Aliens

When I was growing up, there was a time when girls were either moms or aliens. There wasn’t a lot of ground in between. Moms I got, they looked after you, they made sure you were fed and watered and they were generally nice to you. They spent a lot of time talking to other moms and doing stuff around the house. Oh yes and they hugged you when you needed a hug and sometimes even when you really didn’t need one. The only real downside of moms was they made you take a bath more often than you really wanted to and they insisted that you come home when the street lights came on.

The aliens on the other hand, were mostly annoying. I had two of them living in my house. One was allegedly a year younger, although she always acted like she was older, and the other was three years younger. I was never really sure what she did, the younger, besides suck up to Dad 24/7. Some friends of mine had aliens at their houses too, and there were other aliens at school. With a few exceptions they seemed to spend a lot of time whispering and giggling or playing dumb games. Mostly I didn’t pay much attention to them. My friend Steve was luckier than me; he only had brothers, no aliens. It was cool hanging out a Steve’s house there was always something to do and his mom loved feeding us. When we weren’t at Steve’s, or playing road hockey, we were catching dew worms, fishing, swimming or just exploring. It was great.

Then ... I met the red headed alien.

She just sort of showed up one day. Her father, like my father, was Air Force. Friends came and went in the Air Force, every year kids moved and new kids arrived, sometimes it was you coming or going. It wasn’t great but that was part of our world then. Anyway she just showed up and started talking to me.

I’m not sure what it was about the red headed alien, but she seemed different than the rest of the aliens, maybe it was the hair. It turned out she had a name and liked doing stuff, like playing tag, building forts and watching movies. I sort of liked being around her, she made me laugh and didn’t seem to care about stuff the aliens at my house cared about. Steve thought she was okay too, for an alien, and tolerated her hanging around with us.

One day she and I were together, alone, goofing around outside her house. During a little rough housing I gave her a push knocking her to the ground hard. She cried out once and then lay motionless. I called her name but she didn’t respond... I knelt down by her side thinking I might have really hurt her. I never saw it coming. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back and she was on top of me, pinning me down. I remember thinking that this wasn’t good, but on the other hand it seemed ... then, without any warning, she kissed me. On the mouth! Before I even had time to react, she was up and gone. I wasn't sure what to think, or do, but something happened, something changed.

That was the end of the aliens for me.