Chapter Twenty-Seven

A volume could be written about the impressions I got from the would-be writers in that class, and I daresay that any student of culture could draw a great deal of information on the local population just based on how I was featured in the stories I would hear when they were eventually read at the start of the next class.

However, while I did request and receive copies from those who wrote to feature me in their one shot short stories, which I eventually released in a short compendium to my larger volumes of studies on humans, this is not the place you will find them.

Some of my colleagues, one of whom would prove quite vexing in time when we finally met, would be particularly critical of withholding those stories from this particular volume.

However, instead the choice was mine and I made it. Class came and went, and I parted ways with Lisa as quickly as we began. I worked that day and filled out idle paperwork in between the arduous task of ordering the local unit’s database of documents and information into something sensible.

Truth be told, nothing of note, even by my standards, happened that day, which is why I gloss over it to cover the next day of class, and where I, and the others, read their brief stories out loud.

Those same critics would level their clucking tongues and accusing fingers at me for including a fraction of my own work where I excluded the others, but I assure you, this is justified.

Our plump but energetic teacher leveled her pudgy finger at me and said my name, “Bailey, you may read, now.”

To my eternal gratitude, I was the last to go, and so I had time to brace myself mentally. I told myself over and over, ‘Just treat it like your doctoral presentation… it’s just like that, just practice.’ I tried not to be nervous, though my tail drooped a little, and a mortifying ‘awww’ came from somewhere in the tiny sea of faces when that became obvious.

But I did my best, she stepped aside, nodded encouragingly, and left the podium to me. At that moment, I recalled the way Fauve stood in front of hundreds of adults, and I wondered with awe that any human, any creature, could be that brave.

All I could be, was just me, which at that moment, didn’t feel like very much at all. I lowered my head and looked down at my datapad, cleared my throat, and read. “My story is titled, ‘If Only’. By, Bailey Walker.”

“I do my best, and I am so tired… she won’t sleep, she won’t cooperate… if only I had time for me… if only… if only… if only…”

“If only they knew how much I loved them, if only they knew how much I cared, wouldn’t they return the same to me, if only they knew, would they dare…”

“The warmth of the sweets that I give them, and the warmth of the sweets I consume…” I will spare you the rest of my awful first attempt at a fictional work. I had written the short story in poetry form, which was meant to show the frustration of a single mother who ate sweets to feel something good while feeling unappreciated in her home.

I felt the long, quiet stare of my teacher a little too much for my liking, and when I stopped reading my short page, it was several lengthy seconds which felt like minutes, before at last our teacher said…

“A… very good first effort. Not very action oriented, but very emotive. Still, try to flex your creative muscles a little, fiction can be anything, you could have her flee from it all by jumping into space on a pogo stick or an alien shows up and sweeps her off her feet or she develops super powers and suddenly everything is easy, only it leaves her unfulfilled now that there’s no challenges left… do anything, and the less real it is, the more it can touch the audience. The best familiar in fiction, is far removed from reality, but still also touches home in just the right ways.”

She gave me a very fragile smile, I’d seen it before, on Fauve, William, and Rebecca, when they were sure they should smile but weren’t sure they could keep it up.

She knew.

Humans are a disturbingly perceptive species in some ways. In a way, I failed. If I had made it more outlandish, she wouldn’t have seen who it was about, but I was so focused on the details… talk about an error.

After class, Lisa seemed to notice my distress and she gave the fur on my arm a little tug, “Coffee?” She asked.

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“Work starts in an hour.” I told her, and she tugged my fur again.

“Coffee is five minutes away and work is seven on a scooter. So? Coffee?” She asked and tilted her head up at me with a playful smile that was really more of a taunt, she leaned forward a little and tilted her head up so that the autumn leaf design of her hair swayed a little.

I do not know why, but I have a hard time saying ‘no’ when these humans ask me to do things. I rubbed the back of my head, my ears flopped down and my tail wagged a little, “Yeah, yeah sure.” I said and began to walk beside her.

The buildings may have been largely square or rectangular, but the University of Louisville seemed to love to make the interiors ‘round’ for some reason, with open corridors and each level able to look down on the one below it.

I drew some funny looks and some surprised ones too, but… those I could blow off. But from a very small number of human males, I drew looks of outright hostility.

Their glowers were matched by the brief baring of teeth, but none approached me and Lisa seemed not to notice them. Another of my kind might have been confused, but I was not. I knew that despite the help of Percival, there were still those out there who were convinced all aliens were a threat, and from my own casual browsing in weak moments, I knew that some awful things were said of how I related to my human family.

That didn’t linger on my mind for long however, as we made our way downstairs in short order and stood in line at a small counter while Lisa fiddled on her datapad. “There, order placed.” She said and stowed it in her backpack.

“You what, now?” I asked.

“I ordered for us both, don’t worry, this one is on me.” She said, “You grab us a table, I’ve got nowhere to be until practice, and you’ve got nowhere to be till work, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get our table early.” She pointed out, it was an efficient argument that no dlamisa could resist.

“Uh, yeah, yeah sure.” I agreed and looked to the side area where out of dozens of tables, only two or three remained open, the hubbub of chatter wasn’t that bad, despite the little crowd. It reminded me of the bar on the ship that brought me to Earth in the first place. Now here I was again with yet another ‘Lisa’ who was seemingly just as charming. ‘I still have that liquor she gave me…’ I thought it over and licked my lips. ‘No, no, save it for a special occasion.’ I told myself, but before I thought too much about that, my new Lisa sat down across from me.

The table was round, small, and just perfect for two, and she asked me abruptly, “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” I protested.

“You don’t have to say.” She said and slid the thick paper cup over to me, the hot steaming liquid drifted up to taunt my nose with the scent of that wonderful, rich, dark bean.

“But,” she took a sip of her cup, “William did tell me you’re a terrible liar.”

“A lot of things.” I admitted, deception it seems, was not my greatest skill.

“You don’t have to say.” She repeated herself, “But nobody here is listening. Well, except for me.” She pointed to herself with one finger, “And besides, you want to be focused for your job here in a little while, right?”

The threat to my efficiency loomed large in my mind, and I went over how the weight of my deadline for an experiment loomed larger every day, how I was upset that I made Fauve worry she’d done something wrong, and how I screwed up that assignment by making it obvious to the teacher that she was the subject.

Lisa remained quiet through it all, and herein I must add, one of the human’s finest strengths is their capacity for empathy.

From a scientific standpoint it simply refers to the capacity to learn by observation, to understand the motives of others, it is part of why humans undergo a prolonged period of maturation and learning before they grow to adulthood. But this hyperempathetic trait was so powerful that this human I barely knew, not only managed to identify that I was disturbed, but able to get me to talk about it.

Empathy, in this regard, is not only the capacity to understand, but also to care. Their ability to connect thought and feeling, action and decision, is far superior to any other predatory species I have ever encountered. It made me wonder how it is that humans, with this hyperempathetic trait, were ever able to take the lives of their fellow men.

I resolved to make a study of human war culture and history later, but in that moment it was just a wave of relief washing over me to vent to someone who would listen and reassure me that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

That however, was interrupted by the buzzing of my datapad.

“Just one moment.” I said and Lisa sipped quietly on her coffee while I pulled out the pad and unlocked it.

“Oh… this is unexpected.” I said as I read through the message.

“What’s that?” Lisa asked, she leaned forward over the table as if to look at the tablet for herself.

“The merchant vessel, the one I’m supposed to handle, they got slingshotted by a rogue star passing through space, that greatly increased their speed and… well… they’re going to be here in a few days.”

“Is that bad?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know, based on what this says, they heard about bourbon, whiskey, and… various other things, and with them being ahead of schedule, plus with the probable damage to the ship from the slingshot maneuver… Do you think Louisville has enough liquor to keep a cargo ship full of really… really drunk Dlamisan merchant sailors happy, once they find out what the stuff is like?” I had my doubts about that, but Lisa seemed not to as she only reached out, tapped the black tip of my nose and said…

“Challenge accepted.”