Other Worlds Competition - Winner

The Liner is leaving next week; it’s time to say goodbye. I can’t stay, I’d be a ticking time bomb. If they discovered the truth, who knows what they’d do to me?
I love her. She’s the reason I stayed here, among this weird, crazy, diverse community. I don’t understand them; a lifetime wouldn’t show me what they’re really like. Their attention to detail is amazing; they take joy in the tiniest flower, watch a bird as it washes itself in a puddle; see pictures in clouds – can you believe that? I mean, it’s just vapour, isn’t it? But no, it’s a face, or an animal, or food. Candyfloss, she calls it. Of course, seeing the detail has its downside. She can’t stand ants in the kitchen. She gets rid of them. I disagree; once I noticed them, I studied them; they’re clever, and as a social group can achieve much; but her reaction to them is disproportionate. Knowing how I felt, she did try; but she says they’re creepy, and she can’t tolerate them near her food.
I don’t want to leave. It’s not that I’ve got used to her – her smell, her lovely little eyes, blue as the sky, surrounded by dark lashes that seem to emphasise their colour; her pale, glorious, curly hair that stops halfway down her back – it’s more that I can’t see how my life will be, without her.
We met one summer’s day in the park. I’d been hit by a car – nothing serious, just a bit of a shock – and had walked there to get away. I didn’t want to be carted off to a hospital to be poked at. I sat on a bench and tried to pull myself together. Physically, I was fine; but mentally I was a little shocked, and it was putting me out of kilter. She followed me to see that I was alright. She sat down beside me and looked in my eyes, taking my hand as if to take my pulse. I snatched it away.
‘It’s fine, I’m fine,’ I said, sharply.
‘Are you sure?’ she said, looking at me with those eyes. ‘You look a bit green about the gills. Would you like a glass of water? A cup of tea? For the shock?’
I looked at her, suddenly afraid, but saw nothing but kindness. No horror; no fear. I rubbed my hands; they still felt strange.
‘Tea. Tea would be good,’ I admitted, gruffly.
As she went to a café to get the tea, I looked at my timepiece. I had an hour before the liner was due to leave; time to drink the tea, gather my wits, and get to the dock. But the accident must have had more effect than I thought; I phased-out for a while, and when I came to, I was in her house.
‘How did I get here? What time is it? Have I missed my ship?’
‘Don’t panic. You went a bit strange for a while. Kind of passed out standing up. You walked here with me, don’t you remember? You’ve been here… maybe an hour? You’re still very green, are you feeling ok?’
‘An hour! I’ve got to go!’
‘But I’ve made you some more tea; and you don’t look well. You had quite a knock back there. I was surprised you got up and walked away from it; you actually dented the car, you know. Do you have somewhere important to be?’
If only she knew. It was already too late. The ship couldn’t wait. It had to catch the window; and it would be fifty Earth years before the next one came.
Blue Planet tea is amazing. We don’t have anything like it at all. There are Gardavians who would traffic it if they could; but they’d be caught. It turns our skin pink, so you can’t hide it. It was one of the reasons I wanted to visit, to try tea; I can’t afford it at home.
We have shapesuits that make us appear human; it takes concentration to maintain, but it becomes second nature after a while; and even when we phase-out – we don’t sleep as Blues do, we phase-out every week or so, just for one of their days – our subconscious keeps things working; we can move and speak, but we’re what she would call ‘not all there’.
I’d heard rumours of Gardies missing the ship; but I never thought I would be one of them. I had enough money to live – Blues go mad for our pebbles; Earth doesn’t have many, so they’re highly prized. A handful of pebbles can keep you for a lifetime; there are traders, but they’re limited as to how many they can bring. Flooding the earth with what they call diamonds would be catastrophic. Not only would they lose their value, but someone somewhere would start to wonder. They may be a simple, two-eyed, hirsute people; but they’re not stupid, and it’s vital they don’t know who we really are. They’re xenophobic; knowing about us, they’d be afraid, and fear would turn them aggressive. Fortunately, with at least fifty Blue years between trips, they can’t trade tea for pebbles illegally; their lifespan isn’t long enough. If it was, they would probably succeed, given their ingenuity. They’re cunning; they’d adapt the shapesuit so it would hide any blushing. It wouldn’t occur to a Gardavian to do that. It’s their attention to detail; they may be two-eyed, but they see a lot. We see the bigger picture. No, it’s best they’re kept in ignorance.
That day, after drinking that amazing tea, I knew I could make it here; and I don’t think she’s ever suspected. Maintaining the shapesuit became second nature – they’re attuned to our brain patterns and eventually become like a second skin – although she always says I look pale during phase-out. ‘You’re off-colour today,’ she says. Sleep is an easy pretence: I just spend the night gazing at her. Gardies say you can’t tell Blues apart: but I recognised her right from the start.
It’s going to hurt to leave, but I have at least an earth lifetime and more left to live. My girl is still my girl; but her glorious hair has thinned and faded; and her beautiful creamy skin sits loosely on her bones. I know what happens to Blues; I’ve seen it. They stop. They have no choice in the matter. They slow down and just stop, and all that’s left of them is their outer shell. Her time is coming, and I don’t think I can bear to see it. But I’ve started to think like them, I can think from her point of view. If I leave now, then she’ll be alone when she stops, and that would be terrible for her. She has no-one else.
‘I love you Agardie. You won’t ever leave me, will you?’ she says, sometimes. When she asks that, I know she’s afraid. She hugs me close, and I snuggle my face into her, smelling her beautiful hair.
‘How could I leave you, Blue? I love you too.’
‘Why do you call me Blue?’ she asked me once.
She calls me Agardie because that day, when she walked me to her dwelling, she’d asked who I was. In my phased-out state, I’d told her I was a Gardie.
I answered her question untruthfully. I said it was because of her eyes; but I call her Blue because humans are obsessed with blue. They spend their cash chasing blue sky and sea. When their sky and sea are grey, they often feel what they call blue. Some of them go sort of blue-ish when they stop; and of course, their planet is blue. They have a song about it; Planet Earth is Blue, it says; and it’s true, because sometimes, it is an unhappy planet. They’re good at that – making words mean more than one thing at a time. I’ve come to love it.
So this is the end. Shapesuits don’t last forever, and although mine’s not fading yet, I don’t know how long it’ll last. The liner will have docked already, and I have a few days to work out how to leave.
She comes into my study.
‘Agardie,’ she says, ‘it’s time, isn’t it? You’re leaving.’
I look at her.
‘I’ve always known you would have to go. I’m lucky you’ve been here so long.’
I am dumbfounded, afraid to speak in case I give myself away.
‘I saw you. That day on the bench, when you passed out, you turned green. You really turned green, and your hands, your eyes – well – they weren’t like mine; so I took you home, and I said nothing because you were so lost, and so brave, when your ship had left without you. I wanted to look after you, and I have, haven’t I, Agardie? And you’ve looked after me, too. But now it’s time to go. I’ll die soon, and when I’m gone–’ her eyes fill with salt water, the way they do – ‘you’ll have no-one.’
I look at her, her tiny, damp, blue eyes surrounded by the hair they call lashes, fewer and paler now; her beige skin, loose but still beautiful on her bones; and I know I can’t leave her. I’ll stay on the blue, blue Earth, and gaze longingly up to the stars that hold my dusty home; I’ll look at the vapour she calls cloud, and see her face in it; and I decide that when she’s gone, I will live, without regret, on the memory of my Blue. And if the ticking time bomb goes off – if my shapesuit fails and they find out what I am – I will take what comes, like a true Gardavian.
When I wake up from my next phase-out, I find I’m on the ship home. Those two-eyed Blues, they see so much; and mine is a clever little thing. I have a vague memory of her face in front of mine as she kissed me for the last time.
‘Goodbye, my Agardie. Have a wonderful life.’