Umbra

(A short story about a vulgar gray alien, a little girl, and the dangers of the "mob mentality". I wrote this a few years ago.)

They followed me like fierce raiders out there in a nameless and spacious field. The pitchforks they wielded were menacing. They were running in tandem with a pack of roaming dogs. I could have sworn that the saliva dripping out of their churning mouths was an inferno of Luciferean proportions. Periodically I would turn around and see the ravenous phalanx gaining ground on me. I was scared shitless.

I passed tufts of splintered grass blades; the summer's heat had nearly sucked all the life out of them. It had been dry that summer. Too dry. It felt like the ground would combust into a conflagration of rich ochre, sapphire, and magenta at any moment.

The enraged pack followed me for five miles, and then I lost them as I dashed into a grotto placed conveniently by a flowing body of water. I saw them run onwards into the blackness with their shining blades of retribution. While sipping some water, I caught my breath and examined my surroundings. Nothing but mottled rocks adorned the grotto. There was shit all to eat.

To pass the time I would pick up the mottled rocks and toss them around in my hand as though they were precious jewels. My thoughts took me elsewhere for hours on end. Fantasies splayed themselves out in my mind's eye like burgeoning waves. Then I lied down with my face placed on my filthy hands. I listened to the water flow and change direction at routine intervals. It was whispering to me its profound and limitless message of serenity.

The next morning, just as dawn's light broke into the grotto, a little girl naively walked up to my prone body. "Who are you?" she asked. Then she rephrased her question. "What are you?" As my eyes opened to greet the new day, I noticed she was bathing in the seraphic light of the sun and pivoting on her tender toes. Her smiled frightened me.

I quickly got to my feet and jumped back a few feet. "What am I?" I churlishly retorted. "Wait a minute...who are you?" Her smile grew. It scared me more and more as those awkward seconds fluttered on. Then she responded: "I live near here. This is where I go to play by myself. This is a place of sanctuary." At this moment I could tell she was not interested in elucidating her daily routine for me. She wanted to know what I was. "What are you?" she asked for a second time. "Your skin looks so pale. Do you need something to eat?"

Because I was famished, I nodded my head and responded, "I wouldn't mind a little fodder." However, I didn't get closer to her when I said that I was hungry. I was still petrified of that little being. She carried a certain whimsicalness in her movements; something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"I will go and pick some honeysuckle and berries," she said. "They will restore your health. Maybe then you could tell me a little about yourself. Okay. I will be back in a snap. You stay here and play with the rocks."

I followed her words and played with the mottled rocks in the grotto like a man would when he overlooked a crystalline pond. I skipped them in that sanctuary and listened to the reverberations move out into the land beyond. Five minutes later--or so it seemed like five minutes anyways--she returned with a wicker basket full of delectable grub. "Eat," she delicately implored. "I got this all for you."

She watched me eat. She sat cross-legged on an oblong rock with that peculiar smile plastered on her face. She was silent.

I ate ravenously and without manners. I bit into the honeysuckle like a brute. The berries were gobbled. I may have even burped at some point during the meal. After I was done eating, I thanked her for scavenging for the fodder. I even tried to smile.

"My pleasure," she said, serenely. "This entire land is filled with good eats. I can take you to them whenever you want. But I don't want to talk to you about food. Where are you from and what are you?"

Her questions had put me in the spotlight in that sacrosanct domicile for furry creatures and minerals. I didn't know what I was going to tell her. My story was too convoluted. She wouldn't have understood my tale. Too many twists and turns. I would have just confused her. I would have caused her to run off into the shining grove, petrified and shivering.

"Umbra?"

"Umbra?"

"Umbra?"

The voice came from the west, and boy was it guttural. It sounded like the inflection of a grizzly lumberjack.

Suddenly, the girl responded to the voice. "I am over here, daddy. I am just talking to a stranger in the sanctuary. I will be out in a minute."

When she turned around, I noticed that a portly son-of-a-bitch was standing on the quiescent loam. His eyes caught sight of me. "Umbra! Get away from that beast. Didn't I tell you about this character last night when I tucked you into bed? Good lord! Get away from it!"

The greasy, fat man yelled out to the wind, called upon his sleeping brethren, and quickly grabbed his daughter's arm. She took one last look at me and said, "Remember where the food is, and remember that this cave is a place of sanctuary." When the fat man and his daughter had run away, I made my break for it. For defensive purposes, I clasped onto some mottled rocks. I wasn't going down without a fight.

When I had fully come out of the cave's egress, I horrifically saw the wild pack of dogs storming towards me in a ruthless fever. Their eyes bulged out of their heads. I could smell their vile stench from one hundred yards away. They were repulsive mongrels of a godless sort. They probably fucked each other with incestuous pride. I couldn't even bare the sight of them.

I feverishly ran.

"Oh crap," I said. "I dropped my rocks."

One of the gallant mongrels--a hunter with some really big incisors--eventually caught up to me and sunk his teeth into my ankle. My pale and emaciated body fell into a tuft of grass. I smelt his acrid breath, felt his ravenous jaws. His second bite dug into a thigh bone. In pain, in so much pain, I slapped its fuming head with my long, probing fingers. But that was useless, and just infuriated the mongrel even more. In one last and strenuous movement, I tried to extricate myself from the dog's stern grasp on my pale leg meat. I failed.

In the distance, just moments before the rest of the mongrel frenzy reached my shivering body, I saw the girl looking at me. Her smile was enormous. I didn't know as to whether she was the greatest huntress of them all, or just a naive kid who was trying to relax me as I slowly and viciously died. Or maybe a greater mystery existed in her smile and in her glorious being; something impalpable and powerful.

Just before a mongrel sunk its teeth into one of my enormous black eyes, I saw her holding up a honeysuckle bunch like it was a gift to me, like it was a gift from Mother Nature--a planet I was not fully accustomed to. I tried to smile. I failed.