the lid, and began arranging the candy into neat patterns, nothing close to the equation, but still better than most of those whose task it was to explain to humans how things worked.

And I was pretty sure I could watch a whole human lifetime of her arranging those jellybeans, messing up my original plans to copulate with Mag and leave by next Saturday.

—

I got romance, and of course, I didn’t want to make it just your normal romance. There had to be more. Aliens, of course, as I started watching the Dreamcatcher movie, and of course, aliens because who doesn’t want to be loved by an alien that is willing to stay on Earth just for you? I took shortcuts with the rebirth theme, weaving it into the exploration of being human, copping out at the end, making our protagonist want to stay, enchanted by the feeling of love and June. I also got an experimental writing style, but we have long ago established that I take liberties with that part of the prompt. The point of view was first person.

I’m feeling restless today. I didn’t sleep that well. I stayed up late playing board games with friends, and then my cat started her morning meows and woke me up early. So I’m not at my best. Now, I will go and give her kisses. She woke up.

Thank you for reading! Have a day full of love, and see you tomorrow ❤