Fiction

I’m a weekend writer with many talks of Flash Fiction written and tucked away. In my free time, I’m working on several projects that include fiction and some of them I present in the menu above, should you care to read.

This was a Flash Fiction Friday entry last year…  Hope you enjoy it!

Billet Doux

35 of Mars, 15617 BC

Dear Jon,

By the time you read this, I should almost be home. After everything we’ve been through together, I never thought that it would come to this but there you are, it seems that is the way the stones have been tossed. It has already been nearly three of your years since I’ve seen my mater, it will be good to see her again. She will surely ask about you, she always liked what I wrote about you.

Certainly you have felt this coming as well? You are so intuitive… It was one of the things that attracted me to you in the beginning, none of your kind that we have met are like that; they are all so insensitive. Our science teacher keeps telling us that your kind will not continue because of your lack of empathy. Remember that discussion we had on your porch? The only time you ever became upset with me. But it was not an affront, simply a statement. We never did speak of that again, but I’m sure you understood – you are different from the rest of your kind and you have always known that.

I wish I could bring you with me. Last week I asked Mater if it was possible to transport an Earth native, but she was vehement in her answer, not only could you not live comfortably in our atmosphere, but our culture is… quite different. There are many things I have not told you about us.

We could not have been together much longer anyway, our time on your planet is nearly done, all our student studies are nearly ended, and I most certainly could not – would not – stay on your planet on my own. In the beginning I thought perhaps it could work… but no. You had that creature in your home; that awful, furry monstrosity. How, Jon, how can you co-exist with that… thing?? And the sound it makes when you say it is happy! It is just the same sound that one of our wild carnivorous monsters makes just before it devours its prey, ripping its abdomen apart and eating the interior while the poor victim is still alive… Oh, my scales are standing up just thinking about it. You mentioned one evening how much you cared for that horrid thing, as you stroked it. Some differences between us are just too great, my love.

Do you know what I truly don’t understand? You, my dear, who is so different from the rest and endured those unkind comments when we were seen together, well then what does that make me? Am I so different from my kind as well?  I am worried about you, and my group does not understand that at all.

Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps we are all wrong. Maybe we are the ones who lack empathy.

We would never have come to the defence of a species as you have done, Jon. The way you stood up to your leaders about that, you truly captured me with that action. Those little… what did you call them… monkeys? And those clever fish, they will not be destroyed now, all because of you. I have no such legacy to pass on, but who knows, you may have created a future.

All I can do is pass on the memories of sitting with you under the wonderfully yellow sun with the beautiful orange sky, drinking that fizzy brew you enjoy so much. And how you made my… knees so wobbly when the sun went down. That is unknown among us. You have no idea how much I’ll miss that! I don’t know if I have the courage to show that to someone else.

My dear Jon, I will be back, but you will be long gone by then. I will love you forever and your love will always be with me. I can feel them both moving already, behind my knees, and I can hardly wait to have them. You will never see them and that is almost – almost – what hurts the most. (Mater will be furious with me, but has always wanted to set up the aquarium again, so perhaps I’ll be forgiven…)

Goodbye my love. Truly, I thought it might be possible but I guess that was the dreamer in me.

The dreamer in me… Oh my love, that is what made me different! You never knew, I never thought of telling you… we do not dream like you. It was the one thing we could never understand about your kind! While you sleep, while you’re awake… frankly, it’s amazing you get anything done.

That is what I shall pass on to our little ones, I will show them how to dream, and I will tell them about you, my Dreamweaver.

I shall stop now, my heart is heavy and the transport will soon leave, so I must as well. Be well, Jon, and have a magnificent life.

Forever yours,

Ananta