Waste Not

Waste Not

by Tara Tyler

I hate my life.

Danae absent-mindedly strolls through the grocery store, past the creamed corn and sweet peas, plunking a can of green beans into her cart.

With three of her kids gone on their own and one teenage girl left in the nest who’s never around, Danae wonders what’s left of her life? Her job at the utility company is boring, and so is her husband. She catches a glimpse of her drab reflection in a refrigerator door. She’s always surprised at how old and overweight she is. She used to be skinny and pretty. How did she change so drastically overnight?

With a sigh, Danae finishes her shopping. She feels invisible and useless. After college, she was going to be somebody, change the world. Now look at her. No one would notice if she disappeared. Maybe she could run away.

In the parking lot as she puts her bags into the car, a green beam of light surrounds her from above and sucks her up into the clouds.

~ ~ / \ ~ ~

What happens to earth women at 50? This is the tenth one this week.

Half-way up, the beam stalls and almost drops her. Dor whacks the console with his fin, and finishes reeling her in.

The immobile, dark-complected woman squints at him then gawks at the inside of his ship. Instead of showing the usual fear, she’s irritated.

“Is this some kind of joke? Jordan? Is that you?”

Dor blinks his large eye at her. Who’s Jordan?

“Jordan is my joke-playing son. Wait. Did you just talk in my head?”

Yes. He floats her over to an upright, partially-inclined operating table.

“So this is for real?”

Yes. Straps reach out and restrain her.

“How are you doing that?”

He rolls his eye. Humans are so dumb. I’m a telepath and telekinetic.

“Well you need to tele-put me back right now!”

Dor ignores her.

“You look at me with that big green eye when I’m talking to you.”

He blinks at her.

“Who’s in charge here?”

I am.

“You? You’re just a kid. But judging by the state of this messy, smelly ship, I believe it. What a dump! This must be a low-level job seeing as you have no manners whatsoever, jerking me around, strapping me to this table. Or is torturing humans what you do for fun? Where’s your mother?”

Dor puts her to sleep. What a racket.

While he works inserting tubes and wires into his specimen, he glances around. Living alone for so long, he never cared about his entrailings or used nutrition bags lying around. And without a nose, smelly isn’t a thing.

Once the woman is set, Dor cleans up. If his boss popped in for a surprise inspection, he’d get demerited, or worse, demoted. In a way, the woman helped him.

He enters her dream. The woman is lying on a beach with servants attending to her. Interesting.

In her peaceful stasis, she reminds him of his own mother.

He wakes her up.

~ ~ / \ ~ ~

Blinking at her surroundings, Danae thinks she’s still dreaming. Then she remembers where she is and scowls at the little purple, scaly alien hovering next to her with his flippery fins for hands and feet, plus two more on his head, and a third overgrown one in the middle flopped down covering half his huge eye like a rebellious teenager trying to look all that. The only clothes he’s wearing is a black sash that loops around his back, crossing in the front with some shiny shapes on it. He looks like a mutated swamp monster boy scout. Or a fishy Napoleon. Probably has an inferiority complex too.

She sniffs at him and looks away.

I apologize. My name is Dor. I trust my ship is more acceptable now.

She huffs.

Well, it won’t be much longer. I’m almost done with your analysis.

Raising an eyebrow at him, she reassesses him and her situation. Not much longer until what? Is he going to let her go? All the wires and tubes make her wary and a little scared. What’s he doing to her?

Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.

She frowns. Darn telepath.

He checks the monitors.

“You must be lonely.”

His upper fins sort of shrug. It’s not bad.

“In a strange way, you remind me of my son.”

He blinks at her. I was just thinking that you are like my mother.

“Really?” She never thought about an alien having a mother.

Yes. Our worlds aren’t so different.

She squints at him. “How’s that?” She assumed his world was all watery.

The surface is different, but the social dynamics are very similar.

She keeps forgetting about his telepathy. She’ll never be able to come up with a plan to escape with him in her head.

You’re right. You can’t escape. But soon you won’t want to.

Ugh. “So how are we the same?”

Every civilized world follows a pattern. We are ahead of yours by a century. You are at the Golden Age, but soon will have to search for life-sustaining alternatives like us.

“Selfish leaders and wasted resources?”

Yes. How did you know?

“Seems appropriate. So why’d you take me?”

We need harvesters.

She squints at him again. “You’re harvesting…” Then she laughs. “I hate to break it to you, but my well is dry.”

Dor laughs in her head. Oh, we don’t want your eggs.

Danae sobers. “Oh. Then I ask again. Why’d you choose me? I’m too weak to do any harvesting. I’m nothing, nobody.”

Exactly. You’re perfect.

A bright light flashes in Danae’s eyes, hypnotizing her.

~ ~ / \ ~ ~

Dor has the lobotomizer delicately remove her brain. As the reprogrammer replaces it with a hard drive, Dor’s eye smiles, and he dunks the ripe brain in a jar.

Danae is a smart one and strong-minded, yet ignorant of her potential, still full of advice and care-taking tendencies.

Just like my mother.