Sunday February 10th, 2019

I implore you to have pity on Adeline Crane. The 87-year old retired office assistant had developed debilitating bilateral cataracts that not only blurred her vision but made her eyes rather sensitive to glare and intense light. For this reason, she kept her home low lit with heavy antique burgundy drapes always drawn. She was, and forever had been, ideal.

I try to be silent when she enters the house today. With the gentle creak of her shoes tapping against floorboard, I lull into their metronomic thrum. She ruefully whispers to herself as her cane clatters into the umbrella stand. I could not help but release a sharp wince.

Her gaze darts to the kitchen. Feeling her way through the oak-laden cavern of this cave of a home, she manages to find her hand on the handle to the aperture above the sink and feebly tugs it shut.

I catch a glimpse of her shuddering. I sway behind her and gently pull the knitted shawl over her shoulders a little tighter.

Wednesday February 13th, 2019

Once a month, Adeline’s daughters forge an effort to pack up and stop by the home for lunch. This week, Emily Crane-Williams is the only family able to make the pilgrimage.

She arrives at half past one, announced by the softest of knocks. Atop an engorged belly rests a striking white vase. She mentions that she has brought grandpa’s ashes, as the vase settles amidst the dust atop the fireplace. Gold lettering lines the bottom of the vase, I stand to read it: “Now and Forever. Addie and Alfie.”

Addie. I whisper, enjoying the sound traveling through my lips.

Thursday February 14th, 2019

I watch as Adeline sits at the dimmed dining room table. Today, she has a series of photographs splayed across the table. Polaroids of a life I had never seen.

She stared blankly over them, as if trying to focus with her failing sight. I looked over the photos she had. Addie and Alfie Wedding, 1953. Alfie and the Girls, 1968. Then I see it. Addie is dressed in a black satin night dress and she is smiling.

There are a pair of men’s shoes in the corner. Shoes I had never seen. I groaned as her hand absentmindedly lingered over this photo. Addie, 1955. I swipe my hand over the table, knocking away the photographs.

“Who’s there?” Her voice is shaken, eyes darting around the barren kitchen, “I will call the police!”

Adeline. How much of you did you hide from me -- I mean, Alfred? Who knew about this? Her palm pressed against the table as a gasp escaped her lips.

She was fragile when she fell, the thrum of her heart fluttering as she wheezed. The final photograph fluttered onto her chest as she laid on the floor.

Adeline Ann Crane, aged 87, departed this Earth on Valentines’ Day 2019. Loving mother and survived by numerous grandchildren. She will join her husband Alfred Crane.

It was raining. The planet had 250 sunny days and 75 rainy ones. That’s how the terraformers made it. That’s why it was perfect for agriculture. It was supposed to be a sunny day. But it was raining. Marion looked up and closed her eyes, letting the drops fall onto her face. At least they washed down her tears. She allowed it. She allowed the water to collect in her deep-set eyes and then like an overflown pond the water poured out of its basin and continued its path to the ground. She allowed it for a minute. To hold her breath. To try to calm down. To be brave.

She forced herself to come back to reality, even though all she wanted to do was to forget everything but the rain. She looked down. Down at the grave they had just placed her mother in. For a second, she remembered being four years old and on a massive settlers’ ship, coming to this planet. She sat in her mother’s lap and she was telling her all about the new planet, how there would be plenty of space and how great it was to provide medical help to the first colonists. They would have a home. Fresh food every day. Marion couldn’t imagine it, she was a space station girl. She was born just as her parents were finishing their degrees.

Then another flash, another picture. Her mother valiantly bending over her equipment, trying to understand, trying to find a cure, racing against time, and then slumping over the table, the loser. Marion was there the moment it happened. She didn’t even try to make her be alive, she looked the same way her dad did a few days before. She didn’t even cry. Not until her mother’s body hit the bottom of the shallow grave they dug.

She looked away now, at the faces of her companions. Children stood around the grave. A few bending over shovels, looking at her. She was the oldest. They expected her to tell them to cover her mother’s body with dirt. Marion hesitated. She didn’t want to do it. She wanted to curl up to her mother’s warmth, hear her father’s laughter, not this. Not burry them.

There was a movement in front of her. Lily, her little sister was looking up at her now too, expectantly. She was begging her sister with her eyes, but for what? To make it all go away? To make their parents be alive? To make this a nightmare that they would all wake up from? Marion wanted to scream at her, to shout, to question what was she, what were they all expecting her to do? She was just a child herself. Before she knew it, the scream bubbled out of her, and she was shouting at the other kids to do it, cover the grave, and she turned around, running away, away. Away from everything. Away from the responsibility, the future, the dead and the living.

When she was suddenly out of breath, she stopped. Looking around she noticed that she had run into one of the gardens next to a house. An empty house, all the adults dead. There were barely any of them alive anymore, just the kids. Why would a disease kill the strong and leave the weak? That was what her mother kept asking. Marion didn’t know.

The wind caught up. Before, the rain was pouring straight down, and then suddenly a wind came. There was a roar in the sky, and Marion knew what it was, a ship. The planet was under quarantine, no one was supposed to land. Curious, and forgetting her grief for the moment, she raised her hand to shield her eyes from the downpour. It was an egg-shaped ship, bright lights coming from it. It slowly, but deliberately landed on the pad that they used for supply ships. She ran again, but this time towards the ship, hoping that there would be people to save them, to save her from having to become a mother to her sister, from a future full of hardships. She ran but stopped suddenly as she saw that the things exiting the ship weren’t people, but the aliens people called ‘demons’. Their tall, lithe bodies, alabaster skin and jewel-coloured hair made them imposing, and scary figures. There were three of them, in the middle a female of the species stood regally in flowing red fabric. She swerved her head towards Marion, fixing her eyes on the girl. She wanted to scream again at the sight of those eyes but caught herself just in time. The alien had black eyes with red pupils, and a sense of dread filled the human child.

“Do not be afraid, human, we have come to rescue you. We have a cure for the sickness ravaging the planet,” she spoke with a clear, though forced voice. “Where is your leader?”

Marion pointed towards the hut where the few remaining adults were trying to keep each other alive, and the woman glided towards it, seemingly not minding the rain. Two males followed her, obviously her guards.

The girl looked after them. She knew that everything was going to change. Her old life had died, and she was beginning a new path, without her parents, but with her sister. The thought of the unknown scared her, but she had to go on. With a new resolve, she squared her shoulders, and headed back to the grave, back to her sister, and her new life. Whatever it may bring.

#scifi #alien #death #newbeginning #children