#other times i want you to read it as E.T. cetera. but what can you do.

[nomaishuttle]

the way i balance staying true to my tumblrina nature while also having a job and bills and rent is that at work while cleaning a room ill think of something id like to post and then repeat it over and over in my head and refine it until it sounds right and then i either post it as soon as i get a second to Or i forget it bc i think of anew post to make. and they always get 0 notes but its ok

[experimentaldata]

Fictober, day 26

So I totally dropped the ball. Hate that. But this is NaNo prep. 

Prompt #26: “Enough! I heard enough.”

Original fiction: [untitled NaNo story]

Rating: T

Warnings: genetic manipulation, eugenics, ableism 

If you haven’t been to a funeral before, it would be rather jarring, Brett thought, to find yourself at one without warning.

They had ducked into the Mission just as the first hymn started, earning them some dirty looks from the regular parishioners. Will and Nena had knelt down to pray for a few minutes, stood back up, flipping the kneeler with practiced ease, and joined in before Brett had finished shoving Zainath into the pew. Between the atheist and the alien, he thought, hard telling who’s more uncomfortable.

Zainath, for his part, had an untraceable look on his face. It stayed there throughout the eulogy, second hymn, Scripture readings, Holy Communion, tearful family testimonies, and finally, the pallbearers wheeling out the grayish-looking man to his final resting place. Will and Nana knelt in prayer again. Nena even shed a few tears. Will prayed a bit of a rosary. The two outsiders sat in silence on the pew next to them, staring at the stained class and improbably-stacked floral arrangements. It grew quiet. 

“So,” Brett said before any more pious activities could begin, “We good to hit the road?”

Nena wiped her eyes and stood up. “Yeah. Thanks for humoring us, Brett. I know you don’t really...go here.”

He chuckled. “Somewhere, my grandma’s happy. C’mon, Will, we still got three hours to go before Vegas.”

Zainath frowned. “Is that another religious site?”

“Something like that. Everyone get in the van.” 

They drove in silence up I-15. The silence lasted, mostly unbroken,  through a gas station and past two rest stops before Brett couldn’t take it anymore. 

“So, Z, what did you think about human church?”

Zainath frowned and fiddled with the collar of his jacket. “It was...er...I don’t know how to say this...different.”

Brett finished his Sprite and chucked the can into the floorboard near Will’s sleeping form “Different how?”

“Is there always a corpse present?”

Nena reached over and wrapped the back of Brett’s head. “You didn’t tell him we were at a funeral?”

“Why would I?” Brett said, “You two are the ones who got religion. I’m just the driver.”

“Whatever,” Nena said with a sigh. “Zain, Will and I go to Mass every week because it’s important to us, and to God. This Mass just happened to be a funeral, because we are in the middle of freaking nowhere and somebody didn’t want to stop an hour ago when we passed the last Church in the city.” Brett could feel eyes boring into the back of his skull.

“Once again,” Brett said, “just the driver. And no, Z, there is normally not a dead body present at human religious services. Although some of us sleep like the dead at them, I guess.” 

Zainath smiled faintly. “I suppose I’ve just never seen someone...taken care of, in death.”

“You’re talking that weird alien shit again, man.”

“I’m serious!” Zainath said. “On Aeron, when someone is near death, you take them to a hospital. The good parts of them--their organs, personality traits you want to pass on, et cetera, are harvested and belong to your family line. The rest is discarded. The only people who’ve seen our mortal remains have advanced degrees.”

“That’s awful!” said Nena.

“Is it? I’ve gotten some of my better qualities that way. My jaw’s a replica of my great-grandfather’s on my mother’s side. My proclivity for exercise too. And my dad’s cousin donated my mathematical abilities and hair color when he passed in a tragic boating accident. And that’s just off the top of my head.”

Nena shook her head. “And this all happened before you were born?”

“Most of it,” Zainath replied. “A few things, like the jawline, were tweaked over time. I still have scars from the surgery for that one, if you look closely. Poor doctor was barely out of his apprenticeship program.”

Brett merged around a slow-moving Toyota, jerking Will out of his sleep. 

“Huh, wha--where are we?”

“A long way past crazy-town. E.T. here was just telling us how he got a jawline splice from his uncle.”

“Cousin, actually. And there’s other parts of me from him too--from what I hear he was quite the specimen.”

“Enough!” Nena said, “I’ve heard enough. I don’t wanna hear any more about people getting body parts from their relatives.”

Brett laughed. “Gonna add that to the quote book for sure, once we get something to eat. Say, Cloverfield, do they have Del Taco on your planet?”