Alien or Alian

The morning sun barged through the tiny window in Ozias’ bedroom, and woke him without any remorse. His bed was directly across from the window on one side of the room, and he had placed it that way on purpose in case he ever forgot to set an alarm for school. One flash of the sun’s rays across his face, and he was always wide awake ready to get moving for the day.

But today was different. Today he was too exhausted to get out of bed. He had been up till nearly 5 a.m. dealing with an alien.

It had taken about an hour and a half to get Ezra out of the bathtub and mostly dry and cleaned of his blood; nearly two hours to drag him down the hall into the vacant bedroom and then onto the small single bed inside; about 15 minutes to soak the rags again and place them over Ezra’s body (even though he wasn’t sure how helpful that would still be); and finally it took an hour to clean up the residual dark blue blood stains in the tub and on the hallway floor.

He hadn’t bothered to change into his pajamas, and he at least managed to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but much of his body was still so sore that getting out of bed sounded like a nightmare for once. But then he remembered Ezra.

What if he was finally awake? What if he needed something? What if he needed something and tried getting it himself, but ended up making a bigger mess that would need cleaning? Ozias didn’t give it another thought. He shucked off his blanket, bumbled out of bed, grabbed his glasses from the small nightstand next to his bed, and barely made it to his door standing. He got it open with prompt speed though, and as he tottered past the doorway the first thing he noticed was the wide open door of the vacant bedroom.

Ozias continued to totter, but at a slower pace as he entered the room, getting his glasses on at the same time. The single thinly dressed bed in the center had several dried dark blue spots all over the top of it, and Ezra was nowhere in sight.

Body still exhausted, Ozias went to lean back against the wall next to the doorway. He didn’t know if he was worried or relieved. An alien vanishing from his house meant he could get back to his quiet life, but then, what became of Ezra?

Was he ok? Was he actually real? Maybe it was a dream, Ozias thought. Aliens, blue blood, Ethen Knillimhyr being inside his house and knowing who he was — it all sounded like a dream. Maybe those dark blue spots on the bed had always been there; he wouldn’t know for sure since he hardly ever stepped foot inside the room.

Releasing an airy yet frustrated sigh, Ozias pushed off the wall and shuffled out the room, slowly closing the door behind him. He thought about just going back to sleep to try and forget the whole ‘alien confession’ ever happened, but then he smelled it. Something meaty, something juicy, something dipped in maple chili...bacon.

Ozias didn’t think twice about it, and started drifting down the hall to pursue the scent. But he wasn’t so entranced by the aroma that he wasn’t wary about who could’ve been downstairs cooking in his house. It couldn’t have been a burglar, there was nothing of any value inside the house or that Ozias owned, and one would be able to tell just from glancing through any of the small windows.

Maybe his parents really had returned from their travels as promised, Ozias thought. The weariness in his body began to dissipate and was replaced with soothing joy. His pace picked up to a light jog as he hurried through the hall and then downstairs. The smell of bacon was instantly more potent as he made his way through the living room, but when he got to the kitchen, he saw the last person he’d ever expected to be cooking in his house.

“You...you’re here?” he whispered to himself, but the person standing by the stove turning over pieces of bacon in a frying pan, still heard him.

“Oh hey, you’re awake! That’s great!” Ezra said with a radiant smile. It wasn’t until he spoke that Ozias realized it wasn’t Ethen, and everything that happened last night wasn’t a dream. “That spares the trouble of me trying to wake you up myself. The longer I thought about it, the more I realized there was probably a lot that could’ve gone wrong if I did.”

It took a moment, but Ozias was able to shake off all the disappointment of neither his parents nor Ethen cooking bacon. “Why did you need to wake me up? You could’ve just left.”

Though mocking, Ezra’s expression looked outright appalled. “You think that after all you’ve done for me — letting me soak in your tub, dragging my no doubt too-heavy-ass all the way into another room, and reapplying those rags — you think after all that, I would just leave without even saying thanks?”

“Yes,” Ozias sluggishly blurted as he slumped his way over to a dinky black wooden kitchen table, and sat down in one of the two wooden chairs tucked in.

“Well that’s where you’re wrong for once, wise-guy,” Ezra chuckled. “My mom always said, ‘whenever someone helps you out, you’ve got to repay them.’ ‘Thank you’ just isn’t enough. That’s why I’m going to make you one of the best — if not the greatest breakfast of all time. But then halfway through the bacon sizzling, I realized, what if you were one of those ‘vegetarian-like people?’”

Ozias’ brows furrowed after hearing the last part of what Ezra said, but he was too tired to pay much attention to it. “I’ll eat pretty much anything.”

“Wow, you must be the number one guest at dinner parties. Guess that means I didn’t make too much bacon after all.” Ezra lifted the frying pan from the stove over to a large plate on the counter that already had several pieces of bacon on it. Ozias watched in wearied hunger as the pile of maple chili bacon got slighter higher, and barely blinked as Ezra strolled towards the table with the plate in hand. “Just enough for the two of us.”

“Do you…” Ozias started, regaining his focus just as the plate landed on the table. “...really eat this kind of food? I mean like, ‘people food’?”

Ezra laughed, and the sound somehow seemed to manifest his extrovertedness. “Yeah, I do. But I have to admit, I can be on the picky-side sometimes. Here,” he grabbed a piece of folded paper that was on the table and handed it to Ozias.

There was an amateurish drawing of two pieces of bacon on the front folded half, along with ’An Alian’s Menu’ boldly written above it.

“What’s this for?” Ozias asked.

“I told you I was gonna make you the best breakfast of all time. So, I took a peek inside your fridge and made a list of all the food I could make. Pick anything you want from it and I’ll cook it right up, or everything if you’re that starved.”

Ozias continued to stare at the bolded words on the front of the paper. “You misspelled ‘alien’. There’s supposed to be an ‘e’ there, not another ‘a’.”

“Hate to tell you you’re wrong twice in a morning smarty-pants, but that’s how we spell alian. I know it might be strange but it just sounds like an ‘a’ to us in the word, and we don’t have a certain name for our race anyway. Simply ‘alian’, is fine enough.”

Ozias quietly nodded to himself as he gently brushed his finger over word on the paper. It was becoming harder and harder for him to be skeptical of otherworldly revelations that surrounded the town, and even easier to feel like he was just going insane.

Knock knock knock!

The gruff sound had made Ozias recoil in his seat and almost fall out of it. Ezra put a hand to one of his shoulders to steady him. “T-thanks,” Ozias said.

“No worries. I’ll get the door.”

Ozias watched as Ezra ambled towards the backdoor, just as another round of loud knocks struck it. There was something obnoxiously familiar about it, Ozias thought…

“Yo, so it is true!” Sidriel Corte yelled from the doorway. “Damn, it’s like I’m looking at a ghost!”

“It’s been like six months, goofus,” Ezra replied with a surly edge in his tone. “I see your noodle-shaped brain has prevented you from using the front door like a civilized person.”

“I see the pot is still calling the kettle black,” Sid bit back. “And maybe I woulda’ came to the front if I wasn’t busy cleaning up someone’s mess over there.” He gestured with a nod of his head to the forested area in the distance behind Ozias’ house.

Ezra scowled after sharply looking away from that direction. “Where’s Ethen and my mom?”

“They’re coming, like five minutes behind me. Are you gonna invite me in, or what?”

“This is someone else’s house, fathead. It’s not my place to invite you in.”

Sid shoved Ezra partly out of way enough to poke his head through the doorway. He glanced around for half a second before his eyes landed on Ozias. “Can I come in?”

It took Ozias a moment to realize that Sid the Squid really was at his house, and talking to him for what was actually the first time ever. “Umm...yeah, I guess,” he whispered, but both Sid and Ezra heard him.

Sid didn’t waste another second to push Ezra completely out of the way, and sauntered inside with one hand buried in one of his pockets. He slowly pulled it out as he caught a whiff of something delectable filling the air.

“Oooh, is that bacon I smell?” He instantly spotted the plate of bacon on the table, and revealed the most devious yet inane grin Ozias had even seen. “Hey, mind if I have a bite of that delicious dish you’ve got there?”

“Yeah, I do mind,” Ezra interjected, “since I’m the one who made that.”

Sid sighed. “Doesn’t the sound of his voice make your head wanna explode?” he said to Ozias. “He just keeps talking over and over. I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now, what with you spending the whole night with him and all, you poor soul.”

Ozias didn’t know how to respond. It was true that Ezra was a bit of a chatterbox, but he sounded a lot like Ethen, so Ozias didn’t see it as an issue. And why did Sid know that Ezra had stayed the night at his house?

“Well the ears of the entire football team must still bleed every time you have practice, or a game, or just whenever you’re in their presence. I pity them,” Ezra shot back.

Sid’s nostrils flared as he spun around and gave Ezra a vexing look. “Listen you little-”

“Sidriel, simmer down,” said a woman with a delicate voice. “And, indoor voice, please.”

Ozias watched in awe as a petite woman with golden-brown hair tied messily into a high bun with a braid wrapped around it, scuttled into the kitchen through the doorway. He’d seen that familiar face plenty of times on the news: Nina Knillimhyr, the Mayor of Elbel Court, and Ethen’s mother (and Ezra’s too apparently).

“After six hours of trekking around in mounds of snow and sorting through metal, I have no patience for childish squabbling,” Nina continued.

“Coffee?” Ezra bashfully asked while gesturing towards a small silver kettle on the stove.

“Oh Ezra,” Nina sighed. She went over, and despite his still mildly frigid skin, clasped his head between both her hands and slightly pulled him down to place her forehead against his. “Mhm, still so cold then. How are you feeling?” she asked him softly.

“Not the greatest, but a goodnight sleep helped a bit,” Ezra said.

It was small, but she smiled up at him. “Two scoops of sugar please.”

Ozias was so distracted in observing them, he almost didn’t notice Ethen coming inside and shutting the door.

“Coffee, bro?” Ezra asked after being let up from Nina’s clutches.

“Yeah, whatever. No sugar,” Ethen replied, exhaustion mildly evident in his voice.

“Since your offering, I’ll have any kind of fruity beverage ya got,” Sid chimed in.

Ezra glared at him. “I’m not-”

“Ezra, darling, please,” Nina broke in. “Just this once, it’s been a long night.” Ezra huffed in annoyance but complied nonetheless and moped back towards the counter, ignoring the haughty look Sid was sending him. “Good, and while you do that you can start explaining what happened last night when you-Oh...Hello there,” she said to Ozias.

“Umm…” Ozias stammered out. His brain was urging him to move or at least say something sensible, but the rest of his body wasn’t getting the message.

“That’s Ozias. He lives here,” Ezra explained, and Ozias was thankful he did.

“Ah of course,” Nina said. “The home-owner that Ethen mentioned. Do you mind just stepping out for-”

“No,” Ezra objected. He set the kettle back down on the stove and turned around to face his mother. “Let him stay.” Everyone turned to look at him, surprised at his sudden dissent, even Ozias as well.

Nina quickly shifted her expression to a more pacified smile as she said to Ezra, “darling, you know the things we need to discuss are quite private.”

“If Ozias wanted to tell anyone about what happened last night, he would’ve done it already. But instead he stayed here with me all night, got me into bed, and reapplied the rags to try and keep me warm. We could at least tell him the truth — the whole truth.”

“What the hell are you saying? Are you kidding me right now?” Ethen said irritably to his brother.

“Yeah, did you jack your brain up last night too?” Sid said curiously to Ezra.

“I’m serious,” Ezra said, giving his most earnest look. “I trust him. Besides, this is his house. It’d be impolite to tell him to leave without a reason, especially if the Mayor’s the one doing it.”

Nina’s face slumped into a mix of both defeat and sympathy as she studied her son. And then she turned her head to study Ozias, who was finding it nerve-wracking to maintain eye contact with the woman.

“Settle, boys,” she finally said. “Ezra is quite right. The least we could offer, is the truth. And if Ezra trusts this boy this much, then I am willing to try and do so as well.”

Ethen released a sour sigh as he began shucking off his sweater. Baffled by her decision, Sid charily glanced between Ezra and Nina. Ezra covertly smiled as he swiveled back around to continue preparing the coffee. Ozias felt the entirety of his face ferociously begin to heat up, but much of the attention surprisingly wasn’t on him.

Nina unbuttoned her own coat as she strolled towards the table to take the seat across from Ozias. “Oh my,” she whispered to herself. “Where do I even begin?”