by Lauren Wood
“Its okay, Louise and I’ll do what I can to make this easy on you. I’m sorry that I didn’t know about the rift between you and father. I guess I had blinders on this entire time.” Vanessa was twirling her hair around on her finger and now she was biting into the strands. It was a nervous habit that she picked up from her mother. Her dark hair was the perfect contrast to her sisters blond locks. You wouldn’t even know that they were sisters, except for the slight resemblance in their faces. They had their own attitude, their own way of thinking about things and the only thing they really did have in common was a stubborn streak.
This was something that they inherited from their father, a scientist that was discredited by the community for his belief that aliens were among them. He had several pieces of documented proof, but each time that he tried to claim something in the scientific community, they would find a way to make it look like he was out of his mind. Vanessa believed in her heart that her father was grasping at straws and there were times that they had knockdown drag out fights about where his career was going.
“I know that this is not what you want to hear, Vanessa, but this is the way that it has to be. You don’t know the hell I went through caring for him, when you were off with your own life.”
Vanessa really didn’t think that she had a life and there were moments that she thought that she was just going through the motions. Her job was not something that she wanted to do for the rest of her life and her true passion was in taking photos. Unfortunately, photographers was one of those professions that were a dime a dozen.
“If only she knew that my life has not been the rosy picture that she has made it out to be. Ever since father’s death, I’ve been struggling to find my own way in the world. I want to tell my bosses that I’ve decided to move on, but without anything permanent, I feel like I’m stunted and not able to move forward.” She felt bad for trying to put her sister into a position that would find her uncomfortable. This whole thing with their father was something that came out of left field. They didn’t even know that he was sick and to find him face down in his oatmeal was a bit shocking to say the least.
“Louise, I believe that a lot of his stuff will be put out into the trash or sent to goodwill. You know his god awful suits and each time he wore one, he was proud to be one of the only ones that stood out from the rest of the crowd. I think that was one of the main problems. They just didn’t know how to take him seriously in a lime green suit.” Vanessa had never been much of the caregiver and growing up, her main problem was trying to emulate some of her heroes. Andy Warhol and Annie Liebowitz were her main inspirations to try to find that perfect picture that would make everybody stand up.
She had her cell phone in your hand, as she smoothed down her blue leather skirt and then looked at her reflection in the door of her dearly departed father’s house. The wood was chipping and if she was so inclined, she could call some handyman and do some necessary renovations to get a better price on the market.
“I’m sorry, but I really do have to go, Vanessa. Let me know how you make out.” Vanessa knew in the back of her mind that her sister really didn’t care one way or the other. It was a little disconcerting to see that their relationship had turned to only seeing each other on holidays and special occasions. Without mother and father to referee, them being in the same room could only lend to backbiting and harsh words.
“I hope she knows what she’s asking me to do. I’ve been very emotional ever since my father died. I can’t go more than a day without seeing something that reminds me of him. Now that I was back in the family homestead, I could see all of these memories flooding back. To me, he was my hero and even though he was ridiculed for his beliefs, he still managed to eke out a living doing lectures around the globe.”
She was about to say something, but Louise hung up and left her standing there with only the dial tone. Vanessa placed the key into the lock and listened to the telltale click of the mechanism falling into place. She opened the door and was immediately accosted with the smell of cigars. There were no windows open and she quite hastily went around to air out the place. This was the first time that she had the courage to walk into the place. Just being there at the doorway was enough to bring back a vivid image of him standing in the kitchen when she was three years old burning dinner. They had to order takeout and mother wasn’t very happy about finding old pizza boxes when she came back from work.
“This is not going to be easy, but I only have a couple of days off. I’m just going to have to dive in head first. I think the best way to do that is to tackle downstairs in his office.” Vanessa walked downstairs hearing the creaking of the house and looking at the various awards that he had gotten early on in his career. “I’ll always remember you as a friend and somebody that I could rely on to take into my confidence. You often just sat there and listened, never judged and that was worth more to me than you could ever know.”
Vanessa had on her customary brown leather coat with the leather belt tied at the waist. It was vintage and she found that bringing the old back in style was something that she got from her father.
It was a little chilly on this October morning and there was the first frost of the season on the ground. She could actually see a semblance of her breath in the air.
She took a deep breath and opened up the door to his office. At first, she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Her father was mostly anal about everything, but his office looked like a cyclone went through it. There was no denying that somebody was interested or at least looking for something that her father had. There was no way that her father would keep things in such disarray.
“Father, I know that this wasn’t your doing, which leads me to believe that somebody has been here without my permission. I did not see any signs of a break in upstairs. There were no windows broken and the door lock didn’t look like it had been played with. That only tells me that either the person knew you quite well, or somebody with a unique skill set was sent in here to retrieve something.”
It was still pretty early in the morning and even when she arrived, there was nobody up at this time. There were no joggers or those that were out walking their dog. It was her wish that nobody was going to interfere in the business at hand.
Looking out the window, she noticed that the lawn had a medley of different colored leaves on the ground. They would need to be cleaned up.
Vanessa sat down at his desk and could feel this presence, like he was standing over her shoulder. He did that, while she was doing her homework. Mother was mostly away on business, but it was soon learned that some of that business was not exactly concerning her job. Her parents’ marriage wasn’t what she thought it was. They divorced when she was 18 and Louise was only 16. Louise opted to stay with their mother and Vanessa, feeling sorry for her father decided to stay with him.
Unfortunately, when their father got a bit of dementia, Vanessa made every effort to be out of town, as much as possible. She begged and pleaded on bended knee to her bosses that she could handle being away from home for days on end. Thankfully, they needed somebody to make some international calls and her volunteering had given them a way out.
Vanessa might have only been 5 foot four, 115 pounds, but she had enough baggage that would make any relationship fold under from the very beginning. She was always judging and measuring those men that came into her life. They didn’t know it, but that measuring stick came in the form of her father. If they couldn’t match up to her expectations, she would show them the door in short order.
For the next 2 hours, she boxed up various pieces of information and labeled them to make sure that she knew exactly where everything was. Vanessa was tempted to call the police, but there didn’t seem to be any need. He was gone and there was nothing that anybody could do to him ever again. He was at peace and there wasn’t much here that was worth anything. Some of it was ramblings and when he started to get dementia, things began to unravel in a hurry.
The office was alm
ost completely empty with only boxes left behind to inform anybody that this was his legacy. Vanessa laid back and looked at the ceiling, when she noticed something sticking out from one of the overhead beams. Standing on the chair, she balanced herself and reached up. Straining every muscle, she felt like her shoulder was going to give out, when she finally grasped onto this blue sphere.
At first, she thought it might be some kind of stone or maybe even a shell that was found on a beach somewhere. She never did take her father to be the outdoorsy type. Looking at the blue sphere in her hand, she weighed it and handled it very carefully. There seemed to be some sort of heat emanating from within.
“I remember something in one of these files that mentioned a blue sphere. I thought it was just another one of his mental breakdowns. If I recall, I believe he said that this was some sort of device to contact a civilization known as Tu’Fallian. Wouldn’t it be something if I could actually visit another world? I could bring back photographs and become a sensation overnight. There would be no stopping how far I could go. I only wish that something like that could happen.” The blue sphere began to glow and then there was some kind of voice coming from within. It was garbled and didn’t sound human. It stopped, as soon as it began. She placed the sphere on the table and walked away from it, having no idea what kind of Pandora’s Box she opened.
Chapter 2
Vanessa was getting tired and after the second day of going through everything in her father’s house, she had just about had it. Charity had picked up most of the furniture and even his suits. She did notice that they looked at her kinda funny when they saw the multicolored designs that her father liked to wear to shock the masses. He always said that you could get a person’s attention with more than just your words. It was a credo that she lived by even today. She had a sense of whimsy and she always wore something that would be the talk of the office.
“I think that just about does it, Ms. Lasky.” It sounded, so weird for somebody to call her miss. It seemed only yesterday that she was running down to the convenience store for an ice pop in the middle of summer. It would always drip on her clothes and leave a sticky mess. “I’ll just give you this receipt and then we’ll be on our way. Is there anything that you want us to do about the boxes in the office? I noticed that when I was down there picking up the desk that there were several things that would be a little too heavy for somebody like you.”
“He looks at me like I’m a frail fragile doll, but he doesn’t know that I work out constantly. I probably have better upper body strength than even he does. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, considering that he is kind of muscle-bound.” Vanessa wanted to reach out and touch him, but she knew that it would probably be frowned upon. Besides, she wasn’t looking for any satisfaction. She could get that at any dive bar in the middle of the night…not that she was ever that desperate. “I appreciate the offer, but I think I can handle it.” She saw him shrug his shoulders and then he walked down the stairs to the white panel truck.
The next half hour, she heaved those boxes up from the office basement. It wasn’t easy, but she prided herself on being freakishly strong when it came to moving things. As she was reaching for the last box, she heard something of a whine and at first she thought it was some kind of dog caught in a trap somewhere.
She had a glance outside the curtain, raising herself up, so that she could see through the small window. There was a layer of dust and she wiped it with a Kleenex, but there was nothing out there, but the vast lawn that still needed to be mowed. She didn’t consider herself to be all that handy, but being single had made it necessary for her to learn some of the things that were more in the line of a man doing them. She learned how to put in electrical wire, not to mention do her own plumbing and fix her own car when necessary. She was a renaissance kind of girl.
She had the last box in her hands, when she walked up the stairs to come face to face with two specimens of men that really didn’t look real. It wasn’t that they were just standing there, but they were standing there completely naked. They were looking at each other and then at her and she wasn’t sure if she should scream or bow down to worship at their feet.
“I’m afraid that you’re too late and my father’s clothes have already been taken to goodwill.” This was her idea of teasing them, but she couldn’t stop staring at something else of interest. “Seriously, I don’t think that you’re in the right house. Perhaps you should be a few blocks south at the sanitarium.” One of them tried to open their mouth, but nothing came out for a moment.
“I could call the cops, but something tells me that they’re no threat. I don’t know how I can say that, considering they are standing in front of me in their birthday suits. I could at least offer to get them something to wear. I just don’t know what I have. There might be something that was left over that I didn’t grab when they were here to pick up his clothes.”
“My name is… Marcos and this is my Brother Michael. We came here to talk to Robert. He sent us a message and we really didn’t think that he would abide by the deal. We thought that we were going to have to come here and use force to get what we wanted. We were really close to doing just that.” Vanessa thought that they might be colleagues, but unless they were nudists, it did not explain the way that they had greeted her.
“I’m afraid that you’ve been misinformed. My father has been dead for the past two months.” Both Michael and Marcos’ exchanged glances. They appeared to be telepathically linked and they were able to communicate without saying any words. One of them was having a hard time trying to voice the human language. His tongue was completely tied and he was now allowing his brother Marcos to speak for the both of them. “I would’ve thought that you would’ve known, but maybe you were in some isolated part of the world.” Vanessa could not stop staring at their bodies and wondering what it would be like to take one for a test drive.
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss, but the agreement still stands. This may be a little hard to believe, but we come from a place that is far away from here. Your father and the two of us came to an agreement that benefited all of us greatly. In exchange for us providing him with medicine, he agreed that…” Before he could say anything, the other brother had touched him on the shoulder briefly.
“I don’t know what kind of agreement you have with my father, but I don’t think you’re going to find it here.” Vanessa was inching her hand into her purse that contained a taser that would give them a shocking development. “I do have to get going and I have a meeting in less than an hour.” She had placated them enough and how they weren’t noticed coming up to the house completely nude was beyond her. It was 6:00 PM and that meant that people were home from school and work. If they were all inside, then surely, somebody saw them walking by their window and would call the cops.
“My brother and I are aliens from a world called Tu’fallian. You must have accidentally initiated contact with the blue sphere. We understand that this was not intentional, but it came at the most opportune time. We’re going to give you a rare gift and something that not a lot of humans have been able to experience for themselves. We would like to take you to our home world and show you colors and landscapes that would make any photographer’s dream come true.”
“I see and you should tell this to your doctor’s. I would suggest that you go back to where you came from and talk to them about this. I’m sure that they will be understanding and will most likely give you medication to keep you from hurting yourself and others.” She didn’t mean to talk down to them, but she felt like it was necessary to keep her words calm and soothing in the face of those that had lost their mind. “I may have been wrong about them not being a threat. If they try any sudden moves, I’ll have to act.”
“I understand that this is hard for you to take, but we really don’t have time to debate this issue. The window for going back to our planet is closing rapidly. Let me show you that we are on the level. You just need to let me touch your forehead with
my finger. That way I can use a technique that hasn’t been used in millennia. We are still capable of doing it, but it causes us immense pain. To be honest, it has been banned and to use it only shows you how important this is.”
Vanessa backed away, but she did not go more than a couple of feet. Marcos came forward and she felt his finger just grazing her forehead. There was something sticky on the end of his finger and he was now drawing some sort of symbol on her forehead.
When he was done, he pressed the pad of his thumb in the very center of the symbol. His brother was touching his hand. They were now closing their eyes.
The transmission had only lasted a mere couple of seconds, but both young Tu’fallian men looked drained to the point that they could not even stand without assistance. They collapsed under their own weight. They fell down on to their knees and were looking up at the woman that they had come to retrieve.
For Vanessa, she felt like she was on some sort of drug. The images were, so quick, but she was able to see that this was definitely of alien origin. She even saw the meeting that they had with her father. It was fleeting, but that memory was now with her, even though it was part of a jumbled mess that had just short circuited the neurons in her brain.
She stumbled backwards and held onto whatever she could find. Thankfully, there was one lone chair left behind. She fell against it, moved your fingers along the wood grain and then sat down with her two hands over her face. She’d never felt anything like this in her life. She didn’t even know that there was any kind of technology that was out there today that could do anything even close to this.
“I don’t know what I just saw, but it couldn’t be real. All I know is that I want to see more.” The brothers looked like they were fish out of the water, clawing at the wood floor and trying their very best to get back on their feet.