Elastic Love (Electric Dreams Entry)

“Yeah, I get it, like Mark Zuckerberg!”

Katherine said with a light-hearted laugh, barely paying attention to her husband, frantically shaking her arm as he kept on with the same joke. Instead, she continued to nonchalantly stir the bolognese sauce, all to used to his sense of humour.

“No honey, not like that at all, would you listen to me, this isn’t the time for jokes!”

“Sure,” she twisted round, kissing him before she continued, “Now when you’ve finished being a reptilian overlord on the run, would you set the table? Dinner’s ready.”

“Katherine!” He grabbed her arms as he spoke, pulling her towards him, “Katherine, you have to listen to me, this isn’t a joke.”

She pulled away, trying to stir the bubbling saucepan.

“Katherine, leave it, that doesn’t matter right now, would you just look at me?”

He held her steady, trying to keep her attention, and meeting his eyes, she flashed a naughty smile.

“Okay Mr Alien, well, would you let me turn off the stove before you probe me?”

Trait sighed, letting go of her.

“For fuck’s sake Katherine, could you just listen to me for a moment?”

“Hey,” She touched his shoulder, “hey, I’m sorry, what’s really going on here?”

Trait massaged his forehead with exasperation as he lifted his gaze.

“I. Am. A. Alien! How are you not getting this?”

Katherine put her arm around his shoulder, struggling to make sense of the proclamation.

“Look, love, I know sometimes you feel like you don’t fit in, like people don’t get you,”

He broke her off, slumping into her.

“Katherine, I’m not going over this again. I’m an alien. I’ve been living here for 12 years, pretending to be one of you, and now, they’re on to me. I can’t keep explaining this. Either you take me seriously, and we leave right now, or you don’t, and I leave anyway, and I really don’t want that.”

“You’ve been under a lot of pressure at work, I get that, why don’t we see if Dr Kane is available for quick chat tomorrow?”

“If that’s the choice you’ve made, then this is goodbye. I’m sorry Katherine, just know, what ever happens after I’ve gone, I loved you these ten years, I really did.”

Trait pushed away from her, standing up.

“No, no Trait, I’m sorry, I believe you.”

He could tell from the concern, creased across her face, she was at least taking him seriously.

---

They had made it two cities over by midnight, taking turns to drive. Katherine was quite certain it was a mental break, he’d had some social problems when she met him. He still checked in with his old therapist now and then.

She’d tried her best not to ask too many questions on the way, she didn’t want to encourage him to delve into the delusion.

Trait circled around five or six star-rated hotels, before settling on a near empty hostel that didn’t even provide bedding. Despite the lack of inhabitants, Katherine balked a little, walking into the open plan bunkroom.

“Are you sure about this place?”

“We’ll be safe here for tonight, long as we hit the road at first light”

She wracked her mind, trying to remember if Dr Kane’s office opened at 8.30 or 9.00 on a Monday morning, trying not to wonder how far they’d have got by then.

---

She’d barely slept in the chilly bunk bed, she’d opted for the bottom, thinking it may be warmer, but a cold draft had crept in under the ill-fitting door.

Katherine lay awake, hearing Trait stir as the grey morning light began the dust through the window.

He swung his legs over the ladder, stretching before he came down. Katherine watched, trying to distinguish the shapes in the coming of dawn.

He stretched his legs, his knees bending a little too far the wrong way. He tensed his feet, arching them unnaturally, and squinting, she swore she could make out six nobbled rows of bone rippling under the skin.

Her stomach turned, and he dropped down, smiling broadly as he saw her open eyes.

“You look iffy, not sleep well honey?”

Katherine tried to return to smile.

“No, not really.”

“I’ll drive first, you can nap a bit in the car and we can get breakfast at a petrol station when you wake up!”

Trait lend in towards her, offering a hand to help her up. Putting the moment down to exhaustion, Katherine took it, and let him pull her to her feet.

“Where are we heading?”

Worry darkened Trait’s face.

“I’ll tell you in the car, I’m not sure it’s still safe here.”

---

Katherine sat in the passenger seat, while Trait pulled old-fashioned road maps from the back seat, the pale morning light casting the car in tones of grey.

“Fairly certain Google has you covered there babe”

“Not where we’re going.”

Trying to hold a supportive smile, Katherine touched his arm.

“Let’s see then,”

Trait was flipping through the dog-eared pages, covers scuffed from years in the footwell. With a sudden enthusiasm, he stopped, opening the A3 book on two large map pages, snaked with biro.

“See this road?”

He pointed to an ink line dissecting highways and farms.

“Is that a road?”

“Yep, we just go down here, then see this hill, right under there, that’s where we’re going. We’ll be safe there. You’ll see.”

Katherine bit her lower lip as she nodded, trying not to add air to the bubble of anxiety growing within her.

“Let me grab a blanket from the back, you can get back to sleep before the sun fully up.”

Katherine didn’t want to object, she was exhausted. She’d lay awake most of the night, her mind racing as she tried to figure out what to do. She’d tried texting Dr Kane sometime around three am, but she didn’t have his emergency number on her new phone. It has been years since Trait had been that bad, and even then, it had never been like this.

She watched him climb out of the car, opening the boot as he searched for a blanket. He let in a cold draft of early morning air as he returned. Touching her chin, he lifted it a little to kiss her as he lent over from the drivers seat, before tenderly tucking the blanket around her.

“You rest now honey, you look so tired. It’s ok, I’ll look after you.”

Katherine fought not to sink into the hypnotic caress of his affection, he always put her at ease like this, no matter how bad she was feeling.

---

The sun blazed high over the fields by the time Katherine woke.

“Huh…?”

It took her a moment to remember why she wasn’t in her own plush bed, but as the stiffness of sleeping upright crept through her, it all came back.

“Where are we?”

“Oh honey, you’re awake, you feeling any better?”

“Mmmmhhh, ohhh no, no my butts numb!!”

Katherine contorted on her seat, lifting her hips as she pulled her trousers up a little, adjusting the pressure of seams.

“Think we could pull over for a bit of a stretch?”

Trait nervously checked the mirrors.

“So you can call Dr Kane you mean?”

It was only then she saw her phone, out on the dashboard.

“You know, if you’d called that number, you’d have told them exactly where we were!”

Katherine, still a little groggy, flushed defensively.

“I wouldn’t have told him that, I just wanted to check in with him, see if there was anything I should be doing for you. I was just worried about you love.”

“Well damn good job he only text you back. Keep that thing off you hear me? And you should be worried! I can’t handle how calm you are about this. They will kill me. You too now. Do you get that?”

His temper was rising fast, and Katherine struggled to keep up.

“Yes! And I don’t want anything to happen to you! I just thought Dr Kane might be able to help.”

“Dr Kane knows too much, they’ll have got to him first, how could you not see that?!”

“I just, I’m sorry love, I wasn’t thinking. This is so much Trait, running away from our house in a panic, sleeping in a seedy hostel, people supposedly trying to kill us. Where are we even going, come on, what’s really going on here…?”

Trait pushed his foot to the floor, the speed pressing them both back into their seats.

“For fucks sake Katherine, you said you believed me! Ten years, have I ever given you any reason not to trust me?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you Trait…”

“What? You think i’m crazy? Katherine, fine, fine, I didn’t want to do this, but I will prove it.”

A cold horror suddenly gripped Katherine. He reached over to the glove box, grasping the small pen knife he kept there.

“You really need proof? You can’t trust me?”

“Trait, stop it! I do trust you, I trust you are telling me what you believe to be true, but this is ludicrous!”

He dropped the knife onto her lap.

“Finally, I am telling you the truth, for years I’ve had to keep this from you, do you have any idea how much it ate at me? Having to lie? Every time you asked about my family? My childhood? The wedding? When my parents ‘couldn’t make it’? Think about it Katherine.”

She went quiet. She hadn’t, for a moment until now, genuinely taken him seriously, but as she began to turn it over in her head, she realised how much it would explain.

“Look, there’s a backpack behind the driver’s seat.”

He glanced at her expectantly, and reaching back, she retrieved it.

“Main pocket, there’s a cardboard box.”

Her forehead furrowed in confusion, Katherine fumbled between the folded t-shirts. She found it, wrapped in crisp cellophane, sealed and stickered with a girl scout troop number.

“Is this supposed to be breakfast?”

“Use the pen knife, open the wrapping. Carefully, those are not girl scout cookies.”

Katherine hesitated before she slipped the blade under the cardboard lid. She could see the loose cookie crumbs, escaped in the wrapping. It was a long, searching look she gave Trait before she broke the plastic, the blade slicing around the lid, freeing it.

The second the plastic wrapping came off, it ceased to be a box of cookies. The chocolate chip smell, she could have sworn danced her nostril as she opened it, was gone.

A dark blue box, recessed with rows of blinking lights, rippling as though mapping something, sat in her hands. Everything about the texture, the feeling of the object felt new, different, and something about it struck a chord with her as she held it.

“What… What even is this?”

“External memory. It’s going to show you what you need to see. Turn it over, there are two green-to-blue lights on the other side. Put your index fingers on them, you’ll see, you’ll see it all.”

Katherine took a moment, looking at Trait, the man she’d spent ten years of her life with, there was a sense of sincerity and urgency, fear and affection in his steel blue eyes.

“What exactly will I see?”

“My life, my planet, my ship, space, all of it, as I saw it. I never wanted to do this to you Katherine, it’s a lot to process, but you don’t believe me, and this will prove it.”

Katherine sat back in her seat, studying the moving lights.

“Does it record everything? Everything you see?”

“Everything.”

“Is it connected to you right now?”

“Yep.”

“So this movement, what’s that?”

“New memories, these ones are me and you, in this car, talking about memories.”

A reminiscent smile curved Trait’s lips as they both heard the ‘memory within a memory’ joke he’d normally make.

“Let me get this right, this whole time, you’ve been an alien? And now someone’s found out, and they’re tracking us?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, please, just touch it Katherine. See for yourself. We need to move past this, we aren’t that far away now.”

Katherine watched the pattern dance, flickering through colours and shapes. She’d been denying it the whole time, but she knew him, and she could tell he’d meant every word he’d said. Then there was this. The thing she held, it’s existence alone was proof enough. She could feel what it was in the tips of her fingers, the soft fuzz of his current emotion echoing through her.

“I said I believe you, and you know what, I do. It’s almost funny now, how obvious it really was.”

There was a tone of resentment in her words.

“You should’ve told me. It wasn’t fair. This, is why I couldn’t get pregnant isn’t it?”

Red flushed Trait’s cheeks, his hands gripped the wheel as they continued to speed along the wide country roads.

“Are you kidding me? That’s what you want to talk about right now?”

“Is it?”

“Yes, of course it fucking is Katherine, and no, I couldn’t, okay, okay, this is a lot to take in. But seriously, damn, this is just, we’re running for our lives right now!”

“Exactly Trait! We’re running for our lives, you waited ‘til now to tell me this shit!”

He didn’t respond, checking the mirrors as he took a sharp corner at the last possible moment. The momentum swung them both to one side, Katherine caught off guard tugged into her seatbelt.

Trait spoke with a calm, quiet voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“Could you warn me next time?”

“No, I’m sorry, you’re right, I should’ve told you when you wanted to try for a baby.”

“You could’ve trusted me Trait,”

“I know, I knew then too, I just, how do you tell someone that? I always meant to, but the words got lost and the moment passed.”

Katherine could feel his remorse, his sincerity, his fear, through her fingertips.

“I suppose at least you did tell me, in the end.”

She took one hand off the external memory, slipping it onto his leg, running her palm over the denim with a reassuring firmness.

“So what are we dealing with now then? How did they find you out? Actually, what do you even really look like? You can’t look like this?!”

She said, poking the muscle of his upper arm, not ready to say she forgave him, but not able to put him through more of this, not if everything he said was true.

A small smile opened over his anxious face.

“Well no, I don’t have such a squishy finish, but it’s just a layer, I’m not all that different really.”

He laughed a little.

“Okay, okay, maybe a lot different, these are my real eyes, and well, my skin is the same shade as them, just a little darker. Erm, what else, oh, I have more toes, and fingers, yep, these extra two go a bit numb under here. This is my mouth,”

He opened it, making an ahhhh sound suitable for a dentist’s office.

“But I reshaped my teeth, wait wait, this is sounding somewhat replitian, and I can assure you, I’m not that,”

He winked as he paused, eliciting a smile, some of the tension slipping away from his face.

“More like a… rhino bear person? I’m not really sure. You can see, at some point, if you want.”

Katherine couldn’t help but giggle trying to imagine all that under the human wrapping of the man sat beside her.

“Definitely, at some point. But who are the they? Who is chasing you?”

“The government I think. Blacked out windows in blacked out cars, the kind they warn all the tourists to Earth about.”

“Tourists to Earth?”

Katherine found herself laughing at the unbelievable sentence leaving her mouth.

“Yep, popular spot your little planet, got myself a three year visa, the longest going, but you know, then I met you, and I just kept flying under the radar.”

As ludicrous as the whole situation was, Katherine blushed a little.

“Impossibly, you know this only makes me love you more right?”

“See, that right there, that’s why I stayed.”

Trait lent over to kiss her, as Katherine, squealing a little at his attention leaving the winding road, promptly kissed him back.

“So how did they find you?”

“That bit doesn’t matter so much now, right now, we need to outrun them?”

“And can we?”

“Yep, by my reckoning, we should be about an hour ahead of them, so just enough time to get to my little ship. Kept it in pretty good working order with all those solo ‘hiking’ trips!”

“Ohhhhh,” a playful smile filled Katherines face, “That’s what they were about! It’s all coming out now.”

The sun had passed its peak, and they hadn’t eaten yet.

“Up there, there’s a service station!”

Trait swerved, switching lanes to take the slip road.

It led to a large, roundabout planted with trees, and pulling round it, they both saw the same thing.

Two large black vehicles, blacked out windows, engines running, just beyond the entrance.

Katherine didn’t have chance to say anything as Trait floored it, pressed her into her seat, both cars pulling out after them.

They sped back onto the highway, Trait slammed his foot into the pedal with a visible strain while Katherine gripped her seat, adrenaline seizing her heart in hammering frenzy.

Her stomach lifted, the wheels momentarily leaving the ground as they cusped a mound in the road. The bouncing return jarred through her, fear grabbing her throat.

“Trait… I love you”

“Hold on tight.”

She clenched the cushioning as he flung the car round a sharp bend, rattling them onto a side road.

“Don’t worry honey, we’ll lose them.”

They ricocheted round another corner, racing down the narrow roads, Katherine barely able to right herself between the veering turns.

---

“Have we lost them?”

Katherine relaxed her hands, not aware the tension had kept her grip on the seat.

“I’m not sure, I wasn’t looking.”

The shadowed cars had slipped from the mirrors, and as they rushed down the twisting maze of country lanes, there was no sign of the vehicles peaking the high points in the roads behind them.

They had been followed the biro roads for about forty-five minutes, the blue ink tracing forgotten tracks Trait always managed to find again.

“That’s the hill, it’s just in there.”

The anticipation in the car had been rising ever since they lost the two blacked out vehicles. Katherine placed her hand on her stomach, feeling her own breathing as Trait nervously checked the mirrors every few seconds.

They snaked down an overgrown track, hidden between hedgerows that scraped at the car like hands, clawing to get in.

The reality of the situation had fully sunk in, Katherine tensed her fingers against her nails, wishing she’d taken him more seriously when she’d packed.

“Where will we go, once we get to the ship?”

“We can’t stay here.”

“We could go to Europe maybe, I have friends there?”

Katherine offered.

“No, it won’t be safe anywhere for me now. That’s where you’re going though.”

“And what will you do?”

“Go home.”

“You sounded like you had a plan?”

“I did. This is it, bring you to my ship and make sure you’re safe before I go back.”

They approached the foot of the hill, a large mine shaft gaping at the end of the track.

“Is it in there, your ship?”

“Yep, I just need to open the access shaft.”

“If you went home, how would I see you?”

“You wouldn’t, I couldn’t come back here, I overstayed my visa by nine years, they’ll never let me back here again.”

Trait pulled the car to a stop, pausing for a moment to look at his wife.

“I love you, the time we got, I’ll treasure it every long day on De-Snozberries.”

“Is that your planet, where you’re from?”

Trait climbed out the car before answering her, prompting Katherine to do the same.

“Yeah, it’s not like this, pretty, but warm. It’s home, I’ll be fine, and, I’m sure I can find a way to send you a postcard now and then, my brother stops by Earth from time to time.”

Katherine scowled a little, dissatisfied with the poor consolation.

Shutting the passenger door, a distant hum crept into her awareness. She glanced around, spotting four helicopters, sharp black against the white clouds, looming towards her.

Hurrying, she followed Trait into the shaft. He hadn’t brought a torch, and fumbling in her pocket, Katherine remembered her phone was off in the car.

She stumbled after him in the darkness. Hearing her scuffed step, he stopped, letting her catch hold of his arm as he led her down the tunnel.

“Helicopters… I thought we’d lost them.”

“I know, I heard them, they were always going to track us, one way or another ...”

He brought them to a stop in the middle of the shaft, no intersecting passageways in sight.

“... but it’s okay, we made it. I’ll have this open in five, and they won’t be here before then.”

In the dim trace of light cast by the entrance, Katherine couldn’t make out anything about the wall Trait stood in front of. He reached out, stroking the rock, tapping his fingers over certain imperfections in the surface for long, painful minutes.

“In space, are there other humans?”

Katherine mulled the thought, awaiting his response, as Trait remained engrossed in the cracks and bulges of the mine shaft wall.

“What honey? Sorry, give me a sec.”

There was no audible sound as the wall ceased to be there. No sudden receding. Katherine has been staring at it the entire time. It was there, and then, it was not.

Bright light flashed out of the opening, spilling into the crumbling mineshaft.

“Come on, we need to have the door shut before they land.”

She stepped through what had been solid stone, finding herself in a chamber cut from the rock. A large reflective ship filled the centre of the room. The slick craft was pea-pod shaped, with small rear fins, topped with transparent bubbles for it’s passenger.

Behind her, Trait was closing the wall, the substance suddenly there, as strangely and inexplicably as it had disappeared. Seamlessly, it had sealed just as voices echoed in from outside.

Real tears racing down his cheeks, Trait turned to her, and Katherine, guiltily distracted by the realisation aliens cry too, embraced him.

“It’s okay, we made it to the ship, we got the door closed, we’re safe now aren’t we?”

“Safe. Yes. I’ll drop you off in Europe, whereabouts do your friends live? You won’t ever be able to come back here, you’ll have to use your maiden name as well, but, you’ll be safe. I need to know you’re safe. Oh god Katherine, you’ll have to start over, I’m so sorry, I never should’ve done this to you. If I really loved you, I would’ve have just run without saying a word, I never should have dragged you along with me. I’ve ruined your life.”

He sobbed into her shoulder. She held him for a moment, hearing the pound of boots in the mine shaft as she pushed him away to meet his eyes.

“You haven’t, you couldn’t. You gave up so much to be with me, and I’m grateful for all of it, I can’t imagine what it’s been like, carrying this alone.”

She slipped back into his arms, letting him hold her as she whispered one last question.

“You never answered me, are there other humans in space?”

“Yes… a few colonies started up a while ago, they’re pretty wide-spread these days… but I don’t...”

“Good! I’ll be able to buy new clothes. I didn’t pack any of my sun dresses. You won’t change my mind, and there isn’t time to argue. I’m your wife Trait, I’m coming with you.”

Phew, another long one. This was just so much fun, and I could have written so much more. I still might. I am so close to the word count, very slightly over, but by less than 1%, so very much hope that's okay <3 I would have liked to spend more time in most of these bits, but it was just such a great prompt to run with. I didn't manage to play the 2nd & 3rd elements as well as I'd like, I just had far too much fun getting caught up in writing this!

This is my entry to @tygertyger's #electricdreams contest. This round, the prompts were #1 your protagonist finds out his/her spouse of 10 years is an alien. How did he/she find out? How does this affect their future and the future of humanity? Why did the spouse come here and where is he/she/they from? #2 snozberries #3 the story must include the sentence - “ Those are not girl scout cookies ” - you can check out all the rules and see the other entries under the original post - it's open until December 1st so plenty of time to give it a go!

Photo credit by Pixabay User raheel9630 who has a selection of these beautifully abstracted images

Thank you so much for making it all the way to the end <3

Love and sparkle ~ Calluna