I know I am being hard on myself, but my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. There’s a spider up in the corner of the shower. I leave her with total ownership of the wet cube and return to the other room.
I’m hungry.
But there’s nobody to pull food out of the ether for me. There’s nobody at all. There’s just the sound of next door’s television up way too loud and a dull thumping from the floor above which sounds like whoever lives there is practicing with a pogo stick.
That would have annoyed me once. It annoys me now, too.
The computer is the only part of the house that feels remotely safe to me. There's something not quite human about this technology. It has always had a transcendent feel — and now I know why. This is a stepped down, toddler version of the tech Tyrant and other aliens enjoy.
I find myself sitting in front of the computer, reading the news. It’s the same news as was circulating weeks ago, with subtle changes, but with no real difference in content. Has the world always been this shallow and predictable?
Have I become an Earth snob?
8 The Real World
“It’s good to see you back in the office, Tania.” Mr. Rogers greets me as I return to work.
It is actually good to see him. He always wears the same three suits in a five day rotation. They’re all houndstooth with slight variations in color. This one is a sort of woodland green.
He, perhaps alone in the world, understands what I have been through.
“It’s good to be back,” I smile. I wore a mask on the way to work, the fabric sucking against my mouth every time I took a deep breath, reminding me of the fallibility and frailty of humankind. The bus seems like such an inane transport option now, sort of like a stone car with rollers at the front and rear you operate by pushing with your feet.
“You’ve received excellent feedback from your away assignment, so we’re looking at further foreign assignments in the future.”
That gets my hopes up.
“For King Tyrant?”
“No. For other entities,” he says, guardedly. “But we do not speak of them unless it is absolutely necessary.”
“Understood,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment behind a veneer of professionalism.
“It’s an adjustment, I know. I think you could do with some more down time before you return to real life.”
“I don’t think so. I’m ready to get started with some work.”
He gives me an overly sympathetic look. “You’re wearing one slipper and one trainer.”
I look down at my feet and discover that he is right. I am also wearing plaid pajama pants beneath my business shirt. On Tyrant’s ship, I would think of what I wanted to wear and then that would be what I was wearing. That’s not how it is here. I just sort of clothed myself in a vague way this morning. I don’t even really remember getting up.
“Go home,” he says. “There’s no need for you to be in today. You’ve earned yourself a nice raise. You may be able to move to a better area of town.”
I want to move to a better part of the universe, but I don’t think that’s an option.
He’s right to be looking at me in concern. I’m dressed like a person who doesn’t quite understand the concept of clothing anymore. All the rules of our little society seem small and petty and nonsensical.
But I want to stay.
“I have to get back to normal sometime,” I tell him. “And working makes me feel normal. So, if you don’t mind, perhaps there’s something I can do?”
“Sure. There are some reviews on your desk. You can start with them.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
And just like that, I am back in my office, back behind my desk, back pretending I care about figures and sums.
It does work, though. The more I work, the more I start to feel normality sort of wrapping itself around me. It is sort of warm and cozy, but also kind of gross, like a cardigan a cat has peed in.
In the back of my mind, I’m wondering what Tyrant is doing right now. Is he missing me? Is he thinking about me? I’m thinking about him. All the times we were together, how being with a normal guy after him is going to be so anticlimactic.
Wait…
A thought strikes me. A thought that probably should have struck me long before this.
What if…
I run down to the drugstore and then back to the office with a little brown bag of possibility.
I slept with Tyrant, so maybe… just maybe… something stuck. Maybe I have something left to remind me of him forever. Maybe I’m not alone in the universe anymore.
I pee on the little plastic piece of hope and then I wait. Time ticks by and there’s a chance with every passing second that something magical has taken place. A miracle, maybe?