“Peering up into the night sky offers a unique and humbling perspective on everything. Its importance, its inconsequentialness, its connectivity.”
Michael Anthony is an American writer and artist. He has published fiction, poetry, illustrations, and photographs in literary journals and commercial magazines. www.MichaelAnthony.MyPortfolio.com
The Day I Believed in Aliens Non-Fiction by Catherine Rossi
CW: Mental Health
“I was abducted by aliens.” The first time he said the line, it didn’t register, my brain drained from the argument, my body weary from the late hour. Unlike him, I had to work the next day, had a full day of meetings to facilitate. Yet I’d spent the last two hours convincing him I loved him. Convincing him I didn’t want to break up. Convincing him I didn’t care that I made more money than him. Or, I should say, trying to convince him, since he didn’t believe me. “I was abducted by aliens.” I laughed this time, assuming it was a joke. Certainly a non sequitur, completely irrelevant to the debate at hand, which started when I declined his invitation to elope that weekend. If a friend was recounting the evening to me, I would have nudged her towards the breakup. But I couldn’t do it. Maybe it wasn’t love, but I did care for him. And there was a spark, something I rarely encountered in my mid-40s after decades of bad dates. A physical spark. A verbal spark. An emotional connection. Maybe even a potential soulmate. He was unattached, also highly unusual at this point in my life. And he liked me too. I could count on one hand the number of times all those elements combined in the past decade. I could count on one hand how often I’d worn that date outfit I’d bought years ago. “They beamed me up to their spaceship and did experiments on me. That’s why I get those bad headaches. I never did before.” After dropping that bomb, he proclaimed the debate over and walked out, leaving me to wonder if we were even still dating. I fell into bed, unable to stop myself from calculating the hours until the alarm buzzed. I woke not to the annoying drone after all, but to the phone’s ring. It was him. “What’s up?” I mumbled. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said. When I didn’t answer, still barely awake, my synapses not registering what he could possibly mean, he continued. “About the aliens.” “Oh, that.” “I knew you’d forget. Everyone I’ve told mysteriously forgets. It’s part of their experiment.” In the shower, my brain starting to come to life, I wished I had forgotten. I didn’t want to think about it. But, I rationalized, this was merely another one of his weird things. Weird like his tendency to come over uninvited after midnight, pounding on my door until I scrambled to answer it before the neighbor dog barked. Weird like his sudden announcement when we were standing in the buffet line at a wedding reception that I should forever wear the hideous class ring he was handing me. He’d been down on his luck, short-timing it through odd jobs, then through a bankruptcy to get out of debt, and was only off the streets due to the generosity of our church, where we met. But didn’t we all have weird things? At our age? At least he admitted his, was working on his, unlike the other 40- and 50-year-olds I’d encountered on dating sites - guys who were full of themselves, unable to admit the smallest error in their life, and uninterested in anyone who wasn’t 20 years younger. This was the dating pool, after all. And, who knows, maybe it was possible. Even though I’d never believed in aliens. Ever. I could picture the ET-like creatures with their unwieldy arms and oversized eyeballs. I could picture the spaceship, hovering, lit up like a Christmas tree. I could picture their spindly fingers poking and probing his unconscious body. Maybe it was possible. If I could imagine it, I could believe it. And if I believed in aliens, then I could believe in us. I wanted so badly to believe in us. I wanted to believe that our months together were leading to something. That the twice-a-day arguments, that the tears, that the yelling louder than I ever had in my life, that the constant weariness, that the requisite consoling of his ego were leading to something. I wanted to believe that a husband and kids could happen to me too. Would happen to me too. All I had to do was believe in this one thing. I could do it. It was no different from changing my wardrobe or hairstyle or taking up new hobbies to please a date. Right? He called again, this time at the office, to ask about getting together that night. I was heading to the first meeting of the day, aliens long forgotten, my mind now focused on convincing the programmers to rewrite the software as the customers requested instead of the “better way” they’d dreamed up over the weekend. I explained I was going to yoga after work and hung up as quickly as he would let me. Then despite running late, I took a moment to google: how many people believe in aliens. A surprising answer came back - almost 50 percent. A few moments later, as the mix of techies and Trekkies straggled into the conference room, I suddenly blurted, “Do you guys think aliens exist?” Three immediately said yes. They’re out there.I’ve seen strange lights. Unexplained things. “But I mean, like aliens abducting humans and doing experiments on them?” I asked. My friend Anne, just walking into the room, choked out a laugh before looking at me sharply. I ignored her, focusing my attention on the black clothed, black booted, black capped 23-year-old genius. “The technology doesn’t exist for that. It’s been proven. Besides, we would have heard about people disappearing.” “But people do disappear,” I said. He shrugged. Certainly aliens would be a more palatable explanation for why my last 3 blind dates all ghosted me. “What’s going on?” Anne whispered as we left the conference room an hour later. “Is it Peter?” I hurried down the hall, waving her off. Back in my office after more meetings and a yogurt for lunch, I googled again: causes for headaches. Migraines, stress, medication, dehydration. Nothing about alien experiments, not even in the fine print. Come to think of it, I got headaches too. And I had those matching weird birthmarks on my thigh that looked like a pair of lips. Dad always said an angel kissed me at birth, but it could have been alien forceps. Whatever those looked like. I was typing tools used by aliens when the phone rang. “What about tonight?” “I haven’t had time to think about it,” I said while stifling a mid-afternoon yawn. “You think I’m boring.” I exhaled. “No, of course not.” Though, I thought to myself, sometimes I wish you were. Boring meant I’d get 8 hours. After two more meetings and a drive to the yoga studio, I stretched out on my mat, exhausted from the day. I took a deep breath and began to relax. The yoga teacher instructed us to forget about our cares, be in the moment.All that matters is the present. But the aliens were there. Hovering over me. Making my mind race. Isn’t the instructor asking me to believe in a higher power, a natural power, something beyond myself? Couldn’t that be aliens? And could that be why some of these poses feel so unnatural? At home, while scarfing down takeout, I googled again: alien experiments. Apparently, they were common. There were studies. Research. From Harvard, even. A Wikipedia page. Tens of thousands of people claimed to have been abducted, their descriptions eerily similar to Peter’s details. I slammed the laptop shut before I could read more. This is ridiculous. No amount of googling is going to make me believe. I don’t believe what I don’t believe. I can’t believe what I can’t believe. I’m not that desperate. But. Am I desperate enough to let it slide? Am I desperate enough to be okay with him believing it? Is that enough for me? Is that enough for us? I was just getting out of the bath, ready to fall asleep with a book, when he called again. “I think we should break up,” he said. I hesitated, considering which reasoning would work that day. Then I thought of how many hours I’d spent making excuses for him. I thought of the scared-for-me look from Anne. I thought of visiting Roswell, going to alien conventions, joining an Aliens Anonymous support group, maybe even taking a course on mental health. I could hear him breathing, waiting for an answer, ready to unleash the rest of his speech when I inevitably disagreed. Instead, I merely said, “Okay.” I hung up and put my head in my hands, waiting for tears, waiting for the urge to call him back, waiting for regret, waiting for the loneliness to return. Instead, relief washed over me. Are humans the only life in the universe? I don’t know. But I’ll take my chances on being alone.
Given that her parents met in a library, it is no surprise that Catherine Rossi owned a library card at age 4. Inspired by decades of bad dates, she frequently writes about strong single women. Her work has been published in Midstory Magazine. X: @catrossauth https://catherinerossi.com