What's Eating You?

What’s Eating You?

“Can I take your order?”

“Definitely, not too hungry today. Just the ribeye steak, medium with baked potato, lobster tail, chicken a la king and…the veal parmesan, just the sandwich, I don’t need the full meal.”

The server looked at me, her eyebrows raised so high, they disappeared into the 50’s beehive she was still sporting.

“What, no appetizers?” I was almost positive she was being sarcastic.

“No, not today, gotta watch my figure, you know,” I responded patting the paunch which people insisted gave me a “dad bod.” I was bewildered by the statement, I don’t know how many times I’d told my colleagues I had no offspring.

“Huh. Anything to drink?”

“Better bring me a diet cola.”

“Of course that’s what you want.” She went away shaking her head and muttering something about full moons.

Allow me to introduce myself, Jasper Le Fou, scientist and inventor. I generally don’t leave my lab for anything for fear that competitors will get in and steal my secrets, but today I felt a particular need for human interaction.

Lulu the waitress wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but she would have to do.

I wasn’t lonely, you understand, unfortunately due to one of my recent experiments, these days, I was never alone.

“I’m hungry where’s the food?” There was a whisper in my ear.

“It’s coming, you’ll have to be patient,” I put my hand in front of my mouth, as if I was smothering a cough. It wouldn’t do for the other diners to see me talking to myself. It might draw attention and that was the last thing I needed.

Perhaps I should explain from the beginning. I was always fascinated by the thought of life on other planets and made it my life’s work. I’d invented a communication device which could send transmissions deep into outer space. After 40 years of disappointment, a month ago, I received a response!

About much discussion back and forth, we decided that since the alien’s travel abilities were much greater than our own, RALF (Remote Alien Life Friend) would come to earth. What we hadn’t counted on was his (I use “his” simply for convenience’s sake, as they are a genderless society, I preferred to use that pronoun as “It” sounded somewhat frightening, not sure why) inability to survive in earth’s atmosphere without a human host. Of course, I volunteered, after all, RALF had come a long way for a consultation, it only seemed fair.

Lulu started slamming plates down on my table. She was running out of room.

“I guess I should have picked a table for 4,” it was a weak joke and Lulu didn’t seem to appreciate it.

After she placed the last one down, she put her hands on her ample hips and glared at me.

“Are you one of them restaurant fixer upper guys?”

“I beg your pardon?” I was completely bewildered by her question.

“Those restaurant blokes! Them that come into a place, order a bunch of food, say it’s all crap and then take a week to fix everything, the food, the walls so customers come flooding in, running the poor workers off their feet?”

“No, no. I’m not one of them..er..those guys.”

“Then why all the food?”

“Just have to feed the tapeworm…”

No reaction.

“Huh. That’s too bad, the walls could use some sprucing up.”

She stalked off without another word.

As I tucked in, I felt the now familiar feeling of bites of food I was putting in my mouth vanishing before I even had a chance to taste it. When RALF was full, the normal sensation of chewing and swallowing would return.

“That was very good. Thank you,” came a murmur in my ear. RALF was unfailingly polite.

There was some of the chicken left and most of the parmesan, that would be enough for me.

As I enjoyed the leftovers, RALF was thinking out loud, internally. “I could take you back to my home, my people are more used to doing these extractions….but you’d have no more success surviving in my atmosphere than I had here….maybe we could stop off at another planet and find a skilled surgeon….”

This was the difficulty that had plagued us for days. The integration had gone so smoothly, it hadn’t occurred to us that the uncoupling would be so fraught with danger.

RALF and I had shared lots of information, but he was getting homesick for his planet and I was looking forward to not sharing my space anymore.

“Ya want dessert?”

“Just coffee.”

Lulu brought me a cup and waved the check in my face.

“We close in a half hour.”

I pulled a handful of bills out of my wallet and handed them to her. “Keep the change.”

“You crazy, mister? There’s a couple hundred bucks here!”

“Is that not enough? I’ve got another hundred or so.”

“You are one strange customer. A couple of hundred is more than enough.”

Her eyes sharpened as she looked at my neck.

“I don’t want to alarm you, mister,” she whispered, “but there’s something moving inside your sweater! It’s a big sucker.”

As Lulu drew her hand back, as if to slap me, I realized what she was seeing. Usually, RALF was more discreet, but he was so agitated at the moment, he wasn’t being very careful.

I thought fast. “It’s fine, it’s a…pet.”

She froze. “Did you bring a rat in here? We don’t allow vermin, gives the place a bad name.”

“He’s a support animal, unusual, yes but I don’t care for dogs, messy, slobbery things.” I made a face.

“I’m a scientist, you see, so a lab rat makes more sense.”

“You’ve paid your bill; you need to leave now. And take your..pet with you!”

Lulu chased us out the front door with a broom and the door slammed behind us.

I wasn’t looking forward to going back to the lab, RALF and I hadn’t made any progress there. Maybe the fresh air would give us some perspective.

I wasn’t paying any attention where I was walking which I realized was a mistake when I was surrounded by a trio of young thugs.

“Gimme your wallet, pops. You were flashing a lot of green in the diner, don’t really think you need it all. We can use it though, consider it your contribution to our education fund.” Hoots of laughter came from all the boys.

The one facing me was flashing a knife, I didn’t want to dwell on what weapons the other ones might be carrying.

I dropped my wallet, my hands were shaking so badly. As they grabbed for it, I tried to get away, but I stumbled and fell. They were on me like wolves and all I had was regret that after making first contact with RALF he would die so far from home.

All of a sudden, the blows stopped. “RALF, are you hurt?” I muttered.

I could feel him struggling to speak and I despaired. Now more than ever he needed his own people to save him and we didn’t have a solution yet.

I was aware of someone standing over me, I knew I should have never left the lab! If this was the end, I was going to meet it head on, I looked up expecting a knife to the heart, but it wasn’t the mugger. It was Lulu’s face and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

She was casually holding a cast iron frying pan and the muggers were in an unconscious heap behind her.

I threw caution to the wind, “It’s not a pet,” I gasped, “It’s an alien and he’s dying! Somehow you have to help me get him home, but I have no idea how.”

Lulu nodded once. “I’ve got just the tool; I’ll be right back.”

She was only gone a few seconds, but it seemed like eternity.

“This’ll do the trick!” She tore open my sweater and produced a tool that looked like a turkey baster. Lulu expertly applied it to RALF, pulling his essence into the tube and then expelled it with such force it ascended into the atmosphere, looking like a shooting star.

I swore I heard, “Thank you my friend, for everything,” like an echo as he disappeared from sight.

I turned to look at Lulu with wide eyes, “How..who..what?”

As she lifted the beehive wig and resettled it on her antenna, she winked and said, “next time you want to talk to aliens, you don’t have to go so far. You should come for dinner on Friday, we have a great blue plate special!”