Chapter Thirty-Eight

“That’s so… sad!” Celia said and dabbed a tissue against the corners of her eyes one right after the other, the tissue she used wasn’t the first by any means. A small pile of them now littered the table. “She loves him so much, but she ruined his life, killed his father and little sister… she can never make that right!” The haunting music played as the masterful art rolled on…

Celia might be new to the intensity of the emotions belonging to humans, but she definitely understood them all quite well, and this one was a bit much… as evidenced by her sorrowful tears and the pile of dampened yellow tissues scattered around a now nearly empty box.

Not that I blamed her.

“Yeah… yeah it is. She was just a little girl who felt betrayed, she didn’t know any better.” I couldn’t agree more.

“So, I have a dumb question.” Celia asked and let out a little sniffle.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That. Hurt. Me.” Celia said and patted one hand over her chest, “But I want more. So… is something wrong with me? Why do I want more of that?”

All I could do is shake my head and reach for a bag of chips, I threw one salty yellow chip into my mouth, crunched down on it, and said as I watched the first and last tolling of the clock in the hall, “If you figure that out, Celia, you’ll know more about being human, than I do. So… want me to hurt you some more?” I asked.

“Yes, please.” She said at once, and we started to watch two children starve to death during a global war. As that one came to a close, my appetite quite gone, I set the remote down and gauged Celia’s reaction.

Alright, truth time. I’m not proud of this. I’m not proud of the fact that I deliberately made her as sad as possible before asking for her help. Look… I know I seem bubbly, outgoing, friendly… but what good is any of that if there’s nobody to bubble over with, nobody to be outgoing with, nobody to be friendly with… what use is any of it? Maybe that sounds selfish, I don’t care. I was just glad someone was here, and I- I put my hand out and patted her knee while she wiped away her tears.

When there’s someone to shed tears with you, they talk half of your own.

So I really felt bad about making her feel this way in order to prepare to ask her for something.

“Hey… Celia?” I asked, my voice went up an octave when I asked, and she cast an eye my way.

Stolen story; please report.

“You know that guy you bumped into, the one who does the cleaning and whatnot?” I pressed, and she gave an acknowledging nod of her head.

“His cousins, they got into a bad accident somehow… it did something to them, took away their brains, kind of. It left them unable to function, like they’re starved for support or something, I don’t really know about how human brains work that much.” I chewed on my lower lip for a moment, but went on before she could interject, “That whole family, whatever there is of them, they’re just sad, all the time. And I was wanting to get one of those medical doodads… you know the ones I mean. I was thinking we use it and maybe…”

Celia listened while I told her what I was thinking.

When I was done, she looked at me like I was crazy.

“You want me to request one of those things?” She asked.

“You used to work in supplies and requisitions before you started painting, don’t you still know somebody who could get you one?” I asked.

“Well sure, that’d be easy, but if somebody asked why you’d want one of those on a planet that hadn’t even reached category Type One civilization even by their own measures, what do you say? What do I say?” She asked.

“I’ll say I had an idea to use one for assassinations, but it didn’t work out. They all already think I’m crazy, the idea of me doing murder experiments with medical technology will make them scratch their heads, but nobody will question it. That would mean spending time with me, and none of them want that.” I huffed at their poor taste in people, and still riding high on her recent hit of sadness, she agreed.

It’s easy to get empathetic people to help if you make them sad first… if she hadn’t felt that way, she probably would have said no… and then I’d be out of luck. But damn I felt awful for playing her this way, even if it was for something important.

I’d make it up to her in my own way, but I did promise myself… not that I’d never do that again, though I tried to hide the determined look I gave her out of the corner of my eye… But instead, that this would never become ‘normal’ for me.

Alright, fine, judge me. Tell me I should have vowed never do it again. But that’s stupid. How can anyone make promises about the future tomorrow, let alone for the rest of their lives? You might as well promise immortality to the mortal as promise anything with the words ‘always’ or ‘never’ in them.

“Ice cream and heartache?” I offered.

“How about something funny instead?” Celia suggested.

The icecream teleported into my hand… along with a couple of plastic spoons, and I handed her the golden ice cream, a personal favorite of mine, after chocolate, and then I added… “You get to pick everything for the rest of the night.” I handed her the remote and popped the lid off the chocolate one I kept for myself, and started to dig in.

As she sorted through shows and asked me questions about the ones I knew, I told her what ones I thought she might enjoy best, and true to form…

She picked one about a school filled with children tasked with trying to kill their teacher, a funny looking ‘alienish’ guy with a big yellow head. In a few seconds she was bouncing around on the couch with her hand up singing along with one of the honestly bounciest themes I’ve ever heard.

“Again?” I asked as her mouth formed into a little pout when the intro ended.

“Yes.” She said, and restarted the episode. To make it better, I put my hand up and sang along with her through the end.

The intro takes about ninety seconds. We did that for about ten-ish.

If you can’t do embarrassing things with your friends and have fun with it, what is even the point?