They came with the rains.<\/p>\n
I had my suit on. Jane didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The turquoise sky just frosted over with clouds as quick as a finger snap, and the rains fell.<\/p>\n
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. To let her take her suit off. But she was desperate. You get that way sometimes. You just want to feel real air against your skin, the sun warming your hair. These tin cans can feel like a tomb and you just have to get out of your shell or you\u2019ll go mad.<\/p>\n
So I let her.<\/p>\n
And now the rains are falling all around us, plinking off our suits with tinny clinks, and we just look at each other through our fishbowls.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an ocean between us, but not a word comes to our lips.<\/p>\n
By now, they\u2019ve wriggled in through her pores, burrowed straight down through her flesh and into a vein, caught a ride on some hemoglobin up into the brain, and are feasting.<\/p>\n
I watch her pupils swell till her eyes become black holes.<\/p>\n
And then I run.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve this mad notion that I can reverse this. That it\u2019s not too late. That I can somehow use the ship\u2019s equipment to suck the squiggling tadpoles out of her grey matter and there won\u2019t be just swiss cheese left.<\/p>\n
I pound across the cracked earth in my titanium suit, shouting into the COM to open the ship\u2019s door. Shouting for help.<\/p>\n
I mount a red dune with just a couple of strides. I cross a desert with a bound. When I mount the final hill, I see the ship is gone. Just its square prints are left in the red earth.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve left us.<\/p>\n
Left me to die at the hands of my deranged wife.<\/p>\n
From what I know, the adult parasites burrow in and live symbiotically with the host; whilst it\u2019s the juveniles that live in the clouds who are hell-bent on life and death. They fall down with the rains, land on a host, and send it on a rampage, killing everything it can get its hands on. Then the bodies in its murderous wake become more hosts for the rains. And on and on the cycle of life goes.<\/p>\n
But the adults are solitary creatures. They\u2019re known to consume any competition in the host. They even heal a host\u2019s body, give it life, vitality, which is why the Imperium pays us top dollar to collect them.<\/p>\n
If I could just…<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce. Can you hear me?\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart stops.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce, my sweet, sweet love. Where are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
My startled gasp frosts the front of my fishbowl.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s her voice coming through the COM, her exact voice. But she can\u2019t be. She\u2019s infected. They\u2019ve eaten away her brains. She shouldn\u2019t be able to even speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce. Where are you, my sweet love? Talk to me baby. Tell me where you are?\u201d<\/p>\n
I spend the day hiding in a crevice, crying my eyes out and listening to her call for me.<\/p>\n
That moment where I tell her it\u2019s OK, that I\u2019ll watch the skies while she sunbathes in her underwear, plays again and again in my mind.<\/p>\n
And I see myself run, like a coward. I throw it all away and just run because I was scared.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the most unbearable bit of it all. In a split second, I abandon her after twenty years of marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce. I\u2019m scared. Tell me where you are? I need you.\u201d<\/p>\n
A terrible cry surges up my throat. I bite down on my lips to stop it from spilling out. Tears make the rocky, desert landscape a wavering, liquid sea.<\/p>\n
I was on a collecting crew one time where some idiot forgot to keep his gloves on. He went mad. He became a senseless killing machine. Took a shovel and smashed open the foreman\u2019s fishbowl, then crushed his windpipe with his bare hands. Then he lifted a girl up by her legs and dashed her like a doll against a rock.<\/p>\n
But Jane seems sane. It hasn\u2019t affected her like it\u2019s done to others. Perhaps what I\u2019ve read isn\u2019t completely true?<\/p>\n
A pebble plinks off my fishbowl and I look up into the chink of day.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s high above, bent over the crevice and looking down at me. Her long brown hair has fallen forward and pooled in her fishbowl, her face just a furry mass.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce! There you are!\u201d<\/p>\n
And then she heaves down a fist-sized rock at me and I\u2019ve no time to react.<\/p>\n
It hits my fishbowl square with a resounding gong that nearly splits my head it two. The world seems to separate and then come back together.<\/p>\n
Cracks spread across my fishbowl, and there is a soft hiss as the outside pressure equalizes.<\/p>\n
I can taste the planet\u2019s air now, it\u2019s arid and sweet.<\/p>\n
And I run.
\n<\/p>\n
This planet\u2019s rock formations are born from some violent upheaval, thrust into the sky at sharp angles like dragon\u2019s teeth.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to scramble across this with my wife just a rock\u2019s throw behind me, chasing me and whispering poison in my ears.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you were relieved when we lost the baby. That\u2019s why you never said anything about it. You were relieved, weren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen the juveniles under a microscope, they\u2019re like tadpoles with teeth; just a mindless, black squirming mass.<\/p>\n
How can they do this?<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce, did you ever really love me? Truly? Is that why you didn\u2019t want the baby? You didn\u2019t love me?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s working, these barbs. They\u2019re slowing me down, making me think because there\u2019s truths in all of them. <\/p>\n
I get up a shale-faced ridge, nearly slip back down into her open arms. I turn around and see she\u2019s struggling to get up too, can\u2019t get a purchase and keeps sliding back down. She stops and looks up at me.<\/p>\n
Her eyes are all black now, no whites, just empty black pools.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce. Come down. I just want to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nearly do. She is my wife after all, and I love her so.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. Come down Bruce. You owe this to me. For once in your life, own up to something.\u201d<\/p>\n
All her talk has gnawed its way through my head and into my heart. She\u2019s got to me. She deserved so much and all she got was me.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust step forward and I can catch you.\u201d<\/p>\n
But I can\u2019t move. My selfish body won\u2019t let me do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Annette you can step forward! Can\u2019t you Bruce!\u201d<\/p>\n
Our neighbor Annette, tight tops and short shorts; and Jane was always away on long, long trips.<\/p>\n
Truly, I\u2019m a bastard.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou owe me everything Bruce! Everything! Step forward!\u201d<\/p>\n
And I run.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve looped back to the fissure where we were collecting.<\/p>\n
Eventually, the parasites mature and force their hosts to walk to these cracks, then they\u2019ll squirm their six-inch bodies out of the closest orifice and climb down into the cleft\u2019s warm depths.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of like fishing. You drop in a couple of pellets and the fissure fills up with white foam. Any parasites are pushed up to the surface, where you scoop em up and sell them for a small fortune.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy, but dangerous work.<\/p>\n
And I was a fool to take her with me. She should be up there, studying the stars where she belongs; not down here in the muck of this planet with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe astrophysicist marries a commoner, eh Bruce? That\u2019s what my dad said, didn\u2019t he?\u201d<\/p>\n
The crack is about a foot wide and ten feet long. I drop in a couple of pellets.<\/p>\n
How can she be so sane, yet insane?<\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou know, I\u2019ve been thinking about us,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s true what they say. The alphas do marry the deltas. Do you know what I mean? When a person is one extreme, say they are this brilliant, beautiful woman who achieves and achieves. Well, they don\u2019t marry that same kind of man. No. That would be too extreme, that would be too much competition for them, that would be an unbalanced relationship. So do you know what they do? Can you guess?\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what her game is now, but it\u2019s crushing me from the inside out. I let out a ragged, defeated breath. My eyes sting with tears that I cannot wipe away. I wish to hell I could shut this COM off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy they marry you, of course. The parasite skimmer. And it\u2019s not some unconscious instinct driving one to do this. It\u2019s a calculated, conscious decision that I weighed out in my brilliant head.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first of the white foam begins to bubble out and I get a glass bottle ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce, do you know what I\u2019m saying? Can you understand me, or am I speaking too quickly for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAhh! Good. He speaks. We can converse now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The white foam rises out of the crack like a baked cake and there\u2019s nothing. It\u2019s empty. I drop another pellet into small fissure to my left.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m saying that all those awful things you think about yourself, how you are a nobody, how you don\u2019t deserve somebody like me…well, they are all true. I was lying when I said you were special. That you hadn\u2019t found your calling yet. That when it comes you will know it and you will run with it and you will be amazing. It was all lies.\u201d<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t take it anymore and I cry out. \u201cWhy are you telling me this?! Why are you hurting me like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you are nothing and now I\u2019m free to say it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course it\u2019s me, Bruce. It\u2019s me through and through. Not all of these juveniles eat your mind away. Some of them are smart. Some of them just want to live in symbiosis like the adults that you pimp out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis can\u2019t be true. I\u2019ve never heard of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is. You and your fellow skimmers never bothered to investigate because, for one, you\u2019re not intelligent enough to do so and, two, all you care about is money so you never bothered to dig into it. Yet, here I am. Speaking to you clearly and concisely, so try to tell me I\u2019m wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo! It\u2019s not possible!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is, Bruce. They wriggle in and just nibble away at the front matter of your brain, feels like seltzer bubbling beneath your forehead. And your reward for feeding them is clarity of mind and unimaginable strength. I could break you over my knee if I caught you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foam begins to bubble out of the crack and I ready the bottle.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t her. There\u2019s just no way. They\u2019ve done something to her. She is my wife, my meek, wonderful wife who dotes on my every word. She gave up her rich life and her massive inheritance to be with me. This angry, spiteful creature isn\u2019t her.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce, why don\u2019t you tell me where you are?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce, are you not listening to me? Are you too stupid to hear me? I\u2019m trying to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n
There, pushed to the surface on a cake of white foam is an adult. A black, six-inch slug that writhes in frustration.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I\u2019m not being clear enough. What I\u2019m trying to tell you is that you have always been nothing and I have always been something. And now that they\u2019re with me, I am even more than I was. Do you understand? They\u2019ve elevated me even higher, Bruce, and I want you to come with me. I can\u2019t promise that you\u2019ll be up to where I am, but you will be better than that thing you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
God, her words have a pull to them. I know she\u2019s full of it, I know that\u2019s not my wife talking, but deep down I am tempted. Those are my wife\u2019s memories they\u2019re drawing from and they know exactly what to say. Know exactly which of my weaknesses to prey upon.<\/p>\n
She was always so much better than me, at everything. I was just this pale creature in her shadow. I do want to be more than I am, desperately, and she knows this. Knows how I\u2019ve struggled with this.<\/p>\n
I uncork the glass stopper and easily scoop him up in the bottle. They\u2019re pretty harmless like this. I could pop him like a grape between my forefingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course! I know where you are. Your self-importance has given you a false sense of noblesse oblige and you\u2019re back at the cracks, trying to skim your troubles away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Startled, I look up and see her.<\/p>\n
The planet\u2019s eternal wind has raked up the sand of the red desert into long serpentine ridges and she is on top of one, fast approaching. In the bright sun, she shimmers in her suit like a shooting star.<\/p>\n
And I run.<\/p>\n
I run maybe a full mile and then collapse beneath a boulder. The fracture in my fishbowl is letting my moisture escape, so my throat is bone dry, my lips are cracked and parched.<\/p>\n
Sleep! My body lusts for it. I try to stave it off, but I find my eyes drooping. Then against everything, I drop off.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce!\u201d<\/p>\n
I awake with a start. The sky is a black mass of clouds, threatening rain. Night has fallen. My skin prickles from the frost that\u2019s crept through the fissures in my fishbowl. The suit\u2019s heaters can\u2019t keep up.<\/p>\n
I stand. I\u2019ve been asleep for too long and she could be right on top of me. My heart thuds in my chest and my limbs tremble as I look around for her. But all I see is a ruined landscape of red rocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cBruce, obviously I\u2019m not insane. I\u2019m quite coherent. Tell me where you are so we can talk.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cYou dropped a rock on my head.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but you needed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause everything you do is done so timidly. You have to be kicked over the edge so you\u2019ll fly. Bruce, you need these things to be better than you are, to be stronger than you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is no other way. I\u2019m going to have to fight her. Fight my wife who is full of adrenaline and with her pain receptors shut off.<\/p>\n
I shudder at the thought of it.<\/p>\n
My plan is a fool\u2019s plan. I somehow have to break her fishbowl open and stuff this parasite up her nose. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve got though. That\u2019s all the planning I\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n
And then there is this other half of me that thinks she\u2019s right. She is never wrong about anything, ever. She is the brains and backbone of our relationship. She\u2019s right, I do need pushes to get me going–and more than once she\u2019s done that and I\u2019ve been grateful. I do need to be better than I am. Perhaps those things in my head would give me the clarity I need, make me stronger in body and mind.<\/p>\n
But it isn\u2019t completely lost on me how much she\u2019s manipulating me. Like a master puppeteer, she\u2019s pulling the right threads to make feel and think this way.<\/p>\n
The crack of lightning in the dark clouds draws my attention. A ship suddenly streaks across the skies overhead. The roar of its engines rumbles like thunder.<\/p>\n
Another skimming crew, landing to try their luck.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no way she hasn\u2019t seen that.<\/p>\n
\u201cJane, I\u2019m ready. I\u2019ve made up my mind. You\u2019re right. I need this. Where are you? I\u2019m too scared to take my helmet off by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
Not a word.<\/p>\n
My heart races and my mind somersaults at the meaning of this. It was all a trick. Now that they\u2019re here, I\u2019m secondary. It really wasn\u2019t about me becoming more than I am. All that was bullshit.<\/p>\n
She really has lost her mind. They really are in control.<\/p>\n
And I run.<\/p>\n
The ship is not too far off. I figure it\u2019s about a mile away. I can see it glowing like a gem on the horizon.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s likely making her way to it. Does she want to kill them and make her way across the galaxy? Or make more hosts for the rains? I have no idea what those tadpoles are thinking.<\/p>\n
And then I see her. There\u2019s LED lights ringing the base of her helmet. Her dark form is scrambling up a rock face not too far off.<\/p>\n
I still want to save her, despite everything.<\/p>\n
And I run after her.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s making hellishly good time though. She\u2019s up and over the cliff and out of sight in seconds.<\/p>\n
I leap down off a rock and land with heavy booted feet. Pins and needles shoot up my spine. I don\u2019t stop for a second and I pump my legs, running. With the crack in my fishbowl, the air filtration can\u2019t keep up with my heavy breathing and it quickly frosts over with my panicked breaths. I pull it off and throw it to the ground.<\/p>\n
I run on for what seems forever, losing sight of her and then gaining it and then losing it again.<\/p>\n
Eventually, I have to stop to catch my breath and throw up. I\u2019m sweating so badly, I feel like I\u2019m swimming in this suit. It\u2019s hot and wet and I can\u2019t run in it any longer. I pull a latch and it splits in two and I step out as it falls to the ground. I grab the bottle tightly in my wet, sweaty fist.<\/p>\n
And I run.<\/p>\n
The ship is at the base of a hill. It\u2019s a big white glowing egg. Its front door is open and rampway is extended. Warm lights spill out of the entranceway and illuminate a square patch of earth in the front of the ship.<\/p>\n
I scramble down the hill, watching the surrounding landscape for movement. But I don\u2019t see any.<\/p>\n
Now that I\u2019ve slowed, the night chill sets in. The cool air prickles my sweaty flesh and a shiver runs up my spine. Suddenly, I\u2019m very conscious of how exposed I am. I\u2019ve got on white boxers and just a t-shirt.<\/p>\n
I sneak up to the ship, keeping to the shadows and listening for any sounds coming from within.<\/p>\n
Judging my moment, I slink out from behind a rock and quickly make my way up to the ship. Just as my foot touches the patch of light cast upon the ground, a dark figure fills the entranceway.<\/p>\n
I gasp in surprise and my heart squelches in my chest, but I\u2019m too startled to move.<\/p>\n
The figure is in a suit and they have their back to me. Whoever it is, they\u2019re bent over and dragging something large.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t help but let out a cry as I see that what they\u2019re dragging is a body. It\u2019s a man and his head is crushed like a smashed cantaloupe.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Jane, I realize. She\u2019s killed the crew and is dragging them out one by one. Hosts for the rains.<\/p>\n
Her back is to me. She drags the person down the ramp, leaving a long bloody trail behind.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a big rock at my feet. I put the bottle down and pick it up with two hands. I raise it high above my head, and I wait.<\/p>\n
A shock of thunder splits the skies, but I stand as still as a tree.<\/p>\n
Closer she comes.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a moment there where I waver. This could kill her. Or worse, it doesn\u2019t kill her and she kills me. Or all this has been true and I am ruining the one chance I have to be better than I am and be on her level. Or I\u2019m taking all this away and dropping her right back down beneath me.<\/p>\n
The raindrops begin to fall and I bring the rock down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They came with the rains. I had my suit on. Jane didn\u2019t. The turquoise sky just frosted over with clouds as quick as a finger snap, and the rains fell. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. To let her take her suit off. But she was desperate. You get that way sometimes. You just want to feel real …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2422,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19768],"tags":[19769],"class_list":["post-132187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-28-summer-2018","tag-the-colored-lens-28-summer-2018","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132187"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133464,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132187\/revisions\/133464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}