Week 4 - The Elephant in the Room

Listen, son, we need to have a talk — since you’re about to go into the city for the first time, I need to tell you the story of them, so that you won’t gawk and look like a idiot.

I know the teacher just says that they were benign visitors here on a ‘observation mission’, but it’s a bit more than that, you know; they’ve been here for years now, longer than the books say. The scientists remember when they first came, but I doubt anyone on the street could give you an exact date; it’s been that long. I can tell you, though, I was seventeen when I first encountered them, just a year older than you are now. If you’re really curious, I’m sure you could find newspaper articles that detail the exact second they first appeared over the cities. Just Google ‘First Meeting’ or something like that, it’ll be the first billion hits or so.

I’m sure you’ve seen the videos, and I’m guessing your first question is how everyone can just go about their business with that thing floating above them. Well, we have an incredible capacity to adapt, son. We adapted from living in trees on the savanna to ice fishing the arctic, and we adapted from knowing no more than a tribe of people to being connected to millions. We learned how to drive cars and make money and some of us can even use computers, and so, you know, we keep adapting to a changing world.

Here — you know how you complain about the noise of the fan in our living room, or the noise of the computer under your desk? Well, I notice that you only whine about it when it first gets turned on; after you sit in the room for a while, you slowly adapt to block out the sound and you only notice it when it gets turned off and the noise goes away. What you see on the streets of New York, the people going about their business, it’s the same sort of thing. When you look up in the sky every day and see the same thing, it becomes routine after awhile, even if it’s the craziest shit in the entire world. Even if it’s an alien craft that no one has ever seen the inside of.

It helped that they encouraged that sort of ignoring-them anyway — when they first appeared, just like that, around the world, people were naturally curious and scared and interested and all sorts of things. And of course the government wanted to find out what it was and contain it and do all sorts of experiments, and it’s not like the movies, son. None of it ever came to anything, and if anyone tells you anything else, it’s an outright lie. I remember good ol’ Uncle Sam shooting missiles at the one that’s off the coast of Manhattan, and all the ship did was absorb it, and then destroy the ship that fired them. Saved all the guys inside, you wouldn’t believe it, just vaporized the metal that they were sitting in, leaving about three hundred sailors floating in the ocean.

It took us awhile to take the hint — that idiot Secretary of Defense Matthews was hell bent on shooting a nuke at it and seeing if it could eat that — but after we realized we couldn’t do anything, the President decided to give up. What else was there to do? And instead of the UFOs being on nightly news for three hours every day, it was given a bit less time each night, and then a bit less, and by the time six months had passed by, well, it maybe would make cable news once a week, when it got real slow during Thursday afternoons.

And like I said, son, we just got accustomed to it, until it was no longer something unique and incredible, but just part of our normal, boring, daily lives. The sun rises in the east, snow falls during the winter, and the ships just hover where they have been for twenty years now. We still don’t know quite why they’re here, and I think even the scientists have given up, because every time they try and approach it, their equipment and ride disappears.

So you, when you go into the city for your interview tomorrow, make sure you don’t do that thing where you look up all the time; they’ll know you’re from out of town and rob you blind, you hear? Just tell yourself that it’s like the sound of the fan, that you’ll get used to it, that it’s always been there, and you’ll be okay, I promise.

And if you’re like me, and selected to be taken into the ship and examined, well, son, that’s why I packed you a clean set of underwear.

The Elephant in the Room

We used to know exactly the right thing to say to each other when something was wrong. We still do, I think, but we just don't say it anymore.

Maybe that's what losing her did to us.

It always starts with something small, something inconsequential. An ambiguous statement, a throwaway comment that could be dismissed but isn't. Picking at a scab, not quite healed over — "honey, where did you put the checkbook, again?" — with just a shade too much emphasis on the 'again'. As if I meant to hide it from her.

Both of us are proud, and perhaps too quick to take offense. It never used to be a problem, but now, we read into statements that should be casual, innocuous, and we find in them the glimmer of cruelty that is a slap in the face, a punch in the gut, an invitation to battle.

Neither of us could ever resist the temptation to win an argument. We were known for it, known for our skill in seeing the flaws in our opponents, for the clever way we dissected what they said. But in this case, winning means making comments that we always regret in the morning. Winning means hurting the person you love the most.

And yet, we still can't resist.

It turns into something bigger, as a comment demands a retort and the return salvo must always be harsher, stronger, more pointed. "Not yet, but did you pay the cable bill yet? Or—" And every time I wish I could hold back, bite my tongue, just let it blow by for once, and then it comes out anyway— "Or did you spend what we made this month on those cute dresses, again?"

Even as I say it, I know that this isn't what I mean, but I can't stop. Not this time, not the last time. Not ever, perhaps. And even before I finish, I know she's just waiting to plunge her daggers where she knows they'll do the most damage, and I know that she doesn't mean it. Or at least, she won't in the morning.

But it still hurts, and for now, our anger is the only way we can respond to the pain.

It escalates still, and we put fists into walls and shatter dishes and trot out the list of wrongs each has committed. Never do we hurt each other physically; no, we learned long ago that our words do more damage, and leave less of a mark.

We yell at each other from different rooms, destroy things we bought together and loved, and never, ever, ever mention the girl that we lost, before she ever got a chance to say mama and daddy.

Parents should never have to bury their children.

Finally, we run out of words; we stand, two weary souls on the battlefield that is our home, we think of her, the only person we've ever loved more than each other, and we are silent.

And then we start the rebuilding.

I mumble about buying the spackle, she mutters about seeing what she can do about replacing the dishes, and even though we don't say much as we clean up our mess, as we recover on the outside and on the inside, I know we're thinking the same thing.

When we sleep, she curls up into me and we sob silently together, still never saying a word about her, about how much it hurts to be without her, but we grieve together now, instead of apart.

-

Tomorrow comes soon enough, and perhaps we'll fight again, but for tonight, at the end of the day, we are still together, grateful for each other’s presence. Perhaps with enough tomorrows, we'll learn to hold back, we'll stop destroying what we rebuild, and we'll be able to talk about the past.

And many tomorrows after that, perhaps we’ll be able to once again look to the future.