Home Away From Home

When Jon came home that day from school, he remembered thinking it was odd that his mother was already home. The large brown SUV was parked on the cobblestone driveway leading into a tudor home that bespoke of a wealth not seen in the other houses lining the block. Jon walked through the brick tudor arch to enter an expansive front courtyard space that was furnished with the most exquisite fountains and colorful flower beds. On both sides, beautiful tapestries were hung high up on the exterior walls, giving the elusion that the courtyard space continues forever in both directions with the front door being the only recognizable element of the house. Even though he had lived here as long as he was aware of his existencek, Jon felt that his home was alien to him.

   As he walked through the threshold, he saw his mother kneeling behind the sofa, speaking softly to somebody. He was unaccustomed to not being greeted at home, and felt slighted and betrayed. His mom, Cindy, walked over to him. She could feel the tension on his face. She disarmed it with a big smile. Beyond her, Jon could see what appeared to be a boy no older than ten wearing overalls and corduroy pants. The boy walked over to greet them. “Hi Jon, how was your day at school?” Cindy asked hurriedly.

   “Fine.” Jon looked in wonder as the boy walked over. “Who’s he?” he asked.

   His mom looked at him, and then at the boy. Straightening her brows over the kitchen sink, she said. “That’s Tommy” in a matter-of-fact way, as if he should already know, before telling him that he was an adopted child.

   Jon handed Mom the permission slip for the field trip on Friday. Cindy looked over it, and said, “It’s about time. The planetarium will answer all of your questions.”

   Jon realized that he did have a lot of questions, even though he had continued to remain quiet all of these years, blissfully unaware of how strange the neighborhood was. And how his hometown was always on watch by a watchdog group of concerned fellow neighbors, as if the city was on the brink of being invaded.

   Dinner came soon afterwords, with his father David coming home with a bunch of work that he had to finish up tonight. David worked as an attorney for a law office that dealt with alien deportation. In this year 2112, people and aliens lived side by side. The aliens were a different mutation of homo sapiens sapiens where a new gene that influence cognitive development was inserted inside the fertilized egg that heightened the senses of the aliens so they could be used to help the nation with defense and be tested on with new technological research of military weaponry and biological warfare. 

   David sat down in his chair next to his wife and began making small talk while starting on his pork chops. Tommy was sitting at the other side of the table, not saying a word. Tommy was an alien who needed a foster home as he was abandoned by his parents two years ago during the war with Oceania where the aliens were used to fight. It made Jon uncomfortable sitting next to an alien, all the more being that it was silent during dinner.

   Plates were cleared, and Cindy started washing the dishes. Tommy spoke up. “Where should I put my suitcase?” Apparently a room had not been given yet to this stranger.

   “I will show you, come with me.” David replied, grabbing Tommy’s suitcase and leading him to the room. It was not said if Tommy was a temporary visitor or permanent member of the family; still, Jon had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

   Tonight, Jon, had difficulties falling asleep. He felt very anxious. He flet himself awakened by a light breeze from the window, like the wind of change was coming into his life. Downstairs, he could hear someone speaking in a low voice. Probably his father.

   There was a light coming from outside in the hall, as his door was not completely shut. He walked over to the door and opened the door to see the lights on downstairs. His mom said, “I hardly believe that this is the way to do this, I mean why do they need him?”

   “I’m sure they have their own reasons. Do you think he knows?’

   “No, he doesn’t seem to know but-he was surprised with our adoption, maybe we should have told him about is a few months ago.” She said apprehensively.

   “No” David responded to a question that wasn’t asked. A silence followed. The two downstairs moved to another room, and Jon could only hear muffled, incoherent voices the rest of the night.

   Friday came around, and he found himself on the bus on the field trip headed to the planetarium. Sitting next to him was Tommy. All he could get out of him this week was that his father died in the war and his mom was taken to a lab for reassignment. There was no remorse in his face, no emotion.

   As the planetarium came to view, a smile came over Tommy’s face that was most unsettling. “At last, here it is.” He said aloud.

   The teacher at the front of the bus stood up and told the class to gather and meet in front of the building to wait to get ushered in. As the kids walked toward the building, Jon couldn’t help but feel eyes on him, but couldn’t see from where they came.

   Inside, the field trip was fairly straightforward. The kids were shown how in vitro fertilization occurred, and how the eggs were implanted with an extra genome to give the new human its supernatural abilities. The research that went into this occurred when people began cloning animals to attempt to preserve endangered species and provide additional research benefits.

   The field trip ended, and somehow, he and Tommy got separated. He could give no explanation.

   Back at the school, his class was excited for the weekend, but today, Jon wasn’t less excited and more anxious. At the bell, he walked down the hall to find his dad on the lawn waiting for him. David never picked him up. What was going on.

   “Hey son.” David opened the door to the small honda sedan. “I have to pick you up today.” Jon got in the car. They came to a building that looked more like a lab than an adoption center. “Now I want you to know that this is an exciting new opportunity. You are part of a foreign exchange program. You will get to experience a new life.”

   It was there that Jon was given to a new family. 

This family was so foreign to him, like the house. A plain, ranch style house with wide eaves and a spacious front wraparound porch, it portayed an outdoor lifestyle long abandoned by the human race, in contrast to the statuesque, ornamental tudor home of his true family.

He swore that he would break free. One night, he tipped over a book shelf full of classics like Moby Dick and Oliver Twist, books he would never find from his original family.

Startled, the father came to the room. The front door was left open because the mother was outside tending to her garden. She was called inside. She dashed in to see what the ruccus was, forgetting to lock the door in the process, and Jon dashed out.

He heard a yell from behind him as the dog came out and ran after him. He quickly hid in a grove a trees, and traveled back to his original home.

He looked in the window, and saw Cindy touch the antenna. The tv changed to a channel that Jon had never seen before. They were watching a station that showed a man reporting the body count for humans. The lab showed people on stretchers on a big room strapped up, with tubes sucking in the vitals from the human. They were not people, and he found out too late as he got hit in the back with a blunt object.