Writing For G.O.T

Up There! --Prompt 2 -Week 4

942 words Prompt 2, Week 4-- Writing Challenge

The needed skill is silence when you are on a blind date or maybe not talking too much, just so that you do not give out unnecessary information about yourself. Thinking this, I crouched utterly still on the passenger seat next to Brian and smiled pleasantly as my smile has always served as a viable armor.

It was a cold day in late winter, but the sun was tall at midday, and the path we drove on was narrow and iced on the side slopes, as oak trees with limbs akimbo were magically towering on both sides of the road. For a short time, we drove in silence. Brian didn’t have much to say and I was content not to talk.

Then suddenly, he said, “Are there any mountain lions or cougars around here? I’d love to meet one.”

I thought it was a joke. “Believe me, you don’t want to meet one,” I said.

“But I do,” he said. “I am eager to meet one.”

Such a weird sense of humor...Not long-term material. Check.

“Then, you are in the wrong part of the country,” I said. “You can come across those animals more often on the west coast. The east coast is milder where wild animals are concerned, except for bears, foxes, and wolves, which they do not live around here, so close to Manhattan.”

“Oh,” he said very seriously, as he took the ramp to the Expressway. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t in the data we were fed.”

Really a weirdo. Check.

But now, silence wouldn’t work. I had to try to make him talk to learn more about him. Forget about long-term, but now, even a second date hung in the air. Helen, who had concocted and served me this date, had said he was a dreamboat, but I needed to be patient. Well, patience is not one of my virtues when it comes to men because I don’t need any type of a date from hell. I'd had enough of those.

I figured if push came to shove, I could call Mom or Dad to pick me up from the restaurant, even though they would be busy at work and wouldn’t appreciate an S.O.S plea by me. But then, whose fault was it? It was Mom’s rule to go to lunch at first date. Although I was twenty-two now, that rule still reigned, and for a good reason.

“What is the last book you read?” I asked.

“Books? Oh, those things with data on paper…I’ve held a few books in my hand to get the feel of them, but their insides were filled with imaginings or else, some of them contained data but the data wasn’t usually correct. I really liked Dostoyevsky though. His writing was so different.”

What? No one in my generation read Dostoyevsky, except me.

I stared at him, at his knockout handsome, sharp-edged profile. He drove with ease with both hands on the steering wheel but sat stiffly, sporting a grin on his face. When he caught me looking at him, he shifted slightly turning to stare at me, a stare that respected no conventions and caused me to look away in embarrassment.

“You really look nice,” he said.

“Thank you. You look handsome, too.”

“Now that we’ve got this part over with, what are we going to eat at the restaurant?”

What weird question!

“What do you like?” Thank you, Socrates, for coming up with the idea of answering a question with a question.

“I am not into eating flesh...but a salad or something. Even that feels alive.”

“Exactly! I am a vegetarian, too.”

“I don’t like vegetables either, but they told me these bodies needed nourishment.”

Weirdo to the nth degree! A second date would be definitely out, but we are kinda compatible, too.

“I think food business takes too much time and attention,” I said.

“I didn't like eating either, not too much,” he said. “But I am curious about sex. They told me eating has to come first, though.”

Oh, oh! But I was really curious.

“Who are 'they'?”

“My supervisors. You know, the people who build you.”

Jeez! He did look earnest, though...as the weirdo that he was.

“Exactly where are you from, Brian?”

He mumbled something, a word so long that no way I could ever remember to repeat it. Would that be in Africa? But he didn’t look African.

“Where is that place?” I asked.

“Way past Alpha Centauri. I think that’s what your planet's people call that galaxy.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“Why would I do that? My base is etched in truth. No one can change it.” He sounded so sincere that I had no reason not to believe him.

“Does Helen know where you’re from?”

“Yes, she does. Her guy took her out for a spin up there.” He pointed to the sky.

“Her boyfriend, Gus? Why didn’t she tell me? I wonder.”

“Don’t wonder. I know.”

“You know? Why? What do you know?”

“She thought you’d believe me. She thinks you have a very open mind.”

“Forget about lunch,” I said. “Can you take me up there for a spin, too?”

“Okay,” he said. “We can eat lunch, later, but not animals. I don’t like to eat animals. The last time I did, my insides felt upside down.”

Only then did I realize that we were not on Long Island Expressway anymore. We were flying over the Empire State building in his Honda Civic.

Oh, well! I could get used to this. So what if he was curious about that something…or other…I could comply. Even willingly…

Then we landed on the moon.

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Prompt: You're on your first date with someone and it's astonishing how compatible you are! There's just one problem... as time progresses, you're increasingly convinced that they're an alien. Now what? ~ Story