Ordinary Citizen

Miriam and I are best friends. At work, we’re known as “Laurel and Hardy” or “The Odd Couple” when they see us hobnobbing about the office. She played basketball at OSU, she’s a head taller than me, and she’s not skinny, either. They call me the blonde feather.

           It’s lunchtime on a Friday. Miriam feigns distress when we sit down to lunch at the Liberty Diner, our favorite haunt, across the street from Driscoll Sales and Manufacturing's offices where we work. Her eyes are wide, and her black forehead is wrinkled. "You know, Laine, the aliens have crossed eyes, and they get insatiably hungry, scarfing down food like wolves."

           Last week I was stunned when President, Simon Baleright, announced that aliens had infiltrated the human species. "They live among us," he stated, "posing as ordinary citizens.”

           I told Miriam that I didn’t believe it. The last President always lied. Why should this one be different? “Everyone lies,” I said. “Even babies fake a cry to get attention. It's no different with grownups, especially those in authority: they're babies—crying. Except you, of course.” Miriam made a goofy face—her take on an alien.

            Instinctively, I put down my fork, counting to three before I pick it up again. And, I remember, I'd had my eyes fixed long ago. Miriam knows that. I wonder what she's trying to pull.

           "Where did you hear that?" I ask her.

           "Darius told me. He read it on the internet. He takes this alien business seriously."

           Darius is the guy at the office who's been sniffing around Miriam for the last several months, ever since her divorce. "I wouldn't put a lot of faith in that," I say.

           Miriam ignores me. "You know what else he found out? All of the aliens that have been caught so far are left-handed women, and every one of them is white. Not black, not Asian, or Native American—white. What do you think that means?"

           Miriam looks me in the eye. I feel like she’s pointing at me. I stare back, and then, suddenly, we both laugh.

           "So, you think I'm an alien?" I ask.

           "Well, you fit the profile, and you are the strangest person I know."

The aliens dominate the news and set off a series of conspiracy theories. Wild assertions are proclaimed in the newspapers, on television, and the internet by experts. How do you become an expert in a phenomenon that’s less than a month old?

           The government says that the aliens come from another dimension, slipping through a tear in time-space. They claim this theory has an eighty percent chance of being correct. They also believe the aliens create these tears intentionally. In other words, aliens are covertly invading the earth. No percentage is attached to this idea, but the government supports the theory.

           Street riots and looting become commonplace, and then comes curfews and other restrictions of freedom. The stock market crashes. Morgues are overrun with overdoses and suicides. False prophets crawl out of the woodwork with pleas for repentance and threats of eternal damnation. People are afraid. They form gangs and attack the weak.

           Darkness means danger, but daylight makes no guarantees. I drive to work rather than take the bus because recently, a white, blonde woman in my neighborhood, waiting at a bus stop on a bright, sunny morning, was run down by a gang of high school boys in a Jeep.

           Some coworkers are accused of being aliens. The authorities show up at the office and take them away for questioning. Sometimes they don’t come back. I try to write right-handed whenever I’m in public, signing for credit card purchases, signing off on a project. It looks like chicken-scratch.

           Another Friday arrives. Miriam and I are again at the Freedom Diner. I curl up in the booth, trying to escape notice. Miriam is nervous, too; she could be accused of being a collaborator.

           "It's getting worse," she says. "The funny thing is that there is no proof that the aliens mean any harm.”

           I eat slowly and cast a wary eye across the room. It’s unnaturally quiet. People eat as if being hungry is a criminal offense. Our server, a brunette whom I haven’t seen before, is at the counter, talking to a broad-shouldered man with a butch haircut. I name him Superman. I remember her name is Greta. Her face is drawn and sober, but she was perky and all smiles when she waited on us. He’s dressed in jeans, a blue polo, and a sports jacket that bulges at one side. What's up, I wonder.

           Greta nods at Superman and walks to the table behind us, coffee pot in hand. I have a clear view, looking past Miriam’s shoulder. Greta pours a refill for a poorly dressed, gray-haired woman. She’s alone, heavy-set, and is gobbling down pancakes at breakneck speed. I imagine her as a homeless person who hit her personal lottery by coming across a twenty-dollar bill blowing in the wind. Greta sets the coffee pot on the table. The gray-haired woman looks up at her with eyes that are crossed. Quick as a flash, Greta grabs the woman’s head with both hands and squeezes, yanking her to her feet. The woman cries out. Once on her feet, she breaks Greta’s grasp, lands a left-handed uppercut, and dashes to the door. But she runs straight into Superman. He tosses her backward against the wall with one hand and shoots her. Blood seeps from her mouth as she drops to the floor. I almost lose my lunch. She looks like my mother, but I know she's not.

           Superman and Greta flash badges and tell everyone to remain calm, but the restaurant has exploded in screams. People stampede out the emergency door in the back. I don’t realize I’m among them until the brisk outside air slaps me in the face. Miriam is holding my hand and has led me away. My coat is still inside the restaurant, but I don’t go back for it. Instead, we scurry across the street to our office.

           The government tortures suspected aliens into talking. They discover that the aliens arrived years ago. Does this mean they pose no threat? Some people think so, and they urge an end to the killing and torture. “Allow them to live in peace,” they plead. They carry signs that say, “End the Murder.”

           President Baleright and his allies are of another mind. He plays on fear. “Billions of aliens are waiting to overwhelm humanity by sheer numbers. We must stamp them out like ants.” Ratting out aliens becomes the national pastime.  

I worry about my eyeballs and check the mirror each morning to see if they're slipping back into their old position. “Weak muscles,” the doctor had said. Miriam and I don’t go out to lunch anymore. Instead, we order delivery. It’s my turn to pay, but Miriam walks the hall to the lobby with me to meet the pizza guy, playing the role of my protector.

           “You’ve been harassed by strangers before,” she says.

           When I tell her I can take care of myself, she gives me a doubtful stare. Secretly, her mothering pleases me.

           I sign for the pizza right-handed, but the scribble is so bad that I switch to my left. The pizza guy calls me a mollydooker, a derogatory name for aliens.

           “I’m not giving you this pizza,” the pizza guy says. “I’m calling the police.” He pulls a phone out of his back pocket.

           My hand shakes as I return my credit card to my purse. Miriam steps in front of me and grabs the phone from the pizza guy’s hand.

           “You’ll do no such thing,” Miriam says.

           “Hey bitch, give me my phone,” he says. He steps towards her but thinks twice when he sees the menacing look on her face. Miriam is bigger than he is.

           Miriam holds the phone behind her and threatens to keep it. “Give her the pizza.”

           The pizza guy looks angry but hands me the box.

           “Now, can I have my phone back?”

           Miriam gives it back to him. I start to hand him a five, but Miriam snatches it from my hand.

           “You are not giving this asshole a tip.”

           We all stand there for a moment, not knowing what to do. Miriam glares at the pizza guy. “Go on, get outta here. And don’t go calling the fuckin’ cops.” Then she puts her arm around my shoulder and leads me back to my office, where we share our pizza.

           It turns out that aliens have differences in their DNA signature. President Baleright announces mandatory testing and an end to indiscriminate killing, making himself out to be a humanitarian. But that’s because of the backlash: too many humans have been killed by mistake.

           The Department of Alien Control (DAC) is created and mobilized. Massive testing sites are established. Aliens are separated and imprisoned in makeshift internment camps while humans are free to go.

           People, anxious to prove they are not aliens, stand in long lines for their test. But a small group resists the procedure on the grounds of privacy, human decency, or they dislike the swabbing process. I am a part of that group.

           I return home from work one warm afternoon in May and wave to my neighbor. I change into shorts and grab a beer from the fridge, ready to relax on the porch. There is a knock on the door. I forget to be careful, thinking it’s my neighbor. Sometimes we have a drink together. But it’s not my neighbor; it’s the Department of Alien Control—a nurse and security man with a gun. I know better than to resist. They take my DNA.

“What’s wrong with you, girlfriend?” Miriam asks me.

           I tell her about getting tested against my will. I call it a home invasion.

           Miriam shakes her head. “It’s not right.”

           I ask, “Did you get tested?”

           Miriam hangs her head. “Why fight it? Look on the bright side. You’ll get your travel pass and be able to come to the beach with me and Darius this summer. By the way, Darius has a friend he wants you to meet.”

           I don’t show her proper enthusiasm for her proposed arrangement, so Miriam leaves me alone until lunchtime. We go to the Freedom Café. It’s the first time we’ve been there since the shooting of the gray-haired woman. Neither Greta, the waitress, nor Superman is there. I breathe a sigh of relief.

           I order spicy chicken, and Miriam gets a burger. Two men in uniform enter the restaurant. They talk to the hostess, who nods in my direction. They approach our table.

           One of them watches Miriam. The other stares at me. “Laine Upbright?” He asks.

           I don’t get to eat the chicken because the guard cuffs me and takes me away. Miriam jumps up, but the other guard pushes her back into the booth. My eyes meet Miriam’s. “Is it true?” She asks.

           I nod, and the guards take me away. I hear Miriam’s voice behind me. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out. They can’t do this.”

I’m put into an internment camp, and I never see Miriam again, but I don’t think about her. I remember my physicist husband, Bob, who was supposed to follow me to this world but never came. We were young and newlywed when I last laid eyes on him. I look for him here, in the camp, as I had done every day in the city.

           We women came to escape a world dying of airborne poison. The men and children were to follow. The machine sent us, one traveler at a time, to earth—a nearly parallel planet, but better, having so far avoided mass destruction by its own hand.

           When I stepped into the machine, my whole body shook. I kissed my husband goodbye.

           “I’ll be right behind you,” Bob said. Then he pressed the button.

           I kept my eyes on his face until it disappeared. I heard I high-pitched screeching noise, and then I blacked out, waking up lying in a field of damp grass, my sleeves wet. But I was alone. The others that had come before me weren’t there. And Bob never appeared.

           Our worlds were so similar that I had no trouble assimilating. I got a job and found a place to live while watching for Bob or the others. But no one appeared. Eventually, I make a new life for myself. But I’ve lived so long with secrets.

           I look around me and see that the other interns are all women. The men and children never made it. We don’t know why.

           I’ve lived on earth for nearly as long as I had in my home world. Without hope for the future, without my beautiful husband, without Miriam, they might as well kill me. And I know they will.