I Am Aqueous

I Am Aqueous - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The shack I was in was a tool storage shack. It was built very long ago as perhaps a home, but now contained scarcely used farming tools. It was small and dark and very dirty and there were cobwebs spanning across many of the smaller gaps between objects. The two windows at the front of the shack were ill treated, one was smashed and the other one was boarding up with rotten wood. I knew if I were still human, I would have been freezing or at least be able to see my breath. I wanted to stay in the shack longer after the sun had set, but circumstances drew me other wise.
Soon after the sun had set, I heard strange noises outside the shack I was in. I heard many footsteps and I felt the vibrations of a larger set of footsteps. I sat up from my huddled position and I peered through the broken window with an antenna. I saw six heat sources, one being extremely powerful, but small and probably a light source. The other five were larger ones, probably people. I had felt right that there was a larger one, because once I looked through my face I saw that he was a well built farmer and he was accompanied by smaller young men and a dog.
I heard the larger one say, “Now remember, the police said it was a turquoise, bluish colour.”
I heard the rest of them agree. They were either looking for me or a very poisonous vegetable. From that piece of information, I knew that I couldn’t stay here any longer and I would have to run, perhaps to another city. I opened the door of the shack once the men had left the area. The door opened fine until right at the end, where it made a very loud squeak. As soon as I heard the noise, I darted back into the shed sidled against the wall. I heard my voice inside my head curse at me for still being a sacred, little child, even though I was in this limitless body. I had no heart, but I could feel memories of it beating viscously in my mind. I yelled at my self again and convinced myself to make a break for it no matter how scared I might have thought I had been.
I made a break for it and jumped out of the shack, but as soon as I landed on the ground I heard a gun cock. I saw the heat of one of the younger men to my left. He ordered me in a stern, but in a hidden sense of fear kind of voice, “Stop right there, uh, Aqueous.” I stopped.
Even though my body stopped, my mind was racing away at one question. Why was I so brave and carefree at the Plant, but now I’m frozen in fear? I had eleven illegally imported weapons pointed at me and I toyed with their sanity, by acting invincible. Now I stand frozen in fear, with one weak, registered gun pointed at me. Why? Was it some sort of adrenaline rush back then? Or was I just blinded by some sort of evil ambition? Why did I feel like a god then, but like a wimpy 12 year old who would be peeing his pants if he still had the required parts?
“Hey! T-turn around or I’ll shoot!” The man ordered, waking me up from my chain of thought. I turned to him and I raised my arms. He flinched and aimed the gun at my head, but soon realized I didn’t mean harm by that action. He looked at me thoroughly from head to tail. He stepped closer and asked, lowering his gun a little, “What are you? You ain’t look like no monster I’ve ever read about.”
I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t. I really wished that I could talk for cases like these. Then I felt an urge touch his head, I wondered why, but I felt myself dropping my right arm and pointing a finger at him. He studied my actions and raised his guard. Suddenly my instincts told me the brain. I heard a voice boom inside of me to touch his brain. I panicked and did what I was told and extended my finger towards his face. I stopped the appendage hairs away from his forehead. I stopped myself. I released the air from my finger and drew it back. The man was stunned from the fear. “I could have killed him. Who was I listening to? Surely I didn’t do that!” I thought. “Who is this voice in my head helping me?” I wanted to talk to myself, but now I had to run.
The city I had come from was the only safe way to go, because the other farmers had seen me and were rushing towards me, loading their guns. My imaginary heart exploded and I would have shrieked. I turned my body around by shifting my liquid through my and to the opposite side. I ran.
I began to hear gun shots and I felt heat diffuse through out me as bullets sunk into me. I kept running faster and faster and soon enough I left the farmers with nothing buy dust from my footsteps. Then I saw some heat racing closer towards me though my tail. I glanced back and I saw a truck racing after me at full speed. The truck was having a hard time chasing me on its farmland, so it turned onto the adjacent road and began picking up some speed. I, however, continued on through the dirt fields while only a few meters beside me, the truck, being driven by the large farmer, was moving at the same speed.
The farmer cocked his shotgun and shot at me. I felt many little clumps of heat enter me, but I was unaffected. I wanted to outrun him, but I was running as fast as I possibly could, mind you, so was the engine of the truck. I needed a little more speed, so I stopped swinging my arms and placed them behind my back. Then I leaned forward a lot more. Even though it was a lot harder to stay solid and not lose my footing, I sliced through the air and I ran faster than before. The farmer tried to speed up, but the road wasn’t meant for such high speeds and the truck flew off the road and landed in the field behind me. I slowed down and eventually stopped. I turned around and gazed at the farmer climbing out of his truck. Thankfully no one was hurt, except for my ego.
I soon reached the city and I found an alley between two apartment buildings to rest my raging mind. The alleyway was much larger than the ones I had been in before, but it didn’t matter, I just wanted to sit down and think for a while. Before I could do anything, I heard a faint noise of a familiar voice saying a familiar name. I looked around and listened, and soon I learned that the voice was coming from above. More specifically, though a window four stories above me. The voice was Diana Pauline’s and I thought she had mentioned my name. I figured that she was taking about the events this afternoon. I wanted to hear the news cast a little clearer.
The night was cold and there was little movement anywhere, so I guessed that I would be safe to get out of hiding for a while. I found a nearby storm drain and saw that it reached the window that I wanted to see through. I went to the pipe and I grabbed it with my hands. I easily grasped it. Then I grabbed the pipe with my feet, and I held on just as easily. I used my tail to spy around below me for any possible spectators and I used my antennae for balance. I climbed up the pipe as gracefully as a spider climbing its own string of web. As I climbed, the sound became louder and clearer. I stopped at the window from where the noise was coming from. It didn’t look like anyone was home so I had the opportunity of watching the TV that was in the room. Since the pipe was to the right of the window and the TV was also to the right of the window I had to reach over to see. I held the pipe from below with my right foot and then held on from above with my right antenna. I was now comfortably stretched outwards to watch the TV with my hands free to wipe the moisture from the window.
It was Diana Pauline, a young, oriental looking woman, talking about today’s events. She said, “In case some of you joined in late, evidence has been gathered and much more witnesses confirmed the existence of ‘The Aqueous Monster.’ It was at the Charleston-North Water Treatment Plant at around 3:43 PM, when a gang war erupted between two gangs, a Chinese and a Mexican. Many gunshots were fired and the gang members fled the building, just before it collapsed. The shocking thing was that from a water filter, the creature ‘rose’ from the water and stood on the grass next to it. Our video recording displays the phenomenon that this living liquid is.”
I watched in uneasiness, as I saw myself form myself from the water filter. It was the first time I had seen myself like that and it was a little disturbing, almost scary.
Diana continued, “As you might be able to make out, it looks like pieces are missing from it and it’s very confused. Then it seems to piece itself back together by making liquid from the water jump and merge with it. Now its body is fully formed and we know one of its forms.”
I saw myself obey that mysterious voice and I did something that really made me look powerful or invincible. I became a little afraid of myself or my instincts.
She continued, “Now the creature turns around and realizes people are watching. It gets scared and melts into the ground. That was the last that we have seen of it. Numerous citizens have dug the ground in that area hoping to find out where it went. The real question now, though, is this Aqueous Monster a friend or a foe? From what we’ve gathered so far it hasn’t hurt anyone directly yet and it seems to be, shall we say, friendly with the children. Although, the gang members, after being arrested, say differently about the creature.”
The camera was now in a room with all of the gang members that were at the Plant. A voice from behind the camera, which sounded familiar, asked the group, “What do you think of that thing?” The gang members quivered and look at each other for another person to explain what they were all feeling. One of the Mexican people shouted, “Evil! Is a monster! It did nothing, but walk up the stairs and look at us in the eye, with its blue eyes!”
I paused for a second and thought, “I have eyes that others can see? I didn’t see anything in the mirror.”
One of the Chinese men explained, “It was a god! We shoot at it, but it dies not, or feel pain. It stand there in its gelatinous self, mocking us.”
The voice from behind the camera asked, “What do you think it wants?”
The gang members looked at each other, but could only shrug.
The camera went back to showing Miss Pauline. She further added, “After a long awaited chance, we can now interview the child who actually touched the creature.”
The camera went to some one’s home where a little child, whom I recognized from the freeway, it was Allan. He said, “He’s an alien from space and he wants to make friends! He’s just visiting and wants you to be nice back.”
The screen split in two and Diana’s face appeared and she asked, “Were you scared at all Allan?”
From the other side of the screen, Allan replied, “A little, but I was more happy. ‘Cuz in movies aliens are always breaking buildings and stuff, but this one just wants a friend and I tried to be his friend, but Mommy didn’t let me.”
Diana asked, “What makes you think… he… just wants to make friends?”
Allan explained, “If you were an alien on a new world, would you want friends or bad guys?”
Diana finished, “One last question, that I’m sure everyone wants to know, is how did he feel?”
Allan stalled a little. He was having trouble putting the words together. He stuttered out the words, “Sort of like nothing and something at the same time. He wasn’t like water, but he sort of was. He was Awake-e-us!”
The camera of Allan’s home disappeared from the screen and Diana said some closing remarks, “Well we have many interpretations of this creature’s purpose, but we can’t conclude anything. Only time will tell. If you have any information about Aqueous, please notify the proper authorities, like the police department. Well, I’m Diana Pauline for channel 7 late night news, good night everyone.”
The show ended and I was satisfied. I jumped off from the storm drain and I landed with a splat, but easily reformed. I sat back down to think about what I had just seen. I leaned against the brick wall. I thought to myself. “I’m not hated. I’m still in the neutral category.” But that could’ve been just as bad as it was good, for if I messed up in anyway, I’d get the type of attention I didn’t want. I could try to go out into the public and let them know I’m a good guy, and perhaps live a happy life with the city folk. But the risk of getting caught in something or being in the wrong place at the wrong time drove me away from the thought of any socialization with others. I guess in order to stay neutral I would have to stay neutral, meaning, doing nothing.
But before I could start another thought, I heard a grunting noise. I turned to my left, but I didn’t see what made the noise. I stalled a little, and then I looked up into the night sky. I then heard a moan and then saw a man in the alleyway.
The man was short, but round. He hunched over as he walked and he wore very ugly and dirty green clothes. He had garbage in his long greasy hair. He paced towards me slowly as he moaned and coughed. He was a zombie pacing towards me and I would have made a run for it, if he hadn’t of greeted me, “Hello.”
After a little bit of uneasiness and uncertainty, I waved back to him.
He smiled from underneath the dirt and wrinkles and explained, “It’s a cold night. You look awfully cold. Do I know you? I ain’t seen you before.”
I stalled. I wondered why the man wasn’t afraid of me. Was it because he didn’t know? Because he was stupid? Was it that dark out? Either way I answered him with shaking my head.
He shrugged, “Ah, well, it doesn’t matter. Everyone who’s down here is down here ‘cuz of drugs or they ain’t got no money! I’m here ‘cuz of my bad choices in life. Why you here?”
I stopped twitching my tail and I hung my head. I wish I knew why I was here and in this body, but I didn’t think I would ever know. None the less, I had hope that I would one day find the answer, for if I didn’t then I wouldn’t want to live at all.
The man shuffled his old shoes closer to me and took something out of his pocket. He explained to me, “It’s only been an hour.” He coughed a few times. “But I don’t know how long I have left in me. I might as well live it up a little.” He sat down next to me and I really wondered why he wasn’t frightened of me or at least uncomfortable. He fiddled around with something in his hand. He got really excited and his movements were jittery. I was holding something that looked like a syringe, but with lines and numbers on it like a thermometer. He rolled up his right sleeve and then stuck the syringe into his arm, around his elbow. He then pushed the top of the pen all the way to the second part of the pen. He pulled the pen out of his arm and threw it across the alleyway.
I wanted to ask him what he did or if it hurt him. It looked like he was putting medicine into himself, like what my Mom used to do for me, but his syringe looked smaller, grubbier and it didn’t look friendly at all. I soon realized that he must have been like me, because he sounded very sick and he needed medicine. The only difference I saw, besides the care and method of injection, was that he was getting excited about his shot; I always hated getting a needle of anything.
He breathed deeply for a while and then he unrolled his sleeve. He turned to me and gave me some words of wisdom, “Do my last favour will ya? I’m probably not going to make it through the night and I want you to remember these words as a warning. Don’t be like me. I wanted to hide from my problems and hope that the answer would come to me by thinking aimlessly inside a back alley. You’re still young and the answers are out there, not inside some god forsaken hit of coke! It’s outside these four walls.” He twitched a little and then continued, “Take my advice for your travels. When exploring, never take the path that you know the end of, other wise, what’s the point of… (Cough)… Exploring in the first place? I knew the end of my road, but I took it any way. I a stinking drug addict and I’m going to die out here.” He began to shiver, twitch and shake nervously. He finished, “Just… I don’t want to see any regrets. A single moment can haunt you forever and he wish and wish and wish that it would go away, but it never will. It’s your eternal punishment for one seemingly small mistake. I just don’t to see anyone else suffer like me.” His stomach acted as if it were crushing him and his face froze in an upward arch mass of wrinkles. Tears poured from his eyes. He rocked back and forth as he huddled up. He horned out the words, “I don’t want anyone to suffer, like I have. No one deserves their lives to be meaningless. No one deserves to have a moment haunt them. No one deserves to not know who they are.” He stopped rocking and the tears from his face seemed to freeze. He slowly turned his head to me and he looked straight into my eyes and I did the same. I saw his red eyes fill with the final wave of the tide and his frown moved even lower and his eyebrows lifted as he dropped a tear. He asked me gently, “Who am I?”
But before I could think up and answer, his head dropped and hung over his stomach. I stalled a little, but I put my hand on his back and comforted him as I heard his breaths become weaker and weaker. After a few minutes, he was dead. I didn’t know what to think. All I did was thought to say, ‘good-bye friend” and then I stood up and walked further down the alley.
Before I could walk any further down the alley, a heat source and a familiar voice appeared behind me at the opening of the alley. The voice called to me, “I thought I’d find you here, Aqueous!”
I turned my head around and saw her with my true vision and saw that it was Rachel. I faced her and listened to her.
She paced towards me anxiously and told me, “You’re all over the news you know. You’ve become quite the celebrity.” As she walked towards me and she shrugged, “I found you here, because the news said you’d be in this area and I knew that you hung out in alleys, because that’s where we met.” She stood closer to me; her chest at the height my head, my head at the height of her chest and then she bent down, looked me in the eye and asked me, “Have you worked on that talking thing yet.”
I bashfully shook my head. I was too busy with the recent events to really work on trying to find a way to talk. I hung my head. I felt a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t even try once.
She noticed I was getting depressed, so she lifted my head up by my “chin.” She comforted me, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s ok. I’m sure you tried sometime. We’ll work on it together.” She let go of my head and felt her fingers that touched me a little. She explained to me, “I recently lost my home with my boy friend, because we broke up.” She stalled a little and got a little depressed. She noticed me get concerned and soon stopped me. She continued, “I dumped him, because he didn’t ever want to talk and I felt that we were just going to separate in time. Anyhow, what I meant to get to was that now I’m living at my sister’s apartment and now I live just a few blocks from here. Meaning, if you don’t run off somewhere, we can be friends and talk. Would you like that?”
I stood there bewildered for a moment at what she told me. I was a little baffled why she was so anxious to be with me and why she was so optimistic. I tried to give her a confused look, but I didn’t think I did a good job.
She asked, “Did you even understand what I said?”
Even though she confused me a little, understood most of what she had said, so I nodded quickly.
She stood up straight and a curious question struck her mind. She backed away a little and bent down to face me. She asked, “How old are you? If you even know what I’m saying?”
I nodded to say that I knew what she meant and I held up my hand. I spread out my four digits and then created eight more fingers from my hand. I held the 12 fingers with pride, that even though I’ve been in this new body for almost a week now, I still felt like I had a 12 year old existence. I had missed my birthday, when it came around originally, because I was a little more concerned about what to do in the city rather than birthday cake.
She saw my hand and took a little bit to count the digits, but exclaimed, “So you’re 11, huh?”
I got a little mad and jumped a few times and I showed her my 12 fingers again.
She counted again and corrected herself and apologized, “Oh. Silly me. I’m sorry Aqueous. You’re 12.” She stood up again and paced around a little. She talked to herself, but I could hear her. She said to herself, “This little guy’s amazing. He’s almost like a human. He’s got a comprehension level of an older child. Who’d of thought?”
As she paced around she stopped when she noticed the old man. She covered her mouth. She nervously turned her head towards me and looked at me strangely, almost fearfully. She glanced back at the man, then looked at me and said, “Perhaps we should move to a new place. We should leave him alone.” I agreed and I followed her to a new alleyway, like an obedient child.
We carefully crossed a few streets and then we reached a small park with no one there. The park was about an acre and it well maintained. There were three play structures a slide, a set of monkey bars and a swing set, as well as a very large sand box. There were was one picnic table, but it was mainly grass covered. Rachael agreed that this spot was more peaceful than an alley, so she sat on a swing. I ran over to the monkey bars and jumped on top of the structure in one leap. I grabbed the bars with my feet and crouched down as if to sit.
She stared at me and giggled. She looked up into the starry autumn sky and said, “I remember when I was younger, I used to love coming to parks like these. I didn’t like how my parents kept me inside so much, so I really learned to cherish the times out here.” She turned to me, seeing me hang from my feet off the bars like a monkey. She giggled again, “I see you like the play structures too.”
I shape shifted my body parts to reverse, so after I turned into a little bit of a blob, I was holding onto the bars with my hands. I let go to walk over to Rachael. She seemed to be remembering her childhood, a lot like I was doing at the time as well. The last time I was at a park, was when Sam and I were taking about my birthday. I stopped thinking about my family and I comforted Rachael.
She was a little lost in her thoughts when I woke her up by pushing on her swing. She gave a slight shout in surprise, but then realized that it was I who was pushing her swing. She was a little mad and laughing at the same time, “Hey! Hey! Don’t do that! I liked it when I was a kid; I’m too old for these things now!”
I stopped and hung my head a little in shame.
Rachael got off and comforted me, “Hey now, I was only joking a little. You’re so sweet and gentle; I don’t know why they think you’re dangerous.”
I could only listen to her and act like a pet, for that was all I could do. I paced slowly to the sand box and I stood it the middle. I felt sand float around my feet, but I didn’t mind, it reminded me of the times I got sand in my shoes whenever I was in the sand box back home. In fact, I really wanted to play with the sand, so I turned into a puddle and oozed around the sandy surface. Rachael’s heat watched with amusement.
Rachael stepped into the sand box and sat down on the wooden boarders. She watched a little more as I spread my body over the whole sand box and soaked up and spit out the sand. Rachael interrupted me, “You know, for a 12 year old, you surely act young.”
I stopped and I reformed my head from the giant puddle I was.
Rachael suggested, “Why don’t we try and get you to talk, huh?”
I reformed the rest of my body cross legged facing her, with my tail twitching in front of her.
Rachael asked me, “Have you any idea where to begin?”
I shook my head.
Rachael pondered for a moment, every once and a while she got an idea, but then shook her head and discarded it. She sort of chuckled a little at one idea and asked, “Can you read or write? Do you even know what that is?”
Though she was expecting a “no,” she was surprised to see me nod and write my name in the sand, “Ozzy.”
She leaned forward and looked at it, very peculiarly and she repeated for me, “Ozzy?” She leaned back and asked me, “What does that mean?”
I pointed to myself. Then I finished my name with writing “Belway.”
She knew now that my writing wasn’t random and that it meant something. She asked, very confused, “Is that your real name?”
I nodded.
She got anxious and perhaps a little scared, “What are you? What were you? I don’t understand.”
I had a little difficulty spelling, but I wrote in the sand after scratching my name away, “I was a persin.”
She read it and she was almost screamed, she was so shocked. She anxiously asked, “How did this happen? You’re a 12 year old child?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to explain my thoughts and feelings I had racing though my head. I couldn’t possibly explain it in words, let alone than writing.
She seemed to understand my struggle. She said, “Don’t worry about it. There has to be another way for us to communicate better. I know that a conversation would take a long time if you had to write everything.”
I felt a little better and nodded.
She thought of an idea quickly. She explained, “If you where human than you would know what eyebrows are, right? And since you have such a unique body, why not try and make some eyebrows for yourself to go along with those beautiful, blue eyes of yours. It will help me know how you’re feeling inside.”
The idea was so simple and I would have tried it myself if I would have been around more people. So I shifted a little bit of liquid from the front of my face and rounded it a little and I used the liquid to erect two stringy little bumps in my face, right above my eyes. I wrote in the sand, “Look good?”
Rachael shook her head a little and walked over to me. She knelt by my side and asked me to hold what ever she sculpted. I did. She must have been an artist or something, because her warm thumbs sculpted and shaped above my eyes with precision and skill; she knew what she was doing. She asked for some more liquid to work with and I cleaved a little more from my egg shaped face. She kept working and taking more liquid and then finally she was done. She leaned back a little to look at my new face and she was quite pleased.
She explained, “There now try hard to keep that shape forever, because that is a work of art I can be proud of. So now you have eye brows and your pointy nose is a little more rounded. I guess you look a little more human.”
I felt my face with my fingers and I did feel my face rounded off a little and a giant fold of liquid that hung over eyes, giving me sort of a forehead as well. My eyebrows were in the shape of the bone of a human’s, but were greatly exaggerated, I guessed because they might have been hard to see and because I can actually use the large proportions for greater expressions. After holding the shape for a while, my mind started to get the slightest bit confused, but I held onto the shape in hope that my body will permanently accept it as my default shape.
Rachael leaned forward again and asked me to give her a happy expression. I lifted my head and raised my eyebrows all the way to my antennae. I stopped for a second and learned that I didn’t need to move them that much. She laughed and said that I was cute. I raised the insides of my eyebrows to create a bashful, puppy face in reply to the compliment. She got angry and asked for an angry look. I lowered my eyebrows and I looked her in the eye.
She popped back a little and said, “Whoa! Do me a favour and don’t get angry, because that face is scary. Not like you, you are just a little kid and they aren’t supposed to be scary.”
I bobbed my head in joy. It was ironic how I had taken for granted facial expressions when I was a human and now I was gitty with self pride.
Rachael clapped and told me, “Well I have to get back to my accounting job in the morning, so let’s say we meet back here tomorrow when the moon is straight up in the sky, right over head.”
I really wanted to say to her how much I appreciated what she had done for me, not just the eyebrows, but her company was good too. I really wished I had some other way to talk to her that was a little more advanced than writing in the sand.
She stood up and looked at me for a while I thought about what to say. I wobbled a little in uneasiness and she smiled at how much of I little toddler I was. But before she could turn around to leave, I shot a finger at her head.
My mysterious instincts took control again and I had to obey. I shot a finger at her and it headed straight for her head. Just like what I did to the farmer, but I couldn’t stop myself, my urge to communicate took over. My tentacle raced towards her and hit her in the ear. My liquid flowed through her cavity and then entered her skull. The instincts took complete control and latched my appendage to her brain and worked their way to the very cells that made Rachael say, “Good bye, Rachael.”
Both Rachael and I stared at each other with horrific, soul freezing fear at what had just happened. I wanted to say sorry, but Rachael said sorry. I screamed “stop it” in my mind, but Rachael screamed “stop it.”
I calmed myself down enough and got a hold of my liquid enough to pull my finger out of her brain and retract it to its normal length. Rachael stood there frozen, but I stood up and ran to her. I shook her to wake her up and made noise with popping air bubbles inside myself, but she was scared to death of me. Before I could let go of her, she snapped out of it and pushed me away. She screamed and shouted and cried. She ran away and her cried echoed off the nearby buildings. I didn’t want to chase after her. I couldn’t tell her I was sorry. So I ran the other way and quickly climbed on top of a house to watch her run. I watched as my only friend turned into a spec and then turn the corner.