A ROTTEN PARTY, AN ALIEN GIRL, A TOY TRUCK, AND A NEIGHBOUR by Vera Chase

A ROTTEN PARTY, AN ALIEN GIRL,
A TRUCK TOY AND
A NEIGHBOUR
By Vêra Chase

had organized a party and invited-after all, as usual-too many people to our small flat. Peter came as well, bringing along a strange girl nobody knew with a bulky toy under her arm. Quite little perhaps... well, hard to say. She had the height of an eight-year old child, however her large egg-shaped head with hairless; amidst her wax-like face stared without a blink two cold enormous eyes-all it took was a few looks and the party mood rapidly chilled out.
At the time, many people would claim they saw flying saucers and the brag brought an alien to show us. I've no clue of what he was thinking!: she was neither much fun nor really that weird, and plus she kept observing everybody so INTENSELY-one felt like some damn exhibit… like his body was see-through… That night there was a lot of wine left.
I went to sleep early and at dawn jumped out of bed, full of strength and energy, ready to clean. I knew that I would be finished before everyone else in the building got up and thus could enjoy the whole Saturday uninterrupted by disturbing chores.
When I opened the door to take the garbage down she stood there. Motionless, she was leaning against the wall as if she had slept standing up, but the moment the light coming from the flat touched her, she opened her eyes, gazing right at me without blinking. Well, I did feel awkward about just leaving her there-plus I was hoping nobody noticed her standing there over night: gosh, what would they say about us?-so I took her in and immediately got on the phone to Peter, my voice jumping: "Hey, you! Aren't you making your life just a bit TOO easy? Simply leaving her here, just like that, right in the hallway?! What are we supposed to do with her, in your opinion?" I was quite upset that he had spoilt the whole thing and now even abuses our hospitality. Oh yes, of course, the prop didn't create the desired effect, and he didn't even bother taking her away.
"Sorry, I really thought I had her with me the whole way home, but then suddenly, as I am standing in front of my flat trying to figure out which key, I look around and she isn't there-"
"-hey, hey, hey, hang on! There seems to be some clear stuff coming out of the top of her head-some kind of jelly- and it's is running down..." I cut him off, by that time quite hysterical, as I was watching her from where the phone was, a mop in one hand, the handset in the other-clearly nothing once could use in that sort of situation-and slime's oozing out of her head!
On the other end, quite unlike himself, Peter faltered: "Then, perhaps, you wanna look out, you know, soon there won't be just one anymore. Ye know what, I am on my way."
And surely was he right! Her skull popped open and suddenly there were two of them, smaller but slimy. My nerves were a wreck. Peter arrived in ten minutes and took them both away. Truly, I do not care ONE BIT about what he's done with them. The only one thing I cared about since it started was whether I had enough cloth to wipe out the heaps of aspic left on the floor, enough to just take it and thrash it out as it was.
Great, sure, but then, when I had finally got rid of all her excrements and as if nothing continue with my routine after-party cleaning, suddenly I notice she left her toy behind. See, she had brought this large truck with her to the party. QUITE large, I mean, a lot bigger than the common toy. It was almost to my knees.
And there it goes switching its lights on and fumes are gushing from the exhaust pipe-just like a real-size truck! I really thought I would scream or faint but no, I SIMPLY picked it up and threw it out of the window. Sometimes, I can surprise myself a big way. (It was quite a while later when I realized how my back muscles twitched-the thing was damn heavy-and my entire arms just tingled like from working a pneumatic drill.)
There is a strip of lawn and a pavement under the window. The truck fell down, twice or so sprung up about a meter and finally got smashed into pieces. No thoughts of killing anybody, especially since it was the local CCD (Citizens' Cleansing Day) and therefore every single person in the neighborhood was up on their feet from early morning to tidy the "common areas", our front lawn inclusive, had entered my mind; no way! The key issue of the moment was to get the bloody thing out of my reach.
So I am looking down, to check if anybody had seen me and a neighbor of ours is like squatting and weeding the lawn, quite close to it, in fact the shards are all around her; she must be in her thirties, I think. So I am on my way down to apologize, but she does nothing, not even winks, she just slowly turns to me, thrusts her handy shovel into the dirt, freezes for a second and then utters, as if addressing somebody else: "Yesterday I dreamt of UFO, and then I am reading in the paper this morning that they had found again those large patterns in the fields behind Pilsen, which is exactly the direction in which they were heading."
And I, I do nothing except nod: "I am telling you, strange, STRANGE things happen these days," my speech calm and prolix as if a chunk of slime hadn't just slid down from my big toe.