Skeletons

The sleepy locomotive lumbered down the tracks, full of people dressed in clothing that doesn't quite fit this era. One man in particular stands out, and to say he is overdressed is a colossal understatement. The genteel man stood up and removed his glasses. He looked directly at Scott and boldly said, "Scott, this is going to shock you, but you are the only human on this train."
Mouth agape. Eyebrows low. Tongue drying.
"Just not a funny thing to say," he cooly replied.

It was snowing harder, and the air was getting thinner. It was also glowing harder, literally. The entire landscape was illuminated in a dull green light that transversed every gentle curve of the mountains. Scott never noticed it.
Seriously, any human that wasn't aware of the aliens had to be an idiot. Nobody actually said anything about their permanent residence, but it was just understood. Spacemen had been living amongst people for years, it was a plain fact! It didn't need any explaining! The giant eyeballs were sort of a dead giveaway at least.

"Freaks," he secretly dubbed them. Or "Mutants and nerds," which was a more frequent term when he was surrounded by friends. I suppose he never realized that he was talking to some at that very moment. They first arrived when he was a child, but there had been visits for many years before that. Actually, his parents were both from Vesuvius 81, a planet not far from the Milky Way. They migrated to Earth 42 years ago in search of a better life.

They had been on Earth for a total of six minutes when they adopted Scott. He was resting on a street corner, swaddled up in a brown blanket (which was not originally brown, but was in fact redesigned by a robust Swedish man hoping to turn a profit).
This ugly little baby taught these aliens an invaluable trait that skeletons don't know by default.
Disgust.
Every alien fully understands every conceivable emotion and idea EXCEPT for disgust. The baby puked the instant they touched him, and the aliens had absolutely no idea how to react. At first they laughed, but then got embarrassed because they knew that response simply did not fit. The Vesuviusians let him simmer down for about 14 Earth minutes before they picked him back up.

That was very relevant. Scott did everything in intervals of 14 minutes. It took 14 minutes for the importance of the locomotive situation to fully set in. He put down the newspaper he had been barely reading and stared intently at the floor. "Skeletons," he mumbled, "Skeletons!" He stood up and screamed in absolute horror. His uninterrupted screaming disturbed every alien on the bus. He only stopped to gather more air.

An incredibly muscular, blonde Swedish man burst into the train doors wearing a look of intense concern. "My God!" he whispered. His feet were lighter than air as he galloped down the aisle toward Scott. "My precious boy, it will be alright if you just trust me with all of your might!" were the only words he said for the next 14 minutes. Scott wasn't as much concerned with him as he was the "skeletons" he raved on about. The Swedish man cooed and floated around Scott, as if he were afraid to touch him. Finally, he laid a single finger in his knapsack and pulled out a string of silver thread. "Make ten wishes and none will be granted," he said in a tone just short of piercing silence.

He touched Scott and he vomited.

Starlight

Couldn't take it.

I was at a familiar place. Outside. Sitting at a table. Not proud of being there, I was with a close friend of mine. Others who had shown up were just some people I had met, throughout the year. I had gotten to know them, a little better, over the summer. There were still one or two people that I had not previously made any attempt to meet, at all. Really, though, I could not tell if there was any actual figure that I cared enough about. Sorry, I was just a little bit uncomfortable, for a few reasons.

Things were going ok. My friend and I talked about things that would always matter, to us. We exchanged subtle ideas and just general things that we both considered to be "neat". Actually, looking back, I can not remember anything specific. There was no telling when I stopped paying attention to the conversation. I was interested, but things started to go on. Personally, I thought I was pulling a prank on myself- breathing heavily and what not. Lost my vision for a moment. At one point, all I could do was hear and not listen. Left eyebrow started to twitch. My stomach felt awful.

There it went.

I could have stayed at this point for a while, but then I looked two inches to the right. One of the people I really had no intentions of knowing, was just sitting there. Oh, God. Exhaustion topped it off. A hooded sweatshirt. Absolutely covered in graphic designs. No, that is average. It was just that i was going to have to talk to him, eventually. Sitting in the same area as this man placed a burden onto me. The way things were going, I would eventually find out where he is from and maybe even something funny about his damned name. Questionable ethnicity, that is the worst part. No, that is ok. His laughter. Those awfully regular teeth. Expected teeth, for this man. Someone made a reference to something popular. He begins to laugh. Nope. That was all.

At that moment, I locked my mouth into a phoney smile, rose up, and shook violently from side to side. "Teeth! Teeth! Teeth! Head! Head! Head! Head!", I shouted. These people do not deserve my company. Who, here, am I trying to impress? I, then, leaned toward the man and went ahead and slapped him in his face as hard as humanly possible. When my hand returned to my side, I quickly began to do what can be described as erratic dance moves. Laughter. Ok, then. I turned around, walked to a table, and grabbed two cups of incredibly hot coffee. The two young women, that the cups belonged to, did not react. As I grasped the paper cups, I made sure to squeeze them so that the lids would simply pop off. I took both cups, and crushed them directly onto my chest. The scorching hot liquid would meet my amazing man bosom, almost as if I was going for some stupid "bra" joke. Third degree burns, lovely!

I let my eyebrows drop, as I started to stare everyone else down. My eyes fell upon some white kid who was playing with a knife, earlier. "Give it," I demanded, and I snatched it from him. I turned and looked right at my close friend. Somehow, he provoked these horrible, breathy, screeching and slobbering noises as I completely jammed the knife right into my own cheek. Twisted it. I yanked it out, looked at it, and commenced to slice off my bottom lip. That was when I turned to see a woman that I am very attracted to. I saw her, and I jumped to restrain her where she sat. Holding her hair back, I shoved my severed bottom lip into her face, shouting, "eat it! You dee-zerz it! Gnah on it! Gnah on it!". The fool.

As soon as I was done with her, I hopped off of her chair and jumped toward an empty table. My plan was to throw the table, maybe. Just then- some very old man walked up and continued to unbutton his large jacket. I saw horrifying things in there. This was really it. He was standing there, looking in my direction. No reason for this man to own a jacket with buttons. My eyes were fixated upon the unreasonable visions that began to play inside of his coat. This was the only time that I actually felt that my bottom lip was completely removed. Time had no idea what it was doing at this point. This moment went on for what seemed like months. Looking back, it felt as though all atoms and molecules that made up that moment were taking shifts, collaborating and producing this feature. Slam. His last button was unbuttoned. I really wish I had better appreciated that moment in which Time, itself, fumbled awkwardly around its new office. This next moment was much worse.

The man finally finished taking his garment completely off. Once it was off, an un-mistake-able horror actually spilled from right out of his abdomen. It was dark chocolate Reese's cups!!

Happy Halloween, y'all.

Cuties

The worst part of it all was how incredibly cute they were. No other words could describe these cute things. They were so cute. Goodness gracious, for the love of the sweet one, no one will hear me out. I am officially only allowed to call them cute. They have invaded my vocabulary.

I first began to see them, last winter. My little pup began itching a lot more often, too. They gave him fleas. The things would mew around my back yard, in unison. That was when they were cute.

Problems began when I had thrown out a plum that seemed to get moldy a little too soon. I saw one of the cute fuckers sniffing around it. So, what? A stray eating garbage. Nothing new. Cute. Strays already seem to take on a lot of filth. The cute thing picked it up, and brought it to its pals.

A week later, I think I saw the same one peering around. Crouching, hiding its face. It got cuter than the last time I saw it. If only you knew what I meant. I saw it when I was checking to see if my pup had gone yet. I saw the cute one kind of rise up and perch itself on a patch of mud. For some reason, my pup did not bark at it. He walked up to it. Sniffing.
.
.
My dog immediately lost his life. When I saw it, my mouth kind of opened up. I held my hands out, in front of me and wondered, "What the hell?". It looked directly into my eyes, in such a cute, cute way. I think it heard my thoughts. No, really. Heeeeeaaaaarrrd my thoughts. How cute can one cute thing be? I began to think that the cute critter was full of nothing more than, that's right- pure CUTE. That moldy plum really must have made it that much more cute. It ran off, in a cute hurry to join the rest of the cute ones.

As soon as I got inside, I scraped around for the yellow pages. Maybe animal control was the proper authority. Maybe just.. an exterminator. I dialed up the only one with an actual picture to accompany the number. On the line was some ditz asking too many specifics about the critters. I don't know. They would only understand if they saw them in person. A guy was on his way.

After that, I looked out and saw the one from before perched up again. This time, it was in front of the others like some type of drill sergeant. Mewing orders to the others. Ohhh Hell. This is not the case. No, not tonight.

The exterminator arrived. Some European guy with a toothpick in his mouth. Really just European. Not this hemisphere. He had a drowsy look in his eye, almost as if the only thing keeping him alive for the next 24 hours was whatever bogus fee he was going to charge me at the end of this. In his hand was a little toolbox, decorated with whatever the hell his people decorate stuff with. I was going to kill him, later on. So, I told him where those cute cute things were, and he just sneered. I was going to kill him, though.

That was when I got the idea. I actually did hate this guy, so I ran in the house and came out with two newly molded plums to throw at him. "Yeah, you creepy son of a bitch!". I really could not help it. As he violently turned around, the cutie cute cutes appeared at his heels. He was next. Totally did not mean for that to happen. I just did not like his damned fees. For the first moment, I laughed, but then I was horrified. I was in their path.

The first thing I thought about was escaping.. but the first thing that I did was just mutter "y-y'all guys are cute!". They have invaded my speech. I guess I was not next. I was the only person they could reach. Am I really that dumb? No, I can't be dumber than my dog.. No dumber that that guy. Right. What was the one thing we had in common? The plums. Of course. How stupid. How is that even possible? I don't know, but it sure as hell kept me alive.