“Look at me, Arthur.”
Of course I obeyed. I think I was hyperventilating because my hands had gone numb. Terrifying Female had disappeared, replaced by what looked like a ghost – a grayish, see-through woman in Victorian dress.
“You like?” she said. “Better than Hollywood, no?”
I must have looked about to pass out because she suggested I return to my chair.
“I’m scaring you, Arthur, so sorry for that. But just trying to get my point across, you know what I mean?”
She or it did not look sorry. “Cat got your tongue again?
I wanted to spit at her, but how could I? She was apparently all-powerful while I was a mere ant.
“The thing is,” she said, “that you and others waste so much time with this nuts and bolts UFO business.
Checking for marks in the soil at landing sites; the search for the removable alien implant. Fun to watch, but after a while….well, come on. I mean just look, Arthur!”
And before my now bleary eyes, she morphed from the Victorian ghost into a quite convincing Grey alien with giant, lustrous black eyes and little stick arms and legs.
I closed my eyes out of desperation. It was all too much. Possibly, if I fell asleep, I could wake up later and believe it had all been a nightmare. But no.
The little Grey bent over me, giving off a strange odor of soil and mold and shoved a long, boney finger up my right nostril to retrieve a tiny silver ball. The procedure hurt like hell. I think I was bleeding.
“See?” he said, holding the pellet in front of my face. “Your own pretty little implant.” Then he popped the thing into his mouth and made little chewing noises.
By now, it was evident that this thing’s intentions weren’t exactly friendly, though I did not know if it actually planned to destroy me. Though I had, like probably every other ufologist or paranormal researcher, read about John Keel’s trials with Men-in-Black activity, somehow I had never expected such interference or threats to come to me. But here it was in full regalia, and unpleasantly stunning enough to make those of John Keel pale in comparison.
“Why are you torturing me?” I asked. “For someone like you, with apparently unlimited powers, what pleasure is it to torment a mere nothing?”
The ugly little alien formed back into Terrifying Female.
“I love you, Arthur,” she said.
I wanted to roll my eyes, but under the circumstances thought that might not be prudent.
“You don’t believe me. I do permit rolling of eyes, Arthur. I do, after all, have a sense of humor.”
“What are you?” I whispered through a clenched jaw.
She laughed. “I thought you would never ask. Have you read the Koran, perhaps?”
“Just excerpts. Why?”
“I am not promoting Islam,” she said. “All giant and organized religions are constructs perpetuated by us, as you might have figured out by now? We keep things going with BVM sightings and other assorted events to wow the gullible.” She laughed. “No, definitely not promoting it. But it is the only religion that currently acknowledges our existence. It mentions us several times, as a matter of fact, about how we were formed before humans, how we once ran the earth?”
Suddenly, the knowledge of who she was hit me like the proverbial ton. “No,” I said.
“Yes,” she corrected. “And you know the tradition then, my sweetness, that every human has one of us for the length of each pathetic little incarnation. Some of us just remain quiet and you never ever know. And some of us, well…have more interesting personalities.”
I suddenly thought of my mother who’d claimed she had a personal fairy. And my aunt Marie who believed she had a full time guardian angel.
My visitor continued, her face now taking on a petulant expression. “But Arthur, it is beyond me why something that lives so pathetically short a span and is obviously so weak should be held higher in esteem than we, the Djinn, now are. You can’t imagine how that rankles.” She sounded menacing.
Was this when she was going to snuff me out? Why not just get on with it – the wait was unbearable. “I-I can certainly imagine how it would rankle,” I cravenly said, not knowing at all what she was talking about.
Although it was coming back to me now, what I had read about the Djinn. According to Muslim tradition, God had first created the angels from light. They had no free will. Next He made the Djinn from smokeless fire (whatever that was – plasma maybe?) and they did have free will. And apparently, this creation ran the earth for a long time, but somehow displeased God and He then produced man from dirt and told the Djinn they had to bow before this new creation. Some of the Djinn refused since they considered themselves above man and this ticked God off so much that He cast them into an alternate dimension.
If this was true (and how could I doubt it now?) no wonder they were furious. And here was one in front of me, not a myth or fairy story at all, but right in my living room. A jealous and outraged being with way more power then I could hope to possess.
“Yes, well, don’t try to placate me, child. I can see through every machination of your teensy little mind. I can see right now that you remember who I am.”
Of course she could see through me. She was the higher dimensional being leaning over the table and deciding whether to facilitate a head on collision or to let me survive once again.
“It is true though,” she went on, “that in spite of the unfairness of it all, we do often love our charges. Occasionally, we make their lives miserable, but we usually do love them at least a little.”
We stared at each other, me about to soil my pants, while her expression was placid. She waved a long nailed hand and suddenly, I felt a bit calmer. “Arthur, I do enjoy tormenting you. Like that business with your wife and the world’s worst lover bit. It was me who put that into her head.”
My mouth dropped open.
“I didn’t like her, Arthur. Such a stupid little, self-centered thing. For the most part, I cannot endure human females and certainly none of them I have seen are worthy of you. If you ever feel that you must engage in sexual activity, I can certainly accommodate –“
The look on my face must have stopped her. So this was why I had led such a lonely life…I could not bear to carry that thought any further.
“So there are no aliens at all then?” I ventured to ask, my voice breaking. After all I had invested most of my career in trying to find out.
“Who knows? The universe is immense, the planets myriad. But then how do you know that space actually exists and is not some sort of holodeck made just for your entertainment?” She laughed. “That look on your face is priceless.”
“Ghosts?” I said. “Life after death?”
She became angry. “Life after death? Why would humans be elevated if they were just dust? But I will tell you this – where once we were stewards of the earth and failed, well, it certainly looks as if you are the ones failing now! The Creator’s so-loved humans have turned out to make as big a mess as we once did. Your wars and pollution and your self-serving nature! What you do to the world affects us too!”
She paused and looked off into space.
“Enough for now, Arthur,” she finally said and turned her scarily beautiful face from me to raise her round, shapely arms and disappear in a column of smoke.
I haven’t been the same since. After closing down my UFO website, I put in for more engineering classes at the university; might as well teach full time now. I did try to explain it all to a couple of ufologist colleagues, but no one took me seriously. “Arthur’s been working too hard,” they whispered amongst themselves.
She has not yet returned, but I sleep with one eye open. I lost weight and while I now know what caused my wife to be so nasty, not enough of my confidence has returned to enable me to search for someone new. Besides, she is watching.
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