Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Lucky
“Oh my god, fuck you, Emmet!”
I scream the curse as my underwear comes floating out of the third story window. Bras, panties, a full rainbow of lingerie cascading through the sky, hurled by my loser ex-boyfriend who is kicking me out of his apartment.
“No! Fuck you, Lucky! Fucking bitch!”
He’s cursing me out as if I deserve it. He’s the one who fucked around on me. He’s the one who stole money from my account. I’m just the one who gave his weed stash to the neighbors. Ever seen a grown man throw a tantrum over some gummy bears? I’m watching that shit happen right now.
“You keyed my fucking car!” He hurls the accusation, along with my best Victoria’s Secret.
“No I didn’t, you dick! Someone else who hates you did that.”
He pushes his head further out the window, and then pushes his long hair out of his eyes. “Who the fuck else hates me, Lucky?”
“I don't know? Everyone!?”
“It’s true!” Mrs Weber from downstairs sticks her head out the window too. “I hate you both!”
We’re that couple. The couple that fights outside and everybody hears, but nobody says anything. We’re trash. No self-control. No pride. No respect for ourselves or anybody else. This is humiliating, but we’ve reached that point in a fight where you either run away crying or get a little more crazy — and I’ve never been one to run away crying.
I open my mouth to scream something back at Mrs Weber, as well as Emmet, but the world gets all weird and wobbly…
Terrible
The human is in the process of materializing before me in the transporter bay. I have a uniform ready for her, along with a list of tasks. As soon as she is fully formed I will…
“YOU. FUCKING. DICK!”
She incarnates completely, and proceeds to scream the three words into my face at full human volume. I can only presume the outburst was buffering when she was taken, which means this is how she behaves as a matter of general course. How perfectly, predictably human. She’s also a day late and a dollar short as some of them might say. DICK was destroyed in a previous human-related adventure. The universe is now quite without DICK.
“Who the fuck are you?”
She follows the curse up with another curse, this time in the form of a question. How wildly innovative. I can see that this human is feisty. Judging by the hue of her skin and the wideness of her eyes, the flaring of her nostrils and the waves of pure hostility emanating from her, she was recently involved in some kind of conflict. I have saved her from that, but she does not seem grateful.
“I am the alien who is going to whip you until you learn respect, and then put you to work.”
There are so many possible responses to that sentence. She has just been pulled from one reality to another. She must be disoriented, her feeble brain unable to comprehend what has occurred.
“Doing what?” She lifts her chin and asks the question, her blue eyes narrowed with a particularly interesting kind of focus. That is a surprise. I was expecting more general human burbling along the lines of wha-wha-huh? Something like that.
“Whatever I tell you to. You will work as my assistant.”
“I’ve never had a job before," she says. “Could be cool. What’s the pay like?”
I look her up and down, assessing my choice. At a distance she seemed marginally more suitable than she does now. I couldn’t smell her down there. Now I am assaulted by a very human scent, and several layers of human-related smells which range from smoke, to food, to… I don’t recognize it, but I know I do not like it.
“You seem to be in your mid-twenties. How is it you have never had a job?”
“Never got abducted by an alien either. First time for everything.”
She is taking this remarkably well in stride.
“Should you not be panicking and asking human questions like, where am I? What’s happening?”
“Nah. I did DMT with a guy who said he was a shaman once, I’m used to weird shit. Besides, they told us aliens exist a while ago, but most of us weren’t paying any attention because of the plague. Besides, my boyfriend just kicked me out, and rents are fucking crazy, so I figure this is kind of a good deal, depending on how much you pay me and if you’re going to probe me.”
She has far more self-possession than any creature of her kind deserves to have. She should be panicked and awed. She should be groveling before me, tearfully demanding to be returned to her planet. Instead, she takes something plastic out of her pocket and starts sucking on it.
“What are you doing?”
“Vaping, aren’t I?”
I do not understand the purpose of answering a question with a question which is actually merely a statement. I can only assume she intends to be annoying. It is working. I was already annoyed by being expected to traipse around with a human, who will obviously not help the situation we find ourselves in at all. Now she is sucking on a hot plastic stick which is emitting an unpleasant carbon smell.