Alara Alara The Place

I returned to the apartment building where Daro and Anzali and I had lived before we went down to the sea.  It had not changed in the way buildings change-- its paint was the same color, it seemed no more or less weatherbeaten than before.  The railing on the 3rd floor balcony still sagged.  But it had changed in the way homes change, because it wasn't home any more.  Because different people lived there now, filling it with their strange scents, and because I had changed.  The scent of the sea was still in my nostrils.  I would never smell the comforts of home again.

Renting the third floor apartment did not present difficulties.  I walked through the silence of the apartment, marveling at its emptiness.  The furniture was still there, the faded rug, the great sagging bed, the tired appliances.  But all the personality was gone.  Anzali's bright prints had been taken off the walls, which themselves had been whitewashed again to remove our cheery yellow paint.  White is a disturbing color, the color of bones and of drowned skin, pink human and green farla alike.  Even the humans of other colors became gray, in death by water. If I needed to be here long, the white walls would glare in my eyes and drive me mad. 

There was a knock at the door, startling me, and I almost fled.  But it wouldn't be the Lion King, not here, not yet.  He wouldn't know I was back.  I opened the door.

A human greeted me.  "Hi there, new neighbor.  I'm Rachael from the second floor apartment.  Just thought I'd come say hi.  Need help moving in?"

Rachael was chubby – not just by farla standards, but by human – with short brown hair and a squeaky tenor voice. She had pale skin, which she covered with more makeup than most humans, and her chin and brow seemed unusually defined for a female human. "Hello,"  I said distantly.  "I'm Ashmi.  No, I don't need help moving in.  Thanks for asking."

"Oh.  Well, sorry to bother you.  You want to come downstairs for a cup of tea or something? I like to get to know my neighbors.  It cuts down on the insecurity, you know.  Living in a place like this-- well, this isn't the best of neighborhoods, you know?"

"I know,"  I said bitterly, and wondered if this androgynous human knew the Lion King.  I also wondered if I could still drink tea.  I was afraid of my bone-white apartment, and loneliness.  "I'll come downstairs if you want, but I don't know if I'll be able to take tea.  I tend to be allergic to nearly everything."

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Surely you have heard a similar tale before, almost but not entirely like this one, of the queen who sought the perfect wife for her son, the crown prince.

The queen had ruled the land alone since the death of her husband. She was praised for her wisdom and her benevolence toward her people. But she was no longer young, and it was time to make sure her son made a politically beneficial marriage, to strengthen his position when it came time for him to take the crown. Many in the land whispered that the young man would make a terrible king, and wanted him to abdicate in favor of his younger sister, who was beautiful and bright and smiling. Celia, the young sister, could look anyone in the eye and make them believe that in that moment, they were the most important person in her world. Arien, the prince… could not do that.

The prince had a talent for mathematics, and it had expressed itself very young. Some said he should be the chancellor of the exchequer rather than the king. But Queen Leyta knew her son would make a compassionate and wise ruler as well as a prudent one. He also had a gift for seeing the humanity behind the numbers he calculated, of being able to think of the impact they would have on the people he would one day rule.

Once, when he was a child of six, his nursemaid lost him. Leyta found him behind the kitchens, picking through the garbage bins to find table scraps. She would have punished the kitchen staff for allowing such a thing, but Arien insisted that she should not. “It’s not their fault, Mother. I ordered them to let me, and I’m the prince, so they had to obey me. I told them that if you became angry at them I would tell you that they were only obeying my orders. They can’t get in trouble for obeying their liege.”

Leyta sighed. She could punish them for obeying their liege, when their liege was 6 and the thing he wanted to do was eat garbage, but she wouldn’t, because she knew why they obeyed. When the prince was thwarted, he would ask why. And if he received an answer, he would argue with it and present his position. Sometimes, this debate would lead to him accepting the necessity, and calmly going about his business, seeming to forget all about what he’d asked. More often, if he didn’t get an answer to “why”, or he didn’t like the answer and thought it didn’t make sense, and he was still thwarted, he would start to scream and hide under tables, or scream and run around and break things, or scream and slam his head into the wall, and he wouldn’t stop even when offered the thing he wanted. It was very, very hard to calm him once he started shrieking. So instead of punishing the kitchen staff, she asked Arien, “Why were you eating garbage?”

“Our food is bought with the taxes we take from the people,” he said seriously. “If we wasted less food, we wouldn’t have to tax the people as sorely as we do, and they would have more money to buy things for themselves.”

So she took him aside and told him that the scraps were fed to the dogs, who helped the palace huntsmen bring down game, or the goats and fowl, who gave the palace milk, meat and eggs, or they were tilled into the ground to make the fields around the palace more fruitful. They did not, in fact, go to waste; food that wasn’t wholesome for humans to eat could still feed animals, who would turn it back into wholesome food.

Then she had a lengthy discussion with him about tax policy, and listened gravely to his suggestions as to how they could ease the burdens on the people, and told him what the problems with his ideas were. And when some of his ideas didn’t have significant problems, she told him so, and discussed them with him, and even implemented a few as policy.

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Based on the Jethro Tull song of the same name. Warnings: Implied child death in past.

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"Good night, baby," the mother said to her child, stepping out of the room and turning off the light. "Sleep tight."

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Bobbi Ann hugged Leelee Lamb tighter. Leelee Lamb wasn't scared. Leelee was big and soft and ready to fight. In the darkness, Bobbi Ann reached for all of them. There was Burgundy, a bear almost as big as Bobbi herself, but not quite, because Bobbi was a big girl now and she could almost walk. Burgundy had a funny rumbly voice. Mylis was a cat pillow with pretty green eyes that felt funny when Bobbi stroked them. Then there was Special Blanket, which was pink, and Silky Blanket, which was white and felt like Mommy's shirt when Mommy got all dressed up and went away. Greenie wasn't green, he was a little stuffed dog, but he talked just like the leprechaun in the TV commercials about the cereal. Sheena was a pink rabbit in a short skirt. All of them were there, lined up in their proper places to go into battle.

"Ready?" Bobbi Ann asked them all. It was hard to talk and make the right sounds, but her animals and friends could hear her even when she just thought it. "Ready, guys?"

"Yes, we're ready," they all said.

"Okay, let's go."

Bobbi Ann used to be scared to go There, because it was dark and scary and the Child-Stealers lived there. She would try to stay in the light with Mommy and Daddy, and when they put her in the dark crib she would cry and cry, because that was the gateway to There. But now she had warriors to fight with her, so she was safe. Bobbi closed her eyes and went through the Gate.

On the Other Side, everything was different. She could walk just like a big girl on the Other Side, and she never went peepee in the diaper, and she could say anything she wanted to. The others were there at her feet. They looked sort of like animals in cartoon shows, except that those kind of animals never killed anybody, and Bobbi's friends were warriors. "Everybody be careful," Bobbi Ann said. She was holding Mylis in her hands. Special Blanket was tied around her neck, like Superman's cape, and Silky Blanket was tied around her chest. "I smell Child-Stealers."

"Yes," Leelee said. "I see one coming."

All of them got into a fighting stance as the Child-Stealer approached. It was horrible, of course, and Bobbi got scared, like she always did. It had so many heads she couldn’t count them, with eyes on top of tentacles coming out of everywhere, and it smelled real bad. Bobbi stepped back into the ring of her animal friends, as Special Blanket and Silky Blanket wrapped themselves around her, like armor protecting her.

"Charge!" Bobbi yelled.

Greenie leapt at that, snarling and barking at the Child-Stealer. It swung an eye at him, and he bit it. Burgundy pounded the Child-Stealer with his fists. Bobbi picked him up and threw him at one of the heads, where he could do more damage. She threw Mylis next, spitting and clawing like the real kitty did when Bobbi pulled its tail. Leelee charged, shaking the bell around her neck as she baahed a war cry. And Sheena hopped at the thing, battering it with her little paws. Bobbi herself threw herself into the fray with a scream, biting and clawing and pounding, picking up friends and beating the Child-Stealer over its heads with them, until finally it vanished in a puff of mist.

"Well, we did it," Burgundy rumbled. "It's dead."

"How marvelous! I'm so glad," Greenie said.

"Let's go have a picnic!" Bobbi Ann suggested.

"Good idea," Sheena said. "I want some carrots."

The group of friends strolled into the park, and they all sat down to have a picnic.

But as they were eating, they heard something terrible -- the horrible throbbing Sound the worst of the Child-Stealers made, so low it bit into their bones. Leelee Lamb turned to Bobbi. "That's the One! You have to run, Bobbi-- we'll hold it off!"

"Okay!" Bobbi Ann ran and ran, away from the Sound and from the noise of her friends fighting it. Soon she had to slow down, because she was tired. The Sound was so far away she couldn't hear it anymore.

She walked until she came upon a graveyard, where the little angel children were playing. The little angel children all had halos and wings. They had all lost their battles with the Child-Stealers, and gone up to Heaven as angels. "Play with us!" the little angel children called.

"I can't," Bobbi said. "I'm not dead."

"Oh," they said disappointedly. Then they said, "But it's great fun in Heaven. We play all the time. Don't you want to come?"

"No," Bobbi said. "You'll never grow up. I want to be a big grownup, and I can't do that if I'm dead."

"Who needs to grow up?" they asked.

"Grownups are big and they can do everything. I want to be one."

"You're no fun," they whined.

Bobbi walked up out of there and into a green field, trying to find her way back to her friends.

Then she heard a roaring, and turned. A Child-Stealer with a mouth like a vacuum cleaner was running toward her, and her friends and protectors weren't here. Bobbi ran and ran as fast as she could. But it felt like her arms and legs were tangling together, that something had wrapped around them so she couldn't run.

She tripped and fell hard to the ground. The Child-Stealer landed on her back, and she began to scream. It pressed her down, strangling the air out of her lungs.

Then Mommy's hands came out of nowhere and ripped the Child-Stealer to shreds. They lifted Bobbi Ann up, pulled away the blankets wound around her head, and carried her out of There.

Bobbi began to cry as soon as she could breathe. Mommy held her and patted her. "There, there, honey, it's all right. It's all right. You’re safe now. You’re all right."

Gradually Bobbi closed her eyes and slid back to There. She was protected from the Child-Stealers by the warm circle of her mother's arms. She laughed and taunted them, until from a distance she felt the arms relaxing away from her, and she was set back down alone on the cold ground of There. "Noo!!" she wailed, but couldn't make herself wake up and call for Mommy again.

The Child-Stealers advanced on her. Suddenly, she heard her friends behind her. "Bobbi! We were worried!" Leelee Lamb said.

"Look at all these Child-Stealers," Greenie said nervously.

Bobbi looked at her friends, her protectors, and a hot joy bubbled up from somewhere within. "No problem," she said. "Let's take them!"

She and her friends leapt forth in a savage, snarling attack. Gone was the fear from before. All there was now was anger and savage joy. Bobbi Ann and her legion of stuffed animals fought violently, laughing and crying, with the blood of the Child-Stealers running down their paws and hands. And the air rang with screams and Bobbi's war whoops, as the nightly battle was joined in earnest.

---

The mother put the baby back in her crib, and looked down at her. Her husband stood next to her. "Thank God she's all right."

"Yes. Thank God I got to her in time." The child moved slightly in her sleep. "Look at her," the mother said tenderly. "So peaceful. Without a care in the world. Don't you wish we adults could sleep like that?"

"Yeah." He smiled at his daughter, and turned to his wife. "Better leave her now, or she'll wake up." As they left, he turned out the light.

The angel showed up three days after Riyana Delgado started working at the site of the anomaly.

Given the nature of the anomaly, it was possible the entity was an alien, or some kind of supernatural thing like a spirit. But it was obvious to Riyana what the entity was the moment it spoke. In an impossible voice that was simultaneously unbearably high-pitched and so deep and low it resonated in in her bones, it said, “BE NOT AFRAID,” and Riyana knew it was an angel.

Fisher was the first one who managed to say anything, probably because he was the senior physicist on the team and, ostensibly, was the leader. “What the hell are you?”

“It’s an angel, Bob,” Riyana whispered harshly. “Show some respect.”

“An angel. Really.” Yelena Sokolov sounded almost disgusted.

“GLORY TO THEY WHO ARE ON HIGH. WHAT HUMANITY HAS BROKEN, HUMANITY CANNOT FIX. THEY WHO ARE THE HIGHEST, GLORY TO THEIR NAME, HAS SENT THIS ONE TO FIX WHAT HUMANITY HAS BROKEN.”

“Oh,” Fisher said, and then again, “oh.”

“You are really an angel?” Arjun Chaudhry asked. “God is real? The Christian God?”

“MANY HUMANS HAVE SEEN FACETS OF THEY WHO CANNOT BE COMPREHENDED, THE LORD AND CREATOR OF ALL, BUT NONE CAN UNDERSTAND THE FULLNESS OF THEIR GLORY.” The angel floated forward. It was not a humanoid with wings. It was huge, perhaps six or seven meters tall, and was mostly comprised of dots of brilliant light like stars, vaguely outlining a bipedal shape that might have looked humanoid if it hadn’t had so many stars around its general head area, as if it had antlers, or a gigantic hat, or a mushroom-shaped head. Within the constellation that was the angel, nebula-like mists of many colors swirled, drifting into thicker bands or thinning out to show the desert rocks and sand behind it. “IT IS NOT THIS ONE’S PLACE TO EXPLAIN TO HUMANITY WHAT IS TOO INEFFABLE FOR EXPLANATION. THIS ONE IS HERE TO REPAIR WHAT HUMANITY HAS BROKEN.”

“Good,” Riyana said fervently. “Because all our measurements are suggesting that the thing is growing, and you’re right, we have no idea how to fix it.”

The angel approached the anomaly. The spots of bright light shone especially like stars against the lightless slice through reality that Riyana and the rest of her team were here to study, and reverse if they could.

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Once upon a time, a hen, a cat, a dog, a pig, a goat and a rabbit all lived together in a little house.

Like good housemates, they all worked together to do the chores and pay the bills. In the front yard, Goat had a little pen. Children would come and pay to come into the pen and pet Goat. Sometimes the other animals came out to be petted too, except for the hen, because she was always too busy. 

Rabbit had beautiful long fur and brushed it all the time, and then she would spin the fur that came off with the brush into wool, which she would sell. The wool that came from Rabbit’s fur made lovely soft sweaters.

The others had jobs around the house. Hen kept a garden where she grew food for herself, Pig, Goat and Rabbit. Sometimes Dog ate the food too. Once or twice even Cat did, because Hen’s cooking was very good, but most of the time Cat prowled around for mice, or took naps.

Dog’s job was to bark a lot. Dog barked to warn Goat that children were coming for the petting zoo if Goat was inside the house. Dog barked to warn other dogs to go away. Dog barked to say hi to people. Dog barked to say that people had better watch out and not try any funny business. Dog barked at squirrels. He couldn’t explain why he needed to bark at squirrels. He just did.

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