By Attila Zønn
Her name was Jennifer. She was a plump woman, blonde haired, younger than Mama and Tata. She was tonight’s guest speaker. She was what everyone was calling an ab-duct-ee. They were saying she had experienced multiple encounters of the third kind. Alex didn’t know what this all meant, but it was part of Tata’s new beginning—his attempt for the family to shed abstract transparencies.
Alex had looked up those two words because he wanted to use them, and Tata had always told him if he didn’t know what a word meant he should not use it until he knew.
Tata said, “If you use the wrong word you end up looking like a fool.”
So Alex looked up abstract, but it had several definitions, which confused Alex more, and transparencies, which came from transparent and that meant see through. So Tata had said we should stop believing in the many things that we can see through? Maybe one day Alex would understand what this all meant.
Tonight was the second meeting Alex and Mama and Tata had been too. The first Saturday night nothing much happened. People were just standing around talking, getting to know some new faces. Little groups of three or four people formed about the room. There was a lot of nodding and drinking coffee and eating cookies and cakes that had been laid out on a table at the side of the room. The only other kid there was Jonah, and he kept looking over at Alex.
That first night Mama didn’t bring any food—she didn’t know—but tonight she brought her delicious meatballs, and everyone was eating them—poking toothpicks in them and going on like it was the greatest food they’d ever had, and they wanted the recipe. And this made Mama smile.
They called themselves the Starlight Society. Alex counted nineteen people—men and women. They met every Saturday night in the back room of a vacant store not far from the Busy Bee where Mama and Alex bought groceries. The store had a paper sign on its glass door—Unit 51, and it was in-between Farzhad’s Discount Shoe Emporium and a take out place called Hot Wings & Other Hot Things. The inside of Unit 51 smelled like roasted chicken.
Tonight Jennifer was going to speak about her encounters.
The people sat down and Jennifer began:
“Ever since I was nine years old I’ve felt special. Now that may sound egotistical, even arrogant, but I realized later, in my twenties, why I had these feelings. I had been chosen. I don’t know why they picked me. That doesn’t matter. It’s beyond me to understand. In my twenties I suffered from severe migraines. It was so bad that I’d be immobilized for days. I just couldn’t function. I lost my job, lost all my friends. I lost my will to want to live. You could say I hit rock bottom in my life and it’s a cold hard place down there I’ll tell you. I found solace in food. That’s why I look the way I do today. But don’t pity me. I’m comfortable now. This is who I really am. I enjoy everything about my life and have no regrets.” She paused. “Back then I went to see a doctor who referred me to another doctor—a great man, who hypnotized me. There he is.” She pointed to the back of the room. “Stand up Dad. Let them see you.” An old man wearing a gray hat stood up and waved.
“I don’t know where I’d be without him. He’s become my second dad. He saved me,” Jennifer said, her voice wavering. “I found out there was nothing wrong with me. I was perfectly, physically fine. They had made me this way.”
The lights went out and a slideshow began: The first shot was of the front of a house. “This is the house I grew up in,” Jennifer said. The house she still lived in, that had been left to her when her parents suddenly died many years ago while on vacation.
“You go away to relax and have fun,” she said. “And you end up dying. How useless is that?” She stood there silent for a few minutes, her silhouette black against the pictures of her house.
“Dad and I had an argument before they left. He wanted me to go with them. He said it would help me. He couldn’t understand why I couldn’t snap out of what was troubling my life. He wanted me to get over it. He’d say to me many times you’re a big girl now, move on. He didn’t know how hard it was. He didn’t know what it was all about. I didn’t know what it was all about.”
She clicked to the next picture—a smiling man standing by a BBQ. “This was my father.” Another click—a woman standing by the side of a blue car.
“My mother.”
One more click and it was a picture of a young girl in pigtails, missing her front teeth, smiling big into the camera.
“That’s me,” she said. “Before it all began.”
Now there was a shot of the back of the house.
“The window on the left,” she said, “that’s my room. One night when I was nine years old, a green, but not unpleasant ray of light, came into my room through that window. And just as soon as I saw the light I was aware of three figures standing beside my bed. They weren’t very tall, and they were wearing these suits that sparkled different colors one after another, and that’s when I felt as if someone was sitting on my chest and I was losing my breath and I wanted to scream but only squeaks came out, and then I was floating out of my bed, going through the window and I was going up, up into a large disk of green light.”
Jennifer’s silhouette reached towards the ceiling. People murmured. Alex looked over at Tata who was sitting on the edge of his seat, his eyes wide and looking straight ahead. Mama was sitting back in her chair, looking down at the floor.
“I suddenly found myself lying on a table in an operating theater. I was aware of movement around me but I couldn’t see anyone because a powerful overhead white light was blinding me. I was paralyzed but I could feel things being inserted in my ears, my mouth and other parts that I won’t mention because I notice there are children here tonight. And from one of these places that I can’t mention they took something from me. I know what they took because I can never have children.”
A collective gasp came from the people sitting in the dark.
“Then suddenly, like when your ears pop clear after an airplane ride, I could understand what they were saying, and it struck me with a terrible fear. They were finished with me and I was of no use. They wanted to stop my heart. A voice said, ‘That is the protocol. Proceed.'” Jennifer paused again. “I thought I was going to die. Have you ever felt like you were going to die? I kept praying God please help me, God please help me. The overhead light dimmed and now I could see that the room was full of these figures in changing color suits. Then from my left hand side, the figures parted and a smaller figure appeared. His suit didn’t change colors. It was a solid, brilliant white. He came closer. Then he seemed to grow till his face was right in front of mine and I could see my reflection in his big shiny black eyes. I wasn’t afraid anymore. My mind was filled with the word peace. Then he deflated back to his previous size and came around behind me, put his hands gently at my temples, and that’s all I remember.”
The lights came on.
“Of course, as you can see, I’m still alive. That small creature in the bright white suit? He saved me.” Jennifer started to cry. She had her head down and the old man came from the back of the room and put his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay. I’m all right,” she told him as he patted her back. Then he returned to his spot at the back of the room and the lights went out again. A picture came on the screen. There were lots of stars in this picture—two were very bright, and Jennifer moved towards the screen and pointed to the star on the right hand side.
“This is where my savior is from. There it is. See how it shines brighter than all the stars around it? Agena, but they don’t call it that. They have their own name for it. In their language.”
Alex wanted to hear that name. The picture of the stars and space looked so peaceful. This woman had been visited by people from another world? Alex had never heard of such a thing. He thought those were just stories made up for Sunday afternoon movies. Once, he watched a movie called Forbidden Planet with Tata who fell asleep through it.
“My savior has been visiting me ever since that night, but I never knew it until I was hypnotized. We talk for hours. That night on the ship when they wanted to end my life, he sacrificed a piece of himself so that I could live. And he’s told me so many things—important things that can help all of us. They have the answer for everything.”
The lights came on and people were talking to each other.
Jennifer said, “When Lenny visits”—she laughed—“that’s what I call him. His real name is too complex for our minds and unpronounceable. He tells me that they are always there, watching us but they’re hidden, and when we make a wrong move they can make things better—if we want, otherwise they won’t interfere.” She smiled and took a deep breath and opened her arms. “You just have to believe and they will be there for you. I know I feel better knowing they’re out there.”
Mama leaned towards Tata who leaned towards Mama, and Alex leaned towards both of them.
She said, “I don’t know how much longer I can sit here and listen to this Milan.”
Tata whispered, “Why? What is wrong?”
Mama stared at him then sat back and folded her arms.
Alex was excited. He didn’t know that people lived in other worlds for real, and when Jennifer asked if there were any questions, Alex jumped up and said, “Do you have a picture of Lenny?”
Jennifer smiled and said, “No, they don’t want us to take their picture. It’s a secret that they exist. They’re afraid of our government who might take their knowledge and use it against people on the other side of the world.”
Alex sat down and thought, if it’s such a secret, then why is she telling everyone in this room, and if they knew everything and knew how to make everything better, why would they be afraid of the people on Earth? They were obviously more powerful than the people on Earth.
A man stood up and said, “Has Lenny told you anything about Roswell?” And the people sitting around him nodded their heads.
“Roswell never happened. It’s fake,” Jennifer said and laughed. “Imagine, with their advanced technology, they have safeguards for malfunctions. They would never crash. That’s just the government seizing on an opportunity they created and all the secrecy is them fanning fake flames to hide their nefarious activities. Don’t trust the government. They’re liars.”
It was time for a break.
People stood and stretched their legs. Jennifer had gone out the back door. Alex wanted to know more about Lenny. He wanted to know what his voice sounded like. Was it a normal man voice or, like he’s seen in those movies, was it a buzzing voice or a robot voice? He pushed open the back door. Jennifer was leaning against the dumpster, smoking a cigarette. The old man was there too. They were facing each other and the old man had his hand on Jennifer’s bum and rubbing it. Alex stepped back and closed the door.
Afterwards, Ray, the organizer, thanked Jennifer and everyone clapped, then Ray said Jennifer was on a mission to spread the word but she needed help. The old man walked around holding open a wooden box and people put money in it.
©Attila Zønn 2017
