The First Alexander: Part II of III

Here I was again, sitting on the porch and looking up at the sky.

I spent most of time these days wondering if it ever happened. Did some ship really crash on my land? Did one die and one survive? Or was it just a dream?

It seems so unreal like I’m remembering a movie, not my life. I want to laugh at myself and then head inside the house or get to work in the greenhouse. But I can’t. So I walk down to the grove and look at the scars on the trees.

The sap is dry and hardened like a scab. Those old wounds won’t reveal what it was that caused the damage, but it proves to me that something did happen. It tells me that it was real, not some movie.

It’s the only proof I have. The rest of it’s gone. The only thing left of the beings is an empty grave, and not one shard of the metal from the ship remains. I don’t know what happened to it all. One day it just disappeared.

I’d been taking care of the one that survived for at least a week. I had laid him out on some hay bales in the barn, dressed his wounds, put out some blankets, food and water. I never saw him touch any of it, but each morning the food and water was gone. The animals could have taken it for all I know, but I kept bringing him more just in case it was helping. I’m still not sure why I was trying to take care of him; it just felt like the right thing to do.

He had a long cut across his midsection and every day I would clean it up and redress it. I thought it was looking better, but I couldn’t really say. I had no idea what I was dealing with.

That morning I headed back out to the barn with some of my breakfast and fresh bandages. But he was gone.

No trace. No sign of anything. Not a footprint in the dirt or a door left ajar. I quickly headed out to the crash site. All I found was a big hole in the ground. Nothing was left of the ship. I ran to the grave site and that, too, was empty. I remembered the night before I thought I saw something in the sky, but I’d been seeing something every night. I figured it was just my imagination again. Maybe it wasn’t.

Every day since all I do is think about what happened, try to convince myself it was real. Most days I sit on the porch and look up at the sky, then walk out to the crash site to look for something that was left behind. But I never find anything. The only things left behind are the scars on the trees.

The sky was getting dark and my stomach started growling, so I headed back to the house. After dinner I sat out on the porch again, looking up at the sky. Finally, my wife came out.

“Still looking up?” she asked.

I smiled.

“Let’s get to bed,” she told me. I slowly got up and headed inside, but not without looking back one last time.

Of course, I couldn’t get to sleep. This wasn’t the first sleepless night I’d had since the crash. I would usually just lay there and keep my eyes closed. I didn’t my wife to worry anymore than she already did.

Then I felt something. I thought it was a breeze, maybe I’d left the window open. I opened my eyes, sat up and immediately froze.

There he was, standing at the end of the bed. I could tell because he had a scar that cut across his midsection.

In his hands was a metal square that looked like a box.