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elimartin1019 · 3 months ago

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Constellation Despondent part 1

Chapter 1

“She’s the one. I know it!” She looked up at the council members, anger burning in her humanoid face, a feeling she wasn’t actually used to, even after all these years. Her kind enjoyed mild emotional anonymity generally, however, beings as evolved as they were ended up adapting to their surroundings quickly. On Earth, that meant being emotionally evolved as well.

“What makes you so sure this human has the ability you speak of?” The glossy eyed council leader asked, tentacled upper lip flapping.

“There is no way to be sure; we’re facing an unprecedented problem and we’re running out of time, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we explore any and every idea that comes to mind at this point?” Time moves differently here just outside the Milky Way. Several hours here is a week on Earth. She had lived nearly a full human life on that planet in what would have only been one full lunar wrap at home. She returned now, in the “Golden Age” of her life to plead an idea to the alliance of planets. She spent many “human” years in search of a galactic-sized solution. Humans didn’t believe enough in celestial happenings to have any real solutions to her problem. During her research and time on Earth, one of the things she saw and read about was how the most impractical and improbable solution to a particularly perplexing problem turns out to be the correct one. And hers was the most perplexing in the Universe.

The Alliance, a council of elder leaders from dying planets across her strange galaxy, looked down at her incredulously, scrutinizing her idea from their uncomfortable onyx chairs. This wasn’t the first time she asked for clearance from them. Finding the answer to saving all the galaxies in all the universe, when the problem causing it was completely unheard of, was going to require the trial and error method of discovery.

Her first series of plans involved the humans’ use of magic. Their magic was crap. She learned that word on Earth, “crap”. She liked it for describing things that she didn’t like or that didn’t work correctly. It had a nice crisp P at the end that she enjoyed saying in human tongue. Just like the word “shit”, which was her favorite exclamation to use when she was alone. She learned she liked the human curse words. Some of them were extremely versatile. Some of them described the alliance members in more ways than one. Yes, the humans had crap magic, none of it was real. All of it turned out to be illusions or science.

Altevary whipped his top left tentacle into the air quickly, making a snapping sound so sharp it pulled her out of her all-too-human thought process about language, name-calling, and her past attempts.

“Are you going to explain yourself? Or do we have to sanction services on your whim alone?” he spat.

“It’s just a gut feeling I have,” This statement barred only quizzical stares from the alien faces before her, “Gut feeling is like an intuition,” she explained, “ a knowing. I can’t tell you why I believe this will work. I just know in my heart that this has the same chance of working as all the rest of the ideas we have tried so far.”

The rest of the council sat unusually silent. Some refused to make eye contact with her. Whether it was because her human eyes were innately disconcerting or because her idea was ludicrous, she couldn’t tell. Some stared directly at Altevary, waiting to see if his tentacles undulated with acceptance or rejection. Only one of them looked her straight in her beady human eyes.

Suunsin let his crescent moon slit eyes rest directly, but softly, on her face. He seemed inquisitive, she saw the questions lurking behind those burnt orange moons.

“Suunsin?” She saw the group shift their attention to his seat at the end of the table, “What do you have to say about all this?”

The burnt orange of Suunsin’s eyes shifted to a creamier color to signify that his telepathic wave, the only form of communication besides writing and sign language that his kind could produce, was being broadcast to the entire room.

“My question is more to our council members rather than you, Tashella.” He stood, walked around the large table in front of the other members and turned his body on the dais to directly address his peers. “How is her idea any different or crazier than any of the other plans we’ve sanctioned until now?” He took a couple of steps in front of the other alliance members, mimicking a lecturer impeccably. “We’ve sanctioned plans that made our galactic problem worse with far less evidence to support it. Tashella is right: at this point we sanction any and every strategy we hear”understanding. She was completely aware of how ridiculous her idea

Tashella gave Suunsin a grateful nod, a telepathic thank you for was. Altevary never missed the chance to demean someone, least of all her.

Altevary let a low gurgle escape his flapping upper lip, pale green saliva clinging to the inner cups of the tentacles. Tashella used to see this as normal. Everyone on her planet looked like him. Or like her when she wasn’t enjoying her petite human form. The more time she spent in this body, however, the more she loved it, the fragile, failing thing that it was. Looking at Altevary made her sick in her human stomach. Involuntarily she began to make gagging noises in the back of her throat.

“Are you attempting to speak our language in that human body?” he asked her, confused.

Tashella shook her head, taking a deep breath of the synthetic oxygen they were pumping into the hall for her Earth body.

She replied, “No, sir,” when she got her bearings back.

Altevary stood up and presented himself to the council next to Suunsin. “Suunsin thinks we should consider this plan. As we are still a fair society, a council convened to find a solution to the decaying of the fabric of space and time, we will hold a vote. We’ve lost every battle we’ve fought against the disease of time. Now Tashella comes before us,” he paused, slurping saliva into his cups, “a plan so simple, it’s ridiculous.” He glared down at Tashella, his natural form a towering 7 feet tall, considered short on their planet. “So the question is, does anyone else support this mission?”

Suunsin was already standing, which was a sign of agreement, Altevary sat back down. Slowly others around the semicircle of stone chairs began to stand as well.

More human emotions were welling up inside Tashella at this site. This time it was gratitude. She was experiencing so much of this specific emotion as she saw council members stand before her that she thought she would cry. Then a different emotion took its place: anger. Because crying is stupid. She pulled another “human” and buried those emotions deep inside her mind where her “other” self remained, her true self.

At the end of a few minutes, all but three of the council members were standing. Tashella was sure that her body would begin leaking its salty water in a display that caused her least favorite human emotion, embarrassment. She was not a fan.

Luckily for her, Sanarmour, leader from Laarson, took a couple steps forward to speak with her on a more personal level.

“A sanctioned mission gives you a strike team to acquire the assets at any cost.”

Tashella abruptly cut her off, “I won’t be needing a strike team this time!”

Sanarmour looked confused, a little hurt even. One council member, that Tashella could only describe as bird-like, looked especially scared at her abruptness.

“What I mean is, I know this human, personally. I think I can get her to willingly help us”

She was met with nothing but confused, quizzical stares at this statement. Or at least that is what she assumed was the look on their faces. Tashella was becoming increasingly aware that the time in her human body was changing her. She was beginning to have the complex thoughts and feelings that humans experienced. Her job on Earth gave her access to endless human knowledge, she used that access to research ways to save the universe. In the process she learned, well, everything else. She learned about emotion and war, love, knowledge of what they believed brought about the universe (they were completely wrong), and every historical event in Earth’s history. The more information Tashella’s alien brain retained about humans and life on Earth, the more she was becoming human. She enjoyed human things, stupid human things, like crepes at Sunday brunch.

Tashella thought she might like to stay on Earth when this was all over and finish out her life, or maybe start a new one in a new human body. Human life was difficult but they didn’t have to deal with cosmic meltdowns and intergalactic criminals like her species did. For that reason alone, human life was simpler, easier.

This assimilation to humanity was precisely why Tashella couldn’t tell if the council was giving her confused looks or not. They were becoming more and more foreign to her.

Suunsin stepped off the dais where the thrones were, stepping in front of Sanarmour, putting himself in front of the council. He sent his thoughts to everyone, but addressed Tashella personally,

“Tell us what you need, scout.” His projection silenced the murmurs from the rest of the group.

“I believe this human can be convinced to help us without force. She’s my friend.” The council looked at each other, again confused by the human dialect and wordage. Tashella shrugged, “A friend is someone you get close to. Someone you can do fun things with. I met this woman in my knitter’s circle,” she told them, a proud smile stretching across her slightly aged human face. No one knew what a “knitter’s circle” was.

Altevary had an idea that “knitting” wasn’t something that young, vitale warriors did.

“Excuse me!?” He spewed, saliva rolling down his lips and chin, “ how old is this homosapien?”

“Uh, she is 74 Earth years old.”

“That human is nearly on her death bed!” exclaimed another member from the council from Deransortia.

Tashella craned her neck to see around Suunsin’s shoulder to make eye contact with the elder, “Actually, statistically speaking, she could easily live another 20 Earth years or more with proper health care.”

There was an audible gasp from the entire dais. Sanarmour put her slender, yellow fingers on Tashella’s shoulder, “We’re trusting you. I hope you know what you are doing.”

“I believe I have this under control, Commander. I just need one co-pilot to come with me. I’ll need them to be ready with the ship when I arrive at the rendezvous point. I’ll do the rest.” Tashella could feel excitement deep inside her, it was a feeling she associated with flight. Not actual flight, just the last couple of moments before take off, there is a bubbling inside the midsection before the weight of the body ascends. For her, this feeling is a very real thing that leads to lift off and flight. For humans, it was just a feeling. It could lead to many opportunities for them, but never true flight. Excitement came over her now in waves.

Suunsin, the only being among the council with truly telepathic abilities, felt her emotional shift. He made full eye-contact with her, letting his eye color shift from burnt to creamy once more, then turned to face the group.

“If you would allow me, I would very much enjoy accompanying Tashella as co-pilot for this retrieval.”

“Nonsense!” Altevary retorted, “You are needed here, on this council seat!” Saliva was beginning to evaporate off his face as his core temperature rose with his anger. Tashella was familiar with this display of emotion. Compared to human emotions, it was an umbrella emotional response to mean many different things. In this case, anger.

Tashella and Altevary had a complicated past. He never missed a chance to obstruct any good ideas she had. She had learned a word on Earth for beings like him, “asshole”, which she thought was entirely all too fitting for him since it was also a word used for the human rectal cavity.

As much as Altevary enjoyed demeaning Tashella, she enjoyed standing up to him. “This retrieval should only take me a wrap or two, tops. That gives me three Earth weeks to talk this woman into helping us and get her to the launch site, and I already have a plan in motion. The council will barely notice Suunsin isn’t here.”

Altevary made a grumbling protest, saliva vapors raking the air around him. Commander Sanarmour put up a slim hand to silence the crowd, the other hand still resting on Tashella’s shoulder.

“Given that this is likely our last hope, the council is willing to give you everything you need for this mission,” she looked directly at Altevary now, “like we do for every other agent we’ve tasked.” Sanarmour turned her gaze back to Tashella, “And just like other agents, you’ll need to share your entire plan with us, down to the smallest intricacy. Should something go wrong we want to be able to locate you for immediate extraction.

Tashella was already nodding half-way through Sanarmour’s statement.

“Yes ma’am, Commander,” she said, remembering that body language was a very human trait that most council members didn’t understand.

Sanarmour was uncommonly kind for an other-worldly being, or maybe it just seemed like it to Tashella because she spent so much time pretending to be human. Besides war and pop culture, human emotions and dispositions was one of the most readily researchable subjects she found. As she gazed upon the forgien faces before her, Tashella was noticing a wide array of different emotions emanating from them. While Sanarmour was the epitome of being fair and kind, Altevary was rude and boorish. Tashella was thankful she chose assignment over marriage to him; he was disgusting.

A smile spread across Tashella’s face, her crow’s feet curling in on themselves around her almond-shaped eyes. Suunsin picked up on the humor of her thoughts and did his best to stretch the small slit of his mouth into the semblance of a smile. It was horrifying, but Tashella laughed all the same.

“Let’s start with a name,” Sanarmour said, “Who is this human that you believe can fix the decay of the fabric of space and time?”

“Her name is Evelyn. Evelyn Alvarez.”

More puzzled looks from the alliance.

Chapter 2

The silence of the church basement before the rest of the knitter's arrived every Monday evening was one of the best sounds Evelyn had ever heard. The closest thing she could find to total and complete silence. Not that she hated other sounds, or music, but life was sometimes so busy that she valued the quiet when she got to experience it.

Despite the normal flow of life and its constant changes, her life felt more monotonous than anything. Since 1984, when her sweet Jinghai passed away, Evelyn did nothing but tend to her family, job, and church. After a year of struggling to take care of their five children, trying to protect the life she and her husband had built in California, Evelyn decided to take a high-paying job in the Emergency Department of a Reno hospital, and move the family somewhere she would be able to grieve and continue. As a nurse, her shifts were often filled with insane characters, traumatic injuries, and unique anecdotes, but she had retired 15 years ago.

In the total silence of the church basement, Evelyn often found herself reminiscing about Jinghai and their life together. The last day of summer they would pile into the station wagon and take the kids to San Diego pier. The children enjoyed the arcade games and ice cream, while Evelyn and Jinghai rode the ferris wheel. The kiss at the top never failed to make her heart flutter. Even now, thinking about it 35 years later, she smiled and flushed a bit. Jinghai wasn’t just physically handsome in a very biracial Clark Kent sort of way but he knew how to be romantic in tiny, resonating ways.

Evelyn soon found herself lost in the foxhole of memories she kept in her data bank for these quiet times. As she unfolded metal chairs and aligned them in a neat circle, she unfolded the memories of the wedding. Evelyn giggled at it. Flouncy, frilly dresses were all the rage for weddings in the 60's, even for a young white woman getting married to a young man of Mexican and Chinese descent. Bernadette, her 2nd oldest child, once told her that she looked like a marshmallow with a head. It was still the best day of Evelyn’s life. She spent weeks writing her vows to Jinghai. Vows that she ended up stuttering and crying through instead of speaking eloquently like she had practiced. Her dancing wasn’t that fabulous either. Evelyn was so nervous that she ended up stepping back on her dress, falling onto her back in the middle of the dance floor. A number of people came to help her up, their concern blocking her view from the snickering bystanders near the buffet. The memory of her notorious “wedding fall” became less embarrassing over the years and more of a highlight because the basis of Evelyn and Jinghai’s relationship was a love of laughter. Evelyn even had Jinghai’s favorite wedding photo framed for their 20th anniversary. A shot of Evelyn’s maid of honor, her cousin Cheryl, helping her up. Behind them you can see Jinghai, a wide smile across his face. Evelyn and Jinghai both loved that photograph more than all the others taken that day.

A car crash took Jinghai from her 3 months before their 20th wedding anniversary. Evelyn was almost brought to tears at the thought of her ungiven gift, still neatly wrapped since 1984 in silver, paisley, decaying wrapping paper, as she had trillions of times in the 35 years since his death, when Darlene walked into the room with her plate of veggies and dip.

“Evening Evie!” Darlene said, cheerfully.

Evelyn cleared her throat, “Hello there, Darlene!” trying to sound as cheerful as possible, “Did you get any word from the association yet?”

Hoping that redirection would focus her energy on something other than the sadness of her past, Evelyn put up a conversation starter before Darlene could ask her about the tears. The church’s knitter’s circle sent several creative samples to the Midwestern knitter’s Association in the hopes that one of their ladies would be chosen for the regional competition. Evelyn secretly hoped her piece would be chosen. The regional competition was in New Mexico and she could use a little away time from the monotony of her life.

“Actually, yes.” Darlene replied, “But there was a bit of a hiccup. The committee couldn’t agree on just one of our submissions. There were five that they loved, including yours, they said it is up to us to decide who actually goes. They’ll hold one spot for Praise! Church knitter’s circle.” Darlene set her plate down on the table at the back of the room and came over to help set up the rest of the chairs. “How do you want to handle this?”

“Why don’t we just have a vote?” Evelyn said casually, thinking that sounded fair to all.

“Evie, we both know you deserve that spot more than anyone. You really are the best knitter in the group.” Darlene was more than a little bit biased. She moved to Reno 10 years ago and joined the church’s knitter’s circle her second week of attendance.

Over the years, Darlene got closer to Evelyn. First through Sundays at service, then through Mondays at the circle. Evelyn poured her life into her family so she was thankful to finally have a friend outside of it all. She allowed herself to take time away from her family to have a relationship with Darlene. But like any good friend, Darlene took time to be a part of Evelyn’s family as well. Darlene had never married so Evelyn’s family became her own. As much as Evelyn poured her time into her family and church, Darlene did so with her work. She was a teacher, elementary school. Evelyn always thought of it as a sister profession to her own, teachers and nurses both highly important to society but highly undervalued. She considered them noble professions. And Darlene loved her classes, but never found interest in romantic love. Anytime Evelyn asked her about her lack of love interests Darlene would reply that she was married to her work and that it was good enough for her. There was never a time that Evelyn didn’t see her friend with a text book of some kind except in church and at the circle. The only thing it seemed Darlene loved more than her class was her independent studies of everything.

“I think being fair is the best way to go. We can even get the entire congregation involved to give us a less biased demographic.” Evelyn said. Darlene rolled her eyes at this, the amount of justice and impartiality was almost disgusting. She just wanted Evie to win, her reasons being far more complicated than simply going to a knitting competition.

A couple minutes later the rest of the group began to arrive, carrying trays and bowls of snacks to share. Light conversation of the usual dreg commenced.

“Oh, Father James’s sermon yesterday was incredibly uplifting.”

“How are your grandchildren?”

“You must try my homemade cookies.”

Evelyn found herself bored of both talking and listening within the first 5 minutes. These conversations were always the same. For 15 years they have been the exact same. As the ladies settled into the circle, Evelyn found herself wondering beyond, into her imagination. She imagined winning some huge sweepstakes and going on a cruise that she would never come home from. She thought of selling her house and all her worldly possessions and traveling the world. Evelyn knew she was too old for that these days but it was still fun to imagine. She had always wanted to see more of the world. Jinghai used to talk about it often. He always wanted to do that whole vagabond, backpacking across Europe tour thing. Evelyn still secretly hoped that one day she could see the world for both of them.

Darlene tapped Evelyn on her shoulder, pulling her back to reality from her reverent thoughts.

“I think everyone is ready.”

Evelyn stood as Darlene took her seat. The Praise! Church knitter's circle was made up of mostly widows and spinsters, some of the women were lucky enough to have a child or grandchild that was interested in the craft. Evelyn wasn’t one of them and her best friend was a spinster. She giggled to herself a bit at this thought.

“Hello ladies.” she said, addressing the group, “ Thanks for making it tonight and thank you to everyone who brought refreshments this week. Now before we dive back into our project for this month, I know we are all eager to hear who was chosen for the Midwestern knitter’s Association regional competition. But I am afraid I have some bad news,” she paused for dramatic emphasis, “the committee couldn’t choose just one winner.”

A few gasps and murmurs rose from around the circle. Regina North, the mousy single granddaughter of a deacon was the first to speak up.

“Does that mean we all go?” she asked excitedly.

“There’s no way the church can afford to send more than one contestant.” Edith Baker piped in. As one of the group’s spinsters, if you didn’t know she wasn’t sitting in a Christian church right now you would have thought she was a cliche 1980’s Jewish grandmother. At least, those were Evelyn’s thoughts about her. Not very “Christian” of her but she didn’t care that much. Church was less about faith these days for her as it was about habits. She didn’t find faith and uplifting there anymore, she simply went because she had been doing it for most of her life and who would she be without all of this? What would she do, if not this?

“Edith! Ladies please!” She held her hands up to try and silence the group the way she used to silence her kids when they all tried speaking at the same time, like she does with the Sunday school group she sometimes worked with. “Let me explain. The committee still has one spot for one contestant from our church. Because they couldn’t decide between 5 of our entries, we’ll have a friendly little competition here among the group.”

Ladies gently clapped, uttering murmurs of approval. This is why Evelyn took charge of their group.

“Who were the 5 chosen, Evelyn?” Rachel Caster asked, leaning forward on her knees in anticipation.

“The 5 ladies chosen were Regina, Danielle, Edith, Dierdre, and myself.”

A mixture of congratulatory words of encouragement and grumbles from sore losers circulated for a moment.

“So here is how I think we should handle this. Each of us puts a piece up to be voted on. You have till Sunday service to come up with something. During announcements, Pastor Ellis will call the vote, Pastor’s wife will tally for us, and have him announce the winner before final prayer. Sound good?” Evelyn said to her small circle of knitters.

There was agreement from all, followed by hands raised in question. Evelyn put her hand up again to shush the crowd.

“Let’s just get started on our project and as we work, I can come around and answer all your questions.” Again the women grumbled an agreement. “I know you’re all excited but we did promise St. Claire’s that we would be donating 25 blankets for their Christmas drive and we still have to finish 10. So let’s be ladies of our word and get to work.”

All around the circle ladies pulled knitting needles from their specified “knitting bags”. Darlene handed out the skeins of yarn she wanted them to work with this week. They broke off into groups of three and began their noble works.

Evelyn spent the first half of the group time, walking around and answering the questions about the friendly competition at church and the larger regionals in New Mexico. By the time she made it back to her seat, she was dog-tired. All she wanted at that very moment was to lose herself in the familiar over, under flow of her knitting.

Evelyn picked up her needles , favorites of hers that she affectionately called “Fred” and “Ethel” after her favorite “I love Lucy” characters and she got herself to work. The small hooks were so comfortable in her hands, they were an extension of herself in many ways, like a samurai with a katana. As she coiled the yarn around Fred and stuck Ethel through the loop, Evelyn imagined this was exactly how an assassin felt about their gun or knife, or whatever killing tool they used, they probably felt like that tool was just another appendage on their body that they could use efficiently with very little thought.

It was Darlene again that brought her back to the now.

“Did you think about my question?” she asked Evelyn in a quiet voice, not wanting to start a group conversation.

“Huh? Oh, yes! I’m sorry, I was off in space. Your question?”

“Your birthday? What do you want to do?” Darlene’s lean, smiling face was still gorgeous after 75 years of aging. Evelyn loved her glowing, contagious smile.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I haven’t actually given it much thought at all.” That was a flat out lie. And in church no less. Evelyn felt horrible as soon as she said it but the truth was she thought too much about it. This year, her best friend offered to take Evelyn anywhere she wanted to go. At first, Evelyn thought about a nice dinner in Vegas. Then Darlene told her to think bigger, like “maybe need a passport” type of big. Evelyn was turning 75 years old and her friend wanted to go all out. And my oh my, wouldn’t it be nice to see the Atlantic ocean before she died. Evelyn thought so.

“I can tell you are fibbing but I’ll let it slide...for now.” a sly smile smoothed itself across her sweet, slender face.

Evelyn let herself sigh in relief, ever thankful for her friend’s understanding.

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