Any human will do

It began with an abduction.

At 4:16 am, deep in the unruly dreams of a wine drunk REM sleep, Flora Rodriguez began to dissipate from reality, mid-snore. From her humble bungalow in Southern Costa Rica, the forty-three-year-old woman (fifty-eight if you were to somehow able to wrestle her ID away from her) was signed, sealed, and delivered to a Quasian star ship, tens of billions of light years away. Her atoms rematerialized in a crystaline tube and, thank Dios, her thrifted pink silk nightgown rematerialized too.

Crusty eyelids fluttered, shaking off a leftover fake eyelash from the night before. “Uugh.” Flora wiped away drool and removed her retainer. She had a love hate relationship with her retainer. On one hand, it kept her snaggle tooth from snaggling, but on the other hand it meant that she hadn’t taken Alejandro home like she had planned. Mildly disappointed and trying to remember if Alejandro was even at the bar last night, her vision came into focus.

Her jaw dropped, her fingers went limp, and the retainer fell. She shrieked. “AIIIEEEEEE! Ay Dios mio! Oh my god!”

The Quasian human handler peered into her pod with bulging, bulbous eyes, full of galactic infinity. Flat in body, rotund in head, the extraterrestrial sat or stood or leaned or who knows, in front of the Earth woman, oozing enough mucus to make a snail blush. It had enough tentacles to intimidate an octopus and enough spines to shame a cactus.

Flora’s lungs ceased operation, opting to try and discontinue life rather than make sense of it. For once in her life, her brain went blank. No words found their way into the world through her big mouth. No thoughts. No anything.

Just fear.

Frozen fear.

The Quasian took a step back in the center of the control room. It spun and slapped the floor repeatedly, creating a sound unheard by any human before this, popping mucus bubbles that ran down the bottom side of its tentacles. Something between an airhorn and a trumpet with a little bit of macarena thrown in.

The Quasian performed its little dance and then stopped, waiting for a response.

Flora forced her lungs to scream. “AIIIIEEEEE! Help me, lord. Please, help me! Help!”

From behind the Quasian, another phased through the wall and joined his brother. They tentacle slapped each other in conversation, speaking a language that Flora could not and would never want to understand.

She beat the walls of her cage to no avail. Pure crystal, vibrating at a frequency unbeknownst to most humans. “Please! Help!” She screamed to the sky. “No, no, no.” She muttered. “This can’t be happening. It’s a dream. It has to be. Wake up! Please, please, wake up.” As she beat on the tube, her heart beat heavy against her ribcage. The only difference was that her heart had a better shot of breaking out.

The Quasians clobbered forward, sliding on mucus toward a metallic triangle floating in the middle of the room. One of them, they were indistinguishable from one another, slapped the triangle while the other sang to it. It glowed a deep red and words, human words, appeared on Flora’s tube.

Arabic.

The Quasian’s looked on at her, expectantly.

Flora trembled, shaking her head.

They sang to the triangle and slapped it again.

Another language, Japanese.

Flora began crying, shaking her head again.

The Quasian slapped the other and extended a tentacle through the crystal tube and into Flora’s face. She wailed, slapping at the air. It dodged and lifted the cross necklace. The tentacle slipped away as quickly as it had come, slapping the triangle again. The other Quasian sang a different tune.

English appeared.

Hello. Please do not scream. It disrupts our devices.

Flora screamed.

Please – not screa – , we mean – harm.

She screamed again.

Please do no-t -ream! We me- NO harm. See? It -isrupts our co -unication.

Flora placed a wrinkly hand over her mouth, hyperventilating through her fingers.

Good. Thank you for your patience, human. We are Quasians. Does that mean anything to you?

“N-n-no.” Flora said.

One Quasian slapped the other and words between them appeared on the screen. See? This universe is clean of any others.

The other Quasian slapped him with his tentacle in agreement. The primer manifested it perfectly. We are flying low.

“W-w-what are you?” Flora said.

We are Quasians. We created your universe.

“Y-you created the universe?”

Just your universe. There are billions of others.

“Billions?”

Yes, billions, and they are making more every day.

Flora squeezed her silver cross necklace. “You’re aliens.” She closed her eyes. “Ángel de mi guarda, dulce compañía, no me desampares ni de noche ni de día.” She opened them again and they went wide at the words on the tube.

Amen.

“Oh god, am I dreaming?”

No.

“Am I dead?”

Far from it.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Quite the opposite.

They slapped each other in communication, mucus bubbles popping like a bag of popcorn in Alejandro’s working microwave. Flora’s had broken two years ago.

We have a proposition for you, er, what is your title?

“My title?”

Your name.

“F-flora.”

Nice to meet you, Flora. I am Slainskinalorf and this is Algoskinomayawaya.

“H-hi.”

You, Flora of Earth of Universe #674802SW00D, have been chosen to become god… of this universe… behind us… of course. Do you accept?

“God?” Flora’s brain started to defrost. “There’s already a god.”

That’s true, and you’re looking at them. Do you accept or not?

“I don’t know what is being offered.”

Let us show you.

The Quasian slapped at the triangle spun and it spun rapidly, emitting a series of colors, growing brighter, ever brighter. Numbers and words all mixed together, of all languages, sped across the tube, building on each other, ever longer. Flora was sure that she was either going blind or going out of her mind. Turned out to be both. The colors merged into a pristine whiteness, and she found herself in a blank space, free of the tube and free of fear.

“Hola?” She said.

“Hola.” A voice responded, reassuring and familiar.

“Alejandro?”

“Si, hola mami. You look divine tonight.” Her heart jumped. He appeared.

“H-how are you here?”

His finger touched her lips. “This way.” She had never seen him so happy, so at peace, so… attuned to her. His eyes combed her body, hand on her waist, hungry for her. The abrupt manifestation of her most secret dream swept her away and she forgot all about the Quasians, eager to follow her lover.

“Where are we going?” She couldn’t see anything but white until Alejandro came to a dead halt. He whistled and the scene changed. They appeared in her office, if you could call the basement, where she kept the cat’s litterbox and a washing machine, an office. Under a string of Christmas lights, sat her desk. The desk she’d picked up off of the side of the road after the old schoolhouse closed down, and on that desk sat her typewriter.

An old dusty antique typewriter passed down to her by a mother who liked the sight of the thing but hated the noises that it made. She banished it to the basement and Flora didn’t have the backbone to refute it when her mother was alive or bring the damned cinderblock back up the steps after she’d died.

“My typer?” Flora said. She stopped, ran her fingers through her hair and looked around. She gripped on to his shoulders. “Alejandro. I don’t understand. Are you real?”

“I am as real as you want me to be.”

She licked at the gum hole where her canine tooth used to be, squinting.

Alejandro pulled her close and kissed her with all of the passion in the world. His tongue explored the crevasses of her mouth and Flora let it. She closed her eyes and leaned in, begging for more. When he finally pulled away, her legs went wobbly. He scooped her up, and she let out a whoop. “Alejandro!”

Unsure of how he lifted her, string bean that he was, she didn’t complain. Her arms swung around his neck, and he carried her to the chair. She was sad to be set down in it.

“Write, my love.” He told her.

Flora eyed the dusty old beast with sticky keys and a rusty carriage. A piece of old parchment paper was neatly placed in the paper shelf, ready to be inked. “Write what?”

His smile could warm the arctic. “Si. Write anything and it shall be so.”

Flora frowned, wishing she had a cigarette to calm her nerves.

“Write that.” Alejandro said. “Write the words: Flora smokes a cigarette.”

She looked at him skeptical.

“For me?” He said, with puppy dog eyes.

It would have taken a monk to say no to those eyes. She turned in her chair and sat up. Her fingers hovered over the keys as she settled into the intimate position between author and tool. In her most vulnerable, yet comfortable space, she clacked out the words with practiced ease: Flora smokes a cigarette.

Dead ash fell in between the keys.

The wonderful haze tickled her nostrils.

“Ay Dios mio.” The lit cigarette slipped from her lips and into her lap. “Aye! Aye!” She said, scooting back in the chair, brushing it away. Not on her silk nightgown!

The tobacco stick rolled under the desk, still burning. Her head twisted towards Alejandro. “Did you see that!?”

But he was gone.

…

It took months for Flora to venture back into her basement again.

She locked the door, with a chain, and tried to chalk the entire experience up to drinking dreams. After seeing the real Alejandro that next Sunday at Miss Gloria’s cookout, she realized that the more she spewed on about the incident, the more bathroom trips he was making to escape her. He hadn’t a clue.

Truth be told, neither did she.

What had happened that night?

It gnawed at her, tore away at her perception of reality. She spent days staring at the crooked basement door, eager to explore, but scared to death to what she’d find. It took two bottles of red wine, one Xanax, and three puffs of an old joint to quell her shaking fingers as she creaked open the door.

“Alejandro?” She said, cursing herself for her stupidity, yet not knowing what else to do. The whining of degrading wooden steps was her only answer. She reached the bottom and there it was. Her desk and her typewriter, just as she’d left it, except for one thing. A triangle logo upon the side of the typer.

She swallowed hard, fighting off the feeling that she was being watched. Studied. She sat down in that same silk nightgown, reassuming an author’s position. Perhaps, it would feel good to write again. Perhaps, writing out her story would prove that it wasn’t real. Perhaps…

Her breath caught in her throat, seeing the cold cigarette at her feet.

Perhaps…

Flora licked her lips and began to type: Flora holds a cigarette.

As soon as she hit the space bar, it appeared in between her thumb and forefinger as if she’d never not been holding a cigarette. Between a shuddered breath, she typed a new sentence: Flora holds a menthol cigarette.

It appeared.

Her eyes went wide, and she typed a new: Flora has a lighter in her pocket.

Before she could remember that her nightgown didn’t have a pocket, she felt something in the pocket that she wasn’t supposed to have. A lighter. “Is this the work of lucifer?” She muttered. “Or Quasian’s.”

As she said it, she knew it to be true.

An idea occurred to her. She rushed up stairs, put on two pairs of jeans, an apron, gardening gloves, and anything else she could think to use as armor. With a frying pan in hand, she barreled back to the typewriter and typed: A Quasian is in the room with Flora.

The typewriter flared red. It made a beeping noise.

No aliens appeared.

She dropped her elbows, frowned. “Huh.”

Then, her atoms collapsed, and she materialized back into her nightmare. The Quasian star ship tube. Her frying pan did not come with her, sadly. They stared at her and slapping the triangle, just as they had the month prior.

Words appeared.

Do you accept to be God?

The sight of them sent her back into a tailspin, but less so. She pinched herself just to make sure that she was awake. Blinking hard, she said, “Why me?”

You are human, are you not?

What a pregunta loco. “Y-yes, but there are billions of others.”

The Quasian’s looked at each other. It does not matter which human becomes God. Anyone will do. You are all the same. Do you accept?

“W-what does it mean to be god?”

You will have the power to alter reality, at our discretion of course.

“Please, explain.”

The universe is code. We wrote the code. You can edit the code.

“B-but why not edit the code yourselves?”

We can and we do, but… that is not the purpose of this universe. We wish to relax here. To watch.

“Like a TV show?”

Like reading a novel. We don’t want to write the novel and read it. Does that make sense?

Flora nodded. “I-I suppose. Can I really create anything that I want?”

Yes. You have creative liberty in your little life.

Something nagged at her. She’d stayed up too late watching too many crime shows too many times. If someone offered you candy, they normally had a shovel in their truck. “What’s the catch?”

We will make requests and we expect them to be honored.

“What sort of requests?”

Planets destroyed or built. People renamed. Objects moved. Random things to amuse.

She trembled at the thought of her next question, but she knew it needed to be asked. “What happens if I don’t honor the requests?”

We will stop reading your novel. Your universe will cease.

“Ay Dios mio.”

Do you accept? If you do not, someone else will.

That hit her hard. She thought of everything that waited for her back home. Everything in her life that she could change. She thought of Alejandro and how he’d been in the basement.

“Si, I accept.”

The Quasians hummed harmonic and slapped the floor.

Splendid!

…

The transition into godhood suited her well.

Finally, all of those years she found herself wanting to write something tremendous, but never knowing what, could be laid to rest. The very secret of life lay within her grasp and Flora Rodriguez mounted the beast like a seasoned rodeo star, ready to ride reality for all it was worth. Any and every idea that she had was a good one. It wasn’t long before she’d conquered, not just the typewriter, but herself. All of her innermost thoughts, feelings, and wants.

They looked so good on the page, but they were something else entirely when standing before her.

Alejandro nuzzled up into her bosom after a long night in a Switzerland luxury cabin, fit for a queen, just the two of them. He kissed at her neck, tickling her awake. “Flo, would you like me to brew a coffee?”

Flora stretched, smiling, happier than she could ever remember being in her life. “Si, papi.”

His finger traced her new chin and bopped her new nose. She’d altered them ages ago via the typewriter. “Black with salt?”

Flora kissed him. “Si, mi amor.”

Alejandro blushed, eager to please her. That’s how she made him after all. He slipped out of the room and returned with a cup of steaming joe… plus a cigarette. In Flora’s new world, they were the healthiest thing in the world behind churros and dancing.

A beeping noise from the next room over caused her head to cock.

She sighed. “Duty calls.”

“Always writing.”

“The world depends on it.” She teased and left him to cook breakfast while she cooked up new sentences. These would not be her sentences though. These would be the Quasians.

She settled into a gorgeous leather armchair in front of the old typewriter waited. Words appeared in her mind.

Have the ocean consume planet 792 in the milky way quadrant, please.

Flora leaned forward to type out a little entertaining story for them. She included a quirky jokester. They always enjoyed them and enjoyed their deaths even more. It unnerved her, but if she couldn’t see them, then they weren’t really real. Right? After the quirky jokester was drowned, she sat back waiting for another.

Have France invade Alaska.

Flora paused. They didn’t usually come to her neck of the woods. She shrugged and typed it out. No doubt the news channels would be interesting this morning. It probably wouldn’t affect her.

Have leather armchair 100939483 moved six feet to the right.

She typed it out.

“AGH!” Flora landed flat on her butt, bewildered by her chair’s sudden movement. She rubbed her hip. A bruise would no doubt form, but she told herself that she’d type it out that it healed in twenty seconds later. “Damn, Quasians.”

She dragged her chair back over and sat down. More words in her mind.

Have Alejandro Rodriguez stab himself with a steak knife.

Her heart stopped.

They had never asked anything like this before. This wasn’t their deal. The words came again, furious.

Have Alejandro Rodriguez stab himself with a steak knife.

Have Alejandro Rodriguez stab himself with a steak knife.

Have Alejandro Rodriguez stab himself with a steak knife.

Children! Manic, despicable children. That’s who these Quasians were. Flora trembeled as she typed out the words. A god, trembling. She told herself, I’ll just bring him back afterwards, but it didn’t give her any peace. That wouldn’t stop the Quasians from demanding more. That wouldn’t stop her from having to hear his screams.

Flora closed her eyes, cursing her twisted fate, and pressed the space bar.