Aliens. Every single site, page, or web cast I flipped through had something to say about aliens. Everyone, from Joe schmo living on the streets, to the president of the US of A had some freakin opinion on it.
They’re friendly, they’re hostile, they’re here to take over the world, they abducted me and did experiments . . . yada yada ya. Once word got out, there was no stopping it. It was almost worse then a pandemic or something.
I rolled my eyes and hit the power button. The screen went satisfyingly blank and I sat the computer back onto the coffee table. As I’d earlier concluded, this had been a complete waste of my time, but whatever. Lion wanted to keep an eye on the info being circulated and it was the least I could do.
Stretching, I hopped off of the couch and, heading for the bedroom to change into something I hadn’t slept in, halted as I heard the sound of an electronic appliance being cranked to its highest ability and several loud complaints coming from the opposite direction. Changing course, I left the living room and entered the kitchen where it seemed an atomic bomb had found our flour supply. I don’t think there was one surface in that room not covered in it, including the culprit and the three men sitting around the table.
The source of the mess, yep you guessed it, Pixie, was currently standing in front of the kitchen aid, sheepishly looking at her audience.
All eyes immediately turned to me, the mess forgotten. I was sad to see the lightened mood disappear with my appearance, but I knew we were all on edge and it was to be expected.
“So, they got anything new?” Chess asked warily, his exhaustion evident in his voice.
“Nothing to report.” I gave them the gist of my investigation and, after dusting off a chair, joined the majority at the table. Everyone looked like, well quite frankly, other than being covered in flour, liked they’d seen the end of the world, which they practically had. Some birthday present that was. Not that anyone had given our annual age increase a second thought after the bomb shell that had imploded our lives even further last night.
After we’d managed to get over our initial shock, if you could even say we did, Lion concluded for the time being we should just stay low. We all knew we were going to have to do something sooner or later, but Lion thought it best if we just stay put for the time being. After watching the news for several hours, we all sacked out on the floor and I don’t think any of us caught one z.
“Well, between last night and breakfast, I don’t think things could get worse.” Chess quipped, smudging the flour on his face, as he attempted to remove it.
“Oh shut up,” Pixie countered, obviously not happy with the remark and fed up with the bane of her existence, as she glared at his back. I swear I saw a light go off in her head and an evil glint enter her eyes. I knew she was up to something, but I could only watch in amused horror, as in one swift movement she removed the bowl from its current position on the counter and nearing the table, with an eloquent smile, upended the bowl over Chess’s head.
His reaction was immediate. The chair he’d been sitting on a second earlier was in his hand and heading straight where Pixie should have been. But unfortunately for him she’d vanished and the chair bounced harmlessly off of the wall. Chess, foiled in his plans for payback, turned sharply and stalked out of the room his whole aura seething with rage.
Averting my attention back to the scene at hand, I tried to locate Pixie, and couldn’t help from bursting out laughing, as I found a yellow monkey sitting on the counter shoving grapes in its mouth from the fruit bowl.
The monkey grabbed a grape and threw at my head in a bad tempered gesture. Ducking I avoided the missal and Pixie let out a couple hoots of irritation. Leave it to Pixie to get out a mess she’d made smelling like a rose, it would’ve been more appropriate if she’d morphed into a snake.
Who wheeled over to the counter and Pixie hopped onto his shoulder, offering Who a grape. He took it, and popping it into his mouth, wheeled towards the living room.
Geez, who was supposed to clean up this mess now? Me, of course. I sighed in frustration. It had only been last night Pixie had confessed her feelings, but it seemed like an eternity ago. I was still no closer to coming to grips with the fact, but for now I’d decided to just ignore them. What else was I supposed to do?
“Key.”
I looked up as Lion spoke my name.
“Yeah?”
“Will you go talk to Chess?”
I scrunched my face. “Why me? What am I supposed to do? It’s not like I did anything.”
“No, but he’ll listen to you. You know how he and Pixie are, she’s way too stubborn to apologize and he’s too hard headed to just let it go. I want you to try and calm him down, the last thing we need right now is a war amongst the ranks.”
“Fine.” I agreed. At least I wouldn’t have to clean up.
“Oh and when you’re done, could you clean up the kitchen?”
Jerk. Sometime, I swear he still used his powers.
Pushing away from the table, I headed for the hall and the bathroom, where I could hear running water.
Reaching the ajar door, I found Chess, shirt off, standing over the sink trying furiously to remove the mixture of flour, egg, and milk from his hair, with what was unmistakably Pixie’s hairbrush. Perfect. Another mess for me to clean up.
“Go away,” Chess growled, as I entered his peripheral vision.
“Make me.” I quipped, leaning against the door frame.
Frustrated, he stopped his pointless endeavor and turned to face me. “What do you want then?”
“Oh, just to come to ask for your forgiveness.”
He looked at me blankly.
“What, I thought I'd apologize for Pixie, since she's ever the forgiving type.” Chess raised his eyebrows. Please he couldn’t even take a joke.
“Lion just wanted me to tell you not to try and get revenge or anything, he doesn’t want us fighting with each other right now.” I spelled out for him.
“Sure,” Chess replied, turning back to the mirror.
“Wait, just like that you’re agreeing to not get back at Pixie?” Something wrong with this picture anyone?
“Well, since you asked so nicely, I could only agree,” Chess teased.
“No, seriously Chess, promise you won’t.”
Chess returned to facing me. “I promise, from this time forward, for the time being, I will not do anything to provoke Pixie. Happy?” he asked, crossing his still flour covered arms.
“Very.” Something wasn’t adding up here. Whatever, I pushed that feeling away, I would just have to trust him, and since when did anyone trust Chess. Ugh.
He pulled at his artificial dread locks distractedly.
“Chess?”
“Yeah?” I could tell he was getting frustrated with me, as he let out a heavy sigh.
“Why don’t you just take a shower?”
He gave me a ‘how stupid are you look’ and rolled his eyes.
“Hmm, maybe because you’re standing there with the door open.”
I stammered out an apology, and removed myself from the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.
*
“Phew,” I wiped the less floury, back of my hand across my forehead and threw the pasty covered rag into the sink. Well, that was fun. Not.
Looking around I evaluated the result of the last hour and half of my life with contempt. It was far from perfect, but hey, it wasn’t my mess in the first place and that was as good as it was going to get.
Getting to my feet, I meandered my way into the living room where the rest of the aliens were gathered. From my position in the doorway I surveyed my bedraggled family sitting drone-like in front of the computer, hypnotically watching the screen.
Who was rolled in next to the couch where Pixie lay and the two seemed to have fallen asleep, leaning against one another. It was actually kind of sweet looking. Lion sat next to Pixie, a hard look on his face as he intently watched the screen, hyper sensitive for the smallest hint that there had been a new development and we needed to act. Chess sat next to him, a towel draped over his shoulders, his now dry hair sticking out like he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket. I was surprised to see how much his expression matched Lions. We might not be blood related to Lion, but after living with him for the past 16 years, it was obvious we’d picked up some of his habits. I had to admit, Chess did Lion pretty well.
Hard expression, distant, yet determined gaze . . . hmm was that the reason I felt the way I did about Chess? Because he reminded me of Lion?
Chess seemed to realize I was just standing there and turned to face me. “You look good Key, almost like something straight out of a Betty Crocker cookbook.”
I glared at him. His features may have been similar to Lion’s but that’s where it ended. There was definitely no way he was anything like Lion, and maybe, just maybe, that was a good thing.
“Thank you for cleaning up the mess Key.” Lion stated distractedly, prying his gaze away from the screen long enough to do a double take of me, and give me a wry smile. See any differences people? Example A. incorrect. Example B. Slightly more correct, although not quite the desired result. Judging by their reactions, I guess I looked worse then I’d thought.
“Mn.” Pixie muttered, as she slowly regained consciousness, and after a few minutes of hemming and hawing, opened her eyes.
“Feel better?” I asked sarcastically. How was it that she got to take a cat nap while I had to clean up her mess.
“Oh, Key. I was going to clean up the kitchen you didn’t have to!” Pixie informed me angelically.
“Of course you were going to, just as soon as Who walks and pigs fly.”
“Key! That’s not nice.” Pixie glared at me with an miffed expression and made sure Who was still asleep and hadn’t heard my derogatory statement. She would be the last one to admit it, but she really was a mess maker, not a cleaner.
“Take it outside, you two, I’m trying to watch the news,” Lion complained, motioning for us to take our fight elsewhere.
“Can’t; it’s raining,” I informed him, glancing out the side window to confirm it still was. Yep, nothing but cloudy skies dumping recycled water back to the earth.
“So what, it’ll make you melt?” Pixie scoffed. Can you guess what movie she’d recently watched?
“No, I just don’t like being wet and cold.” I shivered involuntarily.
“Cat,” Chess teased, adding his two cents.
I hissed.
“We could always play sharps.”
We all glanced over at the forgotten Who, who had been awakened by our bickering. He was gazing blankly off into space, a contemplating look on his face. A feeling of admiration welled up inside me. Even after all he’d been through, he was still Who, and hearing him voice the same statement he’d made so often a lifetime ago, I felt like some part of the real him that had been locked away, had just been released.
I smiled. “Sounds good to me.” And I meant it.
Even though I knew, we all knew Who would win, we took our spots in a circle, and using the make shift kitchen knives, we were all able to forget about our dire circumstances for a fleeting second. And in that second, we became a family once again.
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