I don’t dream.
When I tell people this, they rush to reassure me they don’t remember dreams either. I pretend they understood what I meant. Remembrance is a non-issue. I don’t dream at all, not since the aliens took me.
Say “alien abduction” to ordinary folks and they titter. In my case abduction is not entirely truthful, since I went voluntarily. Hell, I begged them to take me. They were understandably reluctant; their victims usually didn’t choose themselves. They wanted scientists. I swore up and down my liberal arts degree was valuable. I gave my word, and shook their hands, all of them, including the ones sticking out of their forehead.
I call the alien “they” because it wasn’t a single alien, it was a rotund carcass with numerous consciousnesses attached to it. The alien acquired them over the course of time in an assimilation process I never quite understood. Random parts protruded from the otherwise normal alien. Once in a while a body, human or otherwise, would eject from the alien with the fetid slurp of a boot ripped from swamp mud. Alien mitosis was far messier than the Earth version.
Absorption into the mass wasn’t as painful as it could have been. Uncomfortably gooey and strikingly similar to the sensation you get when your foot falls asleep. Afterwards, there was the disorientation of looking south when the alien walked east, the lack of muscle control, not to mention the disconcerting awareness of an alien hand protruding from your groin as a bizarre companion to Mr. Happy.
In the end, desire to see the universe aside, I didn’t last a month as an alien implant. I wasn’t fully absorbed; I was rejected, expelled with a sucking pop. They apologized profusely, explained they were afraid I would upset their multi-minded balance. It wasn’t personal, a few felt I’d be a valuable addition, but they were outvoted.
If I’d lasted a year, I’d have been privy to all the cumulative knowledge stored in their bloated body. Full awareness, not just the flashes of unfamiliar insight that skittered across my brainpan and vanished before fully sinking in.
As I cleaned the blue slime from my naked skin, I thought maybe it was because they finally realized that while they slept, I spied on the dreams flickering across numerous brainscreens. I ate exotic foods, fought monsters, swam cobalt seas under triple moons, piloted immense spacecraft to remote universes, and met untold foreign species. One night I glimpsed a life form so incredibly unfamiliar, so vicious and frightening I scared everyone awake attempting to muffle my screams. That xenophobic reaction was my undoing.
I returned to Earth alone, distressed, and plagued by paralyzing nightmares. I’d dream of these new horrors attacking from space in wave after wave of glittering terror. Apparently I’d absorbed a lot more than I’d realized watching alien dream theater. I couldn’t shake the image of the razor-fanged extraterrestrial. I knew someday it was going to appear and devour not only me, but my entire planet, person by person.
My nightly screaming woke the neighbors, scared the dog, and forced my decision.
It took several weeks to track down the country where the aliens currently body-mined. I was never sure if it was “my” alien that I talked to or another with numerous humanoid appendages protruding from its body. In the end, it didn’t matter. They understood.
With a sharp mental scalpel they banished the nightmares and rewired my brain so I’d never need sleep again. I could remain alert for travelers not quite as accommodating as them: their many-toothed cousins fondly called “GrxbyPk”. The closest my alien soggy brain could come to an interpretation was, “Interstellar Harvesters”.
I don’t dream, and that’s probably a good thing.
Constance Brewer writes in Wyoming.
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13 Responses to “THE TETRIS EFFECT • by Constance Brewer”
Comments
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August 24th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Constance:
I am all for brevity, but your author bio should read “Constance Brewer writes WELL in Wyoming.” I loved this story. Gave it a five.
K.C.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Nice story, some original feeling ideas with the alien.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Oh, this was lovely! This is my favorite story since I started reading these! Funny, well-written, even somewhat plausible! (I too have wished that an alien would take me. TAKE ME!!!!!)
“Mr. Happy?” Are you a fan of Stephanie Plum, by any chance???
Thank you for a long and happy laugh this morning!
Bonnie!
August 24th, 2008 at 4:23 am
The descriptions of what it was like to be part of the alien and that sticky blue expulsion were great, Constance. And I laughed at how te dreams affected the neighbours and the dog
Great stuff.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Very good read. I enjoyed it from start to finish.
Kathleen
August 24th, 2008 at 10:21 am
A gaggle of neat ideas all rolled up into a delightfully gooey little read!
August 24th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Great story!
I do have one question, though: how do the aliens avoid becoming schizophrenic? ;p
August 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Cool one. Took me on a ride.
Sucks that the razor mouths are still coming.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Great flow and voice.
Original and fun.
–dj
August 25th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Glad to know I’m not the only one who found a liberal arts degree useless.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Thanks everyone. This is what happens when you have to drive across Wyoming for hours on end with nothing to do but think…
–I’ve read a Stephanie Plum book or two.
–Schizophrenia is a thoroughly human invention
–Liberal Arts degrees aren’t totally useless. I hang mine over stains on the wall.
Constance
March 19th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
A great idea well presented. Loved the original feel and that fantastic opening line, not to mention the fact that these aliens really came to life in the story. Great job.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Juan – thanks.