Happy summer!
It’s time for the blog hop where you can read flash fiction from around the world for free. I hope you enjoy my story First Encounter… and scroll to the bottom to see links for the other stories.
It started with a strange haze around my condo that nearly convinced me my eyes were going. Make an appointment for the optometrist, I noted on my to-do list. My dog nudged his nose into my belly and gazed at me with soulful eyes. Haze or no haze, Boo the Boxer had to be walked.
I slipped on his collar and clipped his leash. Boo hadn’t met a human or animal he didn’t love, but the HOA was tyrannical about dogs on leash, and I’d been fined twice the first week I’d moved in: once for a leash violation and once for failure to pick up poop.
I’d tried explaining that I had forgotten a bag and was just running inside to get one, and it was my own lawn dammit, but that had earned me no mercy, and perhaps a spot on their watchlist for swearing.
The dog waited for my command to step outside, then walked beside me across the minuscule lawn before his hackles rose and he growled.
Boo never growled.
I lurched to a halt, my heart thundering in my chest.
Coalescing on my lawn, two creatures stepped out of the haze. They swirled iridescent blues and purples and reminded me of squids but standing on their tentacles instead of floating in water.
Not right. Not right and not possible.
Swallowing, I cleared my throat enough to snap, “Halloween is not for months,” even though I knew they weren’t neighbor kids playing a prank. Boo had growled, after all.
“We observe you many days,” the taller of the two said. “Need help knowing treasure.”
Boo sat on my foot. He didn’t seem concerned anymore, so I sucked in a deep breath. “You… need my help?”
“Identify treasure!” The shorter held out a yellow plastic bag… a bag which looked suspiciously like the one I had in my pocket, only full.
*
I stared.
And stared.
When Boo leaned against my leg to demand scritches, I blinked and blurted, “It’s dog poop.”
“What is… dog poop?”
Oh boy.
“This,” I said, gesturing to Boo, “is my dog. He eats, and… well… anything his body doesn’t use, he excretes. He gets rid of. He poops out.” Rubbing the dog’s ears until he groaned with pleasure, I muttered, “Everyone poops.”
The aliens’ mouth tentacles braided and snarled. “Excrement. Unneed. Discard.”
“Yes.”
The smaller one spoke. “But you gather careful in bags. Place bags in bins. Collect bins. Transport and give back to planet.”
“It’s trash.” I was a little fuzzy on the details of city sanitation, but then Boo hopped off my foot, squatted and hunched his back.
Before I thought, I had the matching yellow plastic bag out of my pocket, covering my hand, and I readied myself to swoop in and pick up the offending poop before the HOA could see it.
The aliens made a raspy sound.
Lacking knowledge of their body languages, I wasn’t sure if they were laughing, crying, or pooping themselves.
Nah. Not the last.
With the warm poop in my hand, I tied the bag shut, then thought about it.
They had a point about that treasure business.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “It’s just poop. There are rules. I’m just following the rules.”
Boo pulled at the lead and I allowed him to drag me away for his walk. “You should probably go,” I called back. I mean, they must have been studying us for a while; they spoke English even if they didn’t understand poop. “Have you seen our movies? I don’t want you to end up experimented on by the government, and neither do you. Trust me!”
*
The blue-purple somehow-upright squidly creatures were still on my lawn when we returned from our walk and that weird haze still glowed around my condo.
I sighed a little. I hadn’t seen anything strange until I had crossed my property line, so maybe I was safe from being reported to the police—or worse, the HOA!—by my neighbors.
“Help!” The smaller said through waving mouth-tentacles.
Boo’s tail wiggled, so I shrugged. “Help with what now?”
“Bring excrement. Lots excrement.”
I scowled. “You’re kidding.”
“Is goat offspring excrement also treasure?”
“Goat…?” My headache was coming back. “No. Not those kids.”
“Then why—?”
I held up one hand, and they both flinched back. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I muttered, lowering my hand. “Just… you want me to get dog poop? For you?”
“Yes!” The shorter alien wriggled. It gargled something I didn’t understand, continuing, “are treasure. We examine. We use to fuel ship!”
“What’s wrong with your ship?”
“Ship crash.” Another wriggle. “We fix.”
“Why me?”
“Dog has best concentrations—” gargle, gargle—“in excrement. Must have.”
I’d thrown the dog poop in the dumpster. I was all for positive human-alien relations, but going dumpster-diving was out of my realm of comfort.
Way out.
“What if I show you where I put his poop? You can get it yourselves, right?”
The squidly aliens looked at each other, then at me.
“Yes. Show.”
I pointed. I explained. I even made a cradle with my hands for the smaller one to push itself off of into the dumpster.
And that was how Boo’s poo made First Contact.