Welcome back. Today, we feature Rita Reali’s conclusion to our little three-part saga. I’m including the first two parts in case this is your first visit.
Part One
As a publications editor and graphic artist, award-winning author Dee Lynk has written copy and designed a wide range of projects from book covers to signboards. Along the way, she’s moved from illustrating and cartooning smaller projects to partnering with author Rita Reali to illustrate Rita’s two children’s picture books, The Purringest Kitty Finds His Home and The Purringest Kitty Misplaces His Purr. Recently retired, Dee and her husband Scott, reside in Crossville, Tennessee, where she’s working on her first adult novel as she continues to write and illustrate “all the good stuff.”
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“You goin’ to the library, again?”
“Yep.”
“It’s Friday night, Josh. You’ve been there every night for the last two weeks. Don’t you need a break? A little time to unwind with your friends?”
“Can’t. I’ve got a huge research paper due this Monday. It’s worth 50% of my grade. I need to ace this if I’m gonna get into medical school.”
“Alright.” Boone shrugged. “But, I ain’t never seen you so worked up over a term paper. You sure there ain’t nothin’ else goin’ on?”
Uh oh. Boone was getting suspicious. I couldn’t blame him. I never ducked out on Friday night with the boys, let alone skipped back-to-back Fridays. And now, he was speaking hillbilly English, which meant he was upset and not thinking about his diction. He’d been working on his oration skills since freshman year, when his advisor told him, “If you’re going to be a successful trial attorney, you need to speak like one; so, lose the hillbilly.”
We’ve been roommates since day one and now, four years later, we’re best friends. As different as night and day, we’re Hillbilly meets Ivy league. He’s short and stocky and I’m lanky. Yet, for some reason, we click. Boone knows me better than anyone else, and if anyone can tell when I’m hiding something, it’s him.
“What else, Boone? I don’t have time for anything else. I don’t even have time to party with my friends.” I looked him in the eye, hoping to appear sincere. “Look man, I gotta bail.”
I didn’t give him time to respond. If I had to answer any more questions, he’d know for sure something was up. “You know how badly I want to get into medical school. This paper is huge and I need it to be perfect. I’m really sorry, Boone. Tell the guys I’ll be there next week. I promise.”
I flew out of the room before he could respond.
Part 2
Something about Area 51 made Josh’s hair stand on end. He glanced at his father, one of America’s best-hidden quantum physicist/MDs in the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications Program (AAWSAP). While Doctor Henderson punched in his code from the driver’s seat of the family’s nondescript Ford Escape, Josh confessed, “I think Boone is getting suspicious.”
Alvin Henderson shot his son a worried look. “How do you mean?”
“Haven’t been hangin’ around like I used to.” He sighed. “The library ploy is getting a bit thin.”
His father chuckled. “You never worked to your full capacity—until now. You don’t need extensive knowledge of human anatomy. These creatures, these four species, differ from us in every way. You will learn what science up to now never conceived. I’m training you to be part of our team in case I suddenly disappear.”
“Don’t talk like that, Dad.”
“And don’t you be naïve. Keep up the pretense. Play the part of a fun-loving undergrad whenever you can. Meanwhile, you’re making headway communicating with Gray. How it survived the crash, I don’t know. We’ve autopsied the dead Nordic-looking one, the insectoid and the reptilian ones.”
Dr. Henderson stopped the car before imposing steel doors. Both climbed out, and Josh ducked to position his retina for the identification unit on the door. After parking, Josh continued while they walked to the building’s entrance.
“I think Gray is mourning his cohorts, but said he understood why we did the autopsies after they died in the crash. He thanks us for not killing him. But I wonder about his anatomy. He’s so tall with such skinny, well, I guess you’d call them legs. So many questions.”
Henderson snorted. “It’s a wonder what God had in mind when he created him. Humans tend to kill first and ask questions later. Josh, their spacecraft is so far beyond our knowledge of physics, I believe they could have taken out all of us if they wanted. I think we’re looking at a kinder, gentler, perhaps even a more ethical species of beings than we are. “
“But Dad, what happens to Gray after we’ve gotten everything out of him?”
“That’s a good question, son.”
Part 3
Two-time international award-winning author Rita M. Reali has been a writer as long as she can remember. As a former DJ in her native Connecticut, Rita spent her days “talking to people who weren’t there,” which transferred perfectly to her being an author. Now she talks to characters who aren’t there from rural Tennessee, where she lives with her husband and cats.
Rita has written two children’s books and is currently writing the seventh novel in her Sheldon Family Saga (available at https://books.by/rita-m-reali).
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The two men made their way down the long corridor and stopped in front of a metal door. Alvin offered his eye for the inquisitive red beam and, with an acknowledging beep, the door slid open with a quiet swoosh. Josh followed him in.
A gentle clop-clop sound greeted them. “Welcome back.”
The two stared in astonishment.
Gray looked back in unblinking silence, his large, expressive brown eyes taking them in.
“Wh-what happened?” Josh stammered.
Gray shrugged – or at least Josh thought that’s what it was. “I got tired of being so tall… and trying to balance on two feet. This is so much less stressful on my back. But we still see eye to eye, he added with a grin.”
Instead of the six-foot-three slate gray Venusian-looking creature they’d grown accustomed to seeing, before them stood a sturdy gray horse… with a gleaming silver horn protruding from its forehead.
“Man, this is gonna skew the data,” Josh mumbled to his dad.
“You ain’t kiddin’.”
Gray clopped over to the seating area at the other end of the room. He stood beside the couch. “Well, shall we get to it, gentlemen?”
The two hurried over.
Josh opened his notebook. “Okay,” he said, still baffled by Gray’s current form, and how he’d gotten that way. “Last night, you said the four of you had crash landed here…”
Two hours later, Josh closed his notebook. “Well, I guess that’s all the questions I have for tonight. I still don’t understand how the four of you from the same place could look so vastly different.”
Gray shook his silver-gray mane and gave what sounded like a low chuckle. “All humans don’t look alike, do they?”
“Uh… no, I guess not.”
“Well, neither do we.”
As the men stood to leave, Gray nodded toward a large envelope on the table. “Don’t forget to take that with you.”
Josh picked it up, curious. He peered inside. It looked to be about twenty-five pages. He pulled them out and saw line after line of neat double-spaced type. “What is it?”
“Your research paper, of course. And may I say, you really did an excellent job on it.”
