8 008

The drive home felt awkward. I kept glancing over to Buddy, who seemed deep in thought, sitting upright in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead through the front windscreen as if fixated on some unseen goal. He had been subdued all evening. We'd come up with a temporary arrangement that seemed to satisfy both Buddy's desire to stay close to me and my desire to keep him at arm's length. He'd insisted that he didn't need anything - food, water, shelter - because he wasn't really human. I didn't want him in my house - I still barely knew the guy, or, rather, the creature - but it seemed a bit cruel to just leave him outside in the world in his own. So I told him that for the time being, he could hang out in our garden shed if he needed a place to crash. It was a tiny space, but mostly empty except for a few unpacked boxes of Lena's and my things. It felt wrong and dehumanising to make him stay in there, but what else could I do? I couldn't have him in the house. He was still an unknown alien, after all, and a strange man. He had no way of earning money, so I couldn't find him a rental. I didn't have any friends that I thought would be willing to take him in. And besides, he might let slip something about his non-humanness, which could make things awkward. The shed scenario would buy some time until we could sort out something more suitable.

I pulled into the driveway, noticing with relief that Lena's bedroom light was off, meaning she was probably asleep. We got out of the car quietly, and I took Buddy down the narrow path down the side of the house to our tiny backyard. There was a small paved area with a washing line, a couple of square metres of grass, and the shed in the corner. I opened the shed for him, flicked on the single halogen globe and looked around, feeling self conscious.

"Are you sure you don't need anything?" I asked, looking at the bare concrete floor and thin tin walls. "Blankets, a mattress, a chair?"

"I don't need anything. If I am uncomfortable in this form I can temporarily return to my true form, which cannot experience discomfort." He was watching me closely.

"Right. Ok." I raised my eyebrows, shaking my head slightly in wonder. My brazen curiosity was finally giving way to a surprised resignation that this was the new normal. "And if Lena comes here for some reason-"

"I will take on my true form and and hide. I will not let her see me until you allow it."

"Good." I stood there awkwardly for another moment. "What about entertainment... Would you like a book... or something..." I offered, petering out pathetically.

"I do not require entertainment. And if I need to learn anything I can learn it from your mind, or other human minds."

"How does that work?" I asked, my curiosity piqued again. We had briefly spoken about how he was learning to be human. He had said that he absorbed information from the creatures around him - in this case, from humans.

"I don't believe that I have the words to describe how the process works," he said thoughtfully, looking up and rubbing his chin before continuing. "I only need to be in close proximity to another human in order to access their information. It is just something I can sense and absorb, like light. I learn about their appearance, their instincts, nature, communication and impulses." He looked down again, frowning. "But humans are so different to the other creatures I've been. Their communication is so advanced, their language so complex. And I've never experienced these voices inside the mind before. I don't understand how humans speak inside of themselves."

My eyes widened a little, still coming to terms with his foreign perspectives.

"You're talking about our thoughts," I guessed.

"Yes, I believe so." He nodded, then echoed, "thoughts."

"I suppose that our thoughts are the way we process events, experiences, feelings, choices and so on. They're how we reason." I paused, never having thought this deeply about thinking before. "I suppose that animals rely purely on instinct. Humans also rely on emotions, logic, morals and values."

"These emotions are strange to me too. I have never experienced emotions in this way before."

I sat down cross legged on the floor, and motioned to Buddy to join me. It was getting late, but I was fascinated by the conversation. And part of me just didn't want to leave.

"Emotions are part of what makes us human. That the things we experience can make us feel different ways. Like when you appeared in my the back seat of my car. I felt afraid, because there was a stranger in my car and I was scared that you wanted to hurt me. But when I realised you didn't want to hurt me, I didn't feel afraid any more. I felt angry. Angry that you had violated my private space, angry that you had scared me so much. And angry that you didn't seem to understand why what you did was wrong."

I watched his face closely as he absorbed all of this. He was nodding a little.

"It would be appropriate for me, as a human, to apologise for my actions at this point. Is that correct?" He looked at me intensely.

"Well, yes," I said, starting to brush it off, feeling awkward again, but also impressed at how quickly he was learning.

"I am sorry that I scared you, and I am sorry that I violated your privacy. It was wrong of me. I will not do that again."

I looked up, surprised. For an alien, he was better at apologising than most humans.

"Thanks for apologising," I said sincerely. "But it's fine." I tilted my head, thinking. "I think I understand a bit more about you, too. I guess that back then, you were also just acting on your instincts."

I smiled sideways at him, and he smiled back. His eyes were deep blue in the dim light of the shed lamp. I felt the same attraction I had felt each time I had seen him rising up in me like a warm flame. I closed my eyes, pushing the feeling away. When I opened them, he was no longer smiling. His eyes were intense, drilling straight into me, and his jaw was tense. There was something almost animal about him, completely focused. I felt like his prey, but I wasn't afraid of being hurt. I was afraid that I would give in.

I leapt up suddenly, brushing my knees off and stumbling backwards out of the shed.

"Gosh, it's late," I mumbled, stumbling over a rush of words. "I have to get some sleep. I have to work in the morning. I'll see you later. Oh, and don't leave the light on."

I practically ran back to the house, unlocking the front door and collapsing against it once I was inside. My head felt like it was full, over pressurised. There was a loud thrumming in my ears and an even louder beating in my chest. I went to the bathroom, undressed and got into the shower, running the water cold at first, just to shock me back to reality. Once I began to shiver, I gradually warmed the water up until I had calmed down, my breathing becoming more even and my heartrate steady.

I dried myself off, then changed into pyjamas and rolled into bed. I lay on my back staring at the ceiling, feeling exhausted and wide awake at the same time. The last day had been a rollercoaster. My entire life had turned upside down within twenty-four hours. I had been living such a quiet, boring, simple life. I had been so bored. I had been so empty. I realised that I hadn't felt that hollow, empty feeling since the back seat incident. Of course, that might have been because I was too busy having my entire world upturned by some alien being. I threw my hand across my eyes. What was I going to do? I had no idea what Buddy really wanted, no idea what his real intentions were. I could hardly keep him in my garden shed for the rest of my life.

I'd been given a responsibility I'd never asked for. If he had seemed dangerous, or had specific intentions, or even looked a little bit more like an alien, then I might have called some authorities, gotten someone else involved, handballed the problem to someone higher up and with more authority on how to deal with extra-terrestrial brings.

But he didn't seem to want anything. Except me. To be with me. And I didn't know what to do with that.

I stared at the ceiling, laying the facts bare in my mind. Yesterday, I had been a normal person living a normal, boring life. Tonight, I was hiding an alien in my garden shed. And I was hopelessly, powerfully attracted to him.

I turned over and screamed into my pillow.