got to be joking.â
âI have plenty of room. Sheâs broke and pregnant. She wants to keep the kid. She hasnât said so, but it seems likely.â
âJeez, this is your kid?â
â Right , Ollie. Itâs my kid. Somehow the vasectomy and being gutted like a fish didnât do the trick.â
âIâm sorry. I was forgetting.â
Fucking incredible. I laugh out loud, electrons dancing in the midst of the Milky Way, inconclusive evidence of intelligent life. Another call comes in. Itâs Katyana.
âI have to take this,â I say.
âListen to me, Stan.â
âLater, Ollie.â
I answer.
âCome get me,â she whispers. âIâll be by the gate.â
I donât have to ask how it went. I wind back around the hill to where I left her. Avatar sits beside her like a good soldier. They get in and settle into place. I let her have a moment. Myrna showers Avatar with kisses.
âAbyss or home?â I ask.
Make no mistake. The abyss is real. Itâs a new life either way.
âHome,â she says, and smiles at me, almost like sheâs happy. Shelter from the storm. Maybe thatâs why the aliens came in the first place. It was all an accident. There was no mission. They found themselves here far from the turquoise skies of home and had to make the best of it.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
This time we drive straight through, swinging by her garage apartment to pick up a few things. We want to make it home by Christmas, and we make it just in time to watch Itâs a Wonderful Life and cry, the both of us. I set my phone up on the TV and we pose for a photo, the four of us, teary-eyed, smiling, and wagging, and send it to Ollie with our Christmas greetings to let him know weâre okay, to maybe cheer him up a little. Heâs alone these days. Nobody wants to be alone on Christmas. Weâre holding Katyanaâs Paint by Number between us, lifted from her dadâs collection of alien artifacts, as a reminder of where we came from.
The babyâshe does want to keep itâis due around Independence Day. Make of that what you will. No fireworks, however. They scare the shit out of Myrna. Next week is the New Year and fifth Tuesday, a serendipitous synchronicity we plan to celebrate in the ACAB way.
See you down by the riverside.
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Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Danvers
Art copyright © 2015 by Chris Buzelli