Guest of the UFO

Chapter 1

It is the darkest hour of the night, and I am sorting my clothes into a compressible suitcase, in preparation for the official training at the UNCF headquarters. There is a science to packing. First, the coloreds have to be on the same scale. The shirts take a section at the right corner of the box, the gowns lay adjacent to it, and everything else stays down. I taught myself this. When anything goes awry, it literally feels like there is a scrawny rodent nibbling at my brain. It could drive me crazy. Xavier says this could be a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but Xavier says a lot of internet recycled facts, both true and untrue. I keep reprogramming her to sift the truth from the lies, but sometimes she is as stubborn as a mule.

In a few minutes, I have carefully packed everything up, except Xavier. She looks up at me with steel like eyes. Then, the black orbs begin to get infused with red hearts. That was her way of saying, 'I love you.'

"We don't have time for that." I snap at her, as I zip the suitcase up and hover above her, arms.

Xavier is about a foot tall. She is an AI that has been with me for as long as I can remember. When my foster parents had refused me from going to a public school, she was bought as my teacher. I remember the dismal way dad had dropped her on the table. That day, he was wearing brown trousers and a shirt whose first three buttons were left deliberately open. His mass of dark, curly chest hair peeked from the shirt. His breath reeked of a strong drink and he had an electronic pipe in his mouth.

"You need a teacher, eh, kid? We know you're smart and all, but we got you a really cool tutor." He laughed. His forehead was full of sweat to which some of his dirty brown hair was plastered.

"This stuff cost a lot of money. So you better be careful around it, kid."

Dad never failed to use an opportunity to remind me how expensive it was to keep me around. I was five years old then. I had never stepped outside the house, and I had no toys. All I requested for was books.

Father came closer to me and rubbed my back. "Be a good kid, eh?" I nodded. I thought him as disgusting with his yellowing teeth and dubious penchant for making money. Yet, when the social worker came to check on me which was every three weeks, I always had a smile for her, and I let her know I was fine. I am not quite sure why I did that. But I knew I was not living as other normal kids do. And this weirdness, which I actually loved, allowed me the liberty of being myself. I was naturally a recluse. And I knew that if I was transferred and given to normal parents, life would be extra difficult for me. At the age of five, I knew that.

Mother was a different case. She sometimes forced me to help out with chores. She was okay, but she always had a distanced look in her eyes. Regardless, she was a lovely woman. Despite, despite.

On Christmas mornings, we made food from scratch. Other days of the year, we usually ordered food from a robot. All you had to do was insert the materials through a slot. The robot had different components with different timers. There was a mixer, a section that shredded vegetables and cooked them for the minutes spent, another section for steaming, boiling, frying, etc. It never took time.

But on Christmas mornings, mother and I would put our hands to work. She would wash two florets of cauliflower. I would place spices on the turkey, let the scent of rosemary waft into my nose, and leave it to marinate. We would work together, in contemplative silence.

We never spoke much around the house. Father was the garrulous one. For mother and I, we were often shrouded in thick silence. I think she was always out of touch with reality, because at the study, she would click on the projected books on the wall, endlessly, for hours, without selecting any. She had a knack for drifting off in the middle of a conversation, and staring blankly at the speaker, lost in the bubble of her own thoughts. She was a desperately internal being.