Fiction / Eldridge Thomas III

 

:: Abducting Jolie ::

Peter twists every­thing she does now into evi­dence she’s unwell. Like how she eats choco­late pop­corn and pick­les inces­sant­ly, appar­ent­ly as hor­ri­fy­ing as kick­ing pup­pies or telling old peo­ple they stink. How was she to know cocoa-dust­ed pop­corn and sweet pick­les made such a per­fect match? Why should she give them up just because she’s no longer pregnant?

                  She didn’t drink Diet Coke. No caf­feine. Now she drinks it by the liter. She’s not try­ing to prove something.

                  Why don’t you get to bed at a decent hour? Why don’t you wake up at a decent hour? Why don’t you clean like you used to?

                  She cleans as she always did, which is to say: not won­der­ful­ly. He knew that when they mar­ried. She was upfront with her plus­es and minus­es. If it both­ers him so much, he could pick up a dang feath­er duster. He could orga­nize his books and mag­a­zines stacked every­where, like she’s asked him a mil­lion times.

                  Watch­ing so much TV isn’t healthy, he says, like he doesn’t know that Oprah’s back. She took the week off at the bank to sit in front of it, slic­ing into her Flori­da sum­mer beach time. That’s how much it means to her.

                  She guess­es it’s his Flori­da beach time, too.

                  He does men­tion the fif­teen hun­dred she down­right blew on the six­ty-five-inch Sam­sung and the five hun­dred she threw away hir­ing two men to hang it above their lit­tle fire­place. She asked him to hang it. He said they didn’t need a new TV.

                  Like he doesn’t know there’s a shelf life on her obses­sion. Oprah said they’ll see the aliens in a week’s time. That’s tonight, but Peter says he’s going to play pok­er. He won’t even watch it with her. Says he won’t enable her.

                  NBC pre­empt­ed Law and Order. That’s how seri­ous it is. It’s Oprah—not Geraldo.

                  Peter uses words like enable now, words Dr. Win­ters gave him to prove she’s loony tunes. Those two got it all fig­ured out.

                  Their house has an open floor plan. Liv­ing room on one side, kitchen and din­ing on the oth­er, a walk­way between. The liv­ing room is sunken. Her mom calls it a con­ver­sa­tion pit.

                  Jodie’s in the over­sized reclin­er, a one hun­dred-twen­ty-eight-ounce jar of pick­les at her feet, pop­corn in her lap, Diet Cokes lined beside her. She hears Peter’s shuf­fle; he always drags his feet. He pops out of the hall­way and looks down at her with the same riled twitch in his eye. Six months running.

                  “Are you sure you won’t go?” he asks.

                  He looks Chi­nese but sounds British. His dad was from Bei­jing but stud­ied physics in Man­ches­ter, where dad met mom. Peter stud­ied physics at Emory, where he met Jodie, sort of. They real­ly met at The Var­si­ty, where she worked the hot­dog counter try­ing to afford Atlanta. She’s from small-town Bain­bridge but always want­ed a city.

                  She glances at the half-grand­fa­ther clock.

                   “It starts in forty-two min­utes,” she says.

                  “I thought you might change your mind. We could use a sixth.” 

                  He wears a red west­ern shirt with pearl snaps, fad­ed jeans, and a brass belt buck­le. His lucky pok­er out­fit. He once asked if he looked like Bill Hickok.

                  “Get out of here, part­ner,” she says.

                  “Should I be leav­ing you alone?”

                  They were in the car togeth­er, com­ing back from Kellie’s East­er din­ner, but he says he doesn’t remem­ber it that way.

                  “Jodie,” he says. “It’d be good if you could walk away. It’d be real progress. We’ll dis­cov­er what­ev­er hap­pens on the Oprah Win­frey pro­gram later.”

                  God for­bid a woman ques­tion what a man says he saw. It’s been Hell since.

*

                  She must see Dr. Win­ters once a week, if she real­ly wants to save their marriage.

                  Dr. Winters’s office is ster­ile and char­ac­ter­less with its pan­eled wood walls and amber light­ing. The books on the shelves have round­ed spines with gold let­ter­ing, and her desk is metic­u­lous­ly bare. Four diplo­mas hang on the wall, one from Mer­cer, two from Geor­gia Tech, one from Emory.

                  Dr. Win­ters always stands by the two hard­back leather chairs to greet her, extend­ing her hand like it’s the one social norm she must and can tol­er­ate. Her hand feels spongy and fever­ish, like cradling a blue jay.

                  “Why have you come to see me, Jodie?” she asks, every time.

                  “Peter says—”

                  “Peter aside, how do you think I might help you?”

                  “I don’t know.”

                  “Jodie, it’s dif­fi­cult to help some­one who doesn’t know they need help.”

                  Every dress Dr. Win­ters wears is apple-col­ored: red, green, or yel­low. They all have the same flat design, mak­ing her look as though she doesn’t have a fig­ure to speak of. She doesn’t even wear a belt, which might prove she has a waist.

                  “Well, I guess every­body could use some­body to talk to.”

                  “What would you like to dis­cuss, then?” she asks.

                  “Peter—”

                  “Let’s not dis­cuss Peter. Let’s dis­cuss you.”

                  “Talk­ing about Peter is sort of dis­cussing me, isn’t it?”

                  Dr. Win­ters purs­es her lips when she thinks.

                  “Did you and Peter have trou­bles before los­ing the baby?” she asks.

                  “Not before the baby was tak­en. Why would we have?”

*

                  Her phone rings.

                  “I have some ques­tions for you, kiddo.”

                  It’s her mom.

                  “Shoot.”

                  “Are you even old enough to remem­ber Oprah’s show?”

                  “I saw it some­times after school, before you got home.”

                  It was just the two of them. Her dad skipped the light fan­tas­tic when she was bare­ly old enough to remem­ber how his mut­ton­chops met his mus­tache. He was a big rig dri­ver. She imag­ines see­ing him on the inter­state some­day and shoot­ing him the bird.

                  Her mom kept the books for a com­pa­ny that makes wood crates. They weren’t well-to-do, but they were com­fort­able. She didn’t feel par­tic­u­lar­ly less than the kids she went to school with.

                  Jodie munch­es on pop­corn and watch­es Laugh, Stu­pid! on mute. Bran­do Joyn­er, the star of the show, makes a per­vy face, and his TV girl­friend slaps him. Jodie grins. She hears her mom say ouch.

                  “What’s his wife’s name?” her mom asks.

                  “On the show?”

                  “What’s her real-life name?”

                  “Kari Shriver.”

                  “She’s got a mean wallop.”

                  It’s a fic­tion­al­ized account of Brando’s real-life jour­ney as a stand-up com­ic. He’s known for his phys­i­cal com­e­dy, what­ev­er that means. He just makes a lot of faces. The Hol­ly­wood gos­sips say he’s gay. She wish­es peo­ple didn’t have to hide who they real­ly are.

                  “How will I know if these aliens are, you know, the ones?”

                  Her mom goes along with every­thing, always has. In high school, the guy in her friend group, Kyle, claimed to have a tenth-degree black belt in jiu jit­su. He was a bar­be­cue pit­mas­ter and a renowned lion tamer. Her mom asked Kyle if he knew any mar­tial arts moves to help her aching back. They did these weird lit­tle dances in the liv­ing room for an hour. Her mom nev­er called Kyle out for clear­ly mak­ing it up as he went.

                  “I don’t know, Mom. Seems like it’ll be pret­ty obvious.”

                  For years, Kyle had talked about how he played piano. One night, they were over at their friend Tonya’s. He sat down at the upright in the base­ment and went to town on some Bil­ly Joel, and every­one sang along. No one could believe it.

                  “I mean, how will I know they’re your aliens?”

                  “I guess I’ll have to tell you.”

                  Jodie doesn’t know if her mom real­ly believes her, but she’s grate­ful for some­body who doesn’t treat her like a wack­adoo­dle. Her mom’s voice is a lit­tle coun­try, all even keel. Jodie miss­es her frizzy gray­ing hair and soft aura. Her mom­ma has always been the best momma.

                  “What if they are? What’ll you do?”

                  “There must be oth­er women like me out there. We’ll band together.”

                  “Jim­my says if the aliens are real, they won’t be friendly.”

                  Jim­my is man­ag­er at the crate com­pa­ny. He’s a beer-bel­lied know-it-all. Her mom’s worked with him twen­ty years.

                  “They’re going on a talk show, Mom. They can’t be all bad.”

                  “Jim­my says they’re using Oprah to announce they plan to enslave earth­lings and take over the world.”

                  “Enslave earth­lings?” She chuckles.

                  “Jodie, they’re tak­ing unborn babies from women’s bellies.”

                  Jodie doesn’t say any­thing. She watch­es the cred­its for Laugh, Stu­pid!, takes a sip of Diet Coke. The phone is warm on her ear.

                  “Right, Jodie?”

                  “I didn’t think about it like that, Mom.”

*

Dr. Win­ters wears her yel­low apple dress, and she’s already a delight.

                  “How is your sleep?”

                  “Much bet­ter,” Jodie lies.

                  Dr. Win­ters pre­scribed mela­tonin when the anti­de­pres­sant and ADHD meds kept her bounc­ing off walls. Jodie doesn’t take the que­ti­ap­ine. She’s not a schizo.

                  “Why have you come to see me, Jodie?”

                  “It’s been months, so we’re old friends at this point.”

                  Dr. Win­ters cocks her head. Jodie laughs ner­vous­ly. Dr. Win­ters scrib­bles some­thing in her notebook.

                  “I’d like for you to tell me when your fas­ci­na­tion with aliens from out­er space began.”

                  “Oh, I don’t have a fas­ci­na­tion,” she says. “I mean, I guess I do now, but I didn’t. Not before, you know.”

                  Dr. Win­ters nods and scrib­bles and asks ques­tions with­out look­ing up.

                  “Has any­one in your fam­i­ly ever claimed to have been abduct­ed, oth­er than yourself?”

                  “Nope, nobody.”

                  “Any of your friends?”

                  “Nope.”

                  “Any­one claim to have seen a space­craft or a lit­tle green man?”

                  “They’re gray.”

                  “Par­don?”

                  “No, I don’t know any­body else who’s seen aliens. Except Peter.”

                  “He denies see­ing them.”

                  “Yes,” Jodie says. She shifts in her chair.

                  “Are you a fan of sci­ence fic­tion movies or tele­vi­sion programs?”

                  “I like Star Trek some. Chris Pine is so handsome.”

                  “Chris Pine?”

                  “He’s the actor. He plays the main guy, the charis­mat­ic, some­what reck­less leader.”

                  “What about the X‑Files?”

                  “I saw an episode when I was lit­tle, and that was enough. There was this kid who could con­trol elec­tric­i­ty, but all he did with his pow­ers was kill peo­ple. Scary stuff.”

                  “What sorts of movies and tele­vi­sion shows do you pre­fer?”
                  “I love a good peri­od dra­ma. Any­thing Jane Austen or Down­ton Abbey.”

                  “Hor­ror?”

                  “I’m a pret­ty aver­age girl.”

                  Dr. Win­ters drops her pen and stares.

Jodie begins to won­der if she’ll stare for­ev­er. She con­sid­ers the long, frost­ed win­dows and won­ders if an awning might break her fall if she jumped out of one. They’re on the third floor.

“Your father left when you were young.”

“I was four.”

“You say that’s your sole child­hood trauma.”

“I wouldn’t say trau­ma. Lots of par­ents skedaddle.”

                  “I don’t under­stand, Jodie.”

                  “You don’t under­stand what, Dr. Winters?”

                  “Is it the news? How do you feel about migrants?”

                  “I mar­ried Peter.”

                  “British immi­grants aren’t what you see on CNN.”

                  “No, I guess not.”

                  “Have you ever felt threat­ened by ille­gals? Have you ever encoun­tered gang activity?”

                  “God no.”

                  Jodie remem­bers the Mex­i­cans who came through her small Geor­gia town, most­ly to help farm­ers plant and har­vest. They were pleas­ant enough. If any­thing, they seemed sus­pi­cious of the locals.

                  “My mom­ma thinks them bub­bas will change their tune once they shut down the Mex­i­can restau­rants,” Jodie says. “They sure do like a mar­gari­ta on a Fri­day night.”

                  Dr. Win­ters sits expressionless.

                  “So, you dis­cuss ille­gal aliens with your mother?”

                  “I mean, I guess, some­times. Isn’t that normal?”

                  “It isn’t nor­mal to claim aliens took a fetus from your uterus.”

                  “I nev­er said it was normal.”

                  Jodie looks at her wrist. They still have thir­ty minutes.

*

Peter dri­ves them in his 1970 dia­mond blue Mus­tang. It’s the one car they own. He bought it and start­ed restor­ing it right after he came over, before they’d even met. He calls it the perk of Amer­i­cana.

                  They wear pas­tels, him in cor­duroy and a pink short-sleeve shirt and her in a yel­low rib-knit dress. An old Willie Nel­son tune about an angel fly­ing too close to the sun plays on the radio.

                  She sits cat­ty-cor­nered in the seat with her hands on her water­mel­on bel­ly and watch­es him dri­ve. They’re tak­ing the long way home from Athens. She watch­es the pow­er lines and Geor­gia pines pass, the fad­ing sun’s yel­low, the indi­go skyline’s slug­gish dark­en­ing. She smells the cher­ry blos­soms in bloom, their pow­dery lush vanil­la, and feels the warmth of a per­fect spring day.

                  They’re happy.

                  Then Peter’s eyes close. She thinks he’s teasing.

                  “Stop, Peter. It’s not fun­ny.” She nudges his shoul­der, but he doesn’t snap to. She pan­ics. “Peter, wake up.” She slugs his shoulder.

                  His head falls to his chest, but his hands con­tin­ue to grip the wheel. The car slows, rolls to a stop.

                  “What’s hap­pen­ing?” she asks and shakes him. She pulls his face into her hands and gen­tly slaps it. He doesn’t respond.

                  The car drifts into a fog, and she can’t see any­thing out the win­dows. The radio turns to sta­t­ic and then a high-pitched buzz. She smells turpentine.

                  She turns to grab her door han­dle, and there, in the open win­dow, she sees its huge gray head, its inky black eyes. It reach­es for her, and she screams before pass­ing out.

*

Oprah sits alone on a couch in a stu­dio some­where. Behind her, a giant screen reads: We are not alone.

Jodie unmutes the TV.

                  “Last Thurs­day,” Oprah says, “I was asleep at my home in Chica­go when I was awak­ened by a bril­liant milky light.”

                  “Peter with you?” her mom asks.

                  “Pok­er,” Jodie says.

                  “I saw the out­lines of three bod­ies stand­ing at the foot of my bed. They were short and thin with stick-fig­ure arms and legs and an elon­gat­ed head.”

“Is that what they look like?”

                  “Mom, I’m try­ing to listen.”

                  “They did not say words, but I heard them inside my head. They said it’s time for human­i­ty to meet oth­er lifeforms.”

                  Oprah push­es her eye­glass­es up the bridge of her nose.

                  “He should be with you.”

                  “Mom, I don’t want to talk about Peter.”

                   “They said I had to make intro­duc­tions,” Oprah says, “and it had to hap­pen in a week’s time.”

                    “They chose her? Why not the president?”

                    “Mom, I’ve got to go.”

                    “Okay, dar­ling. We’ll talk after—”

Jodie ends the call.

*

                   “Is there any­thing in there about it?”

                  She and Peter sit at the din­ing table, hav­ing their break­fast. She pokes her spoon around a fruit and yogurt bowl. He reads the news on his tablet like he does every morn­ing and chomps on an apple, not even acknowl­edg­ing she spoke.

                  “Peter, is there any­thing in there about last night?”

                  “I’m sor­ry, my duck,” he says. “What about last night?”

                  “Some­body must’ve seen some­thing. Look in the Athens paper.”

                  “I’m sor­ry,” he says, again. “What are we discussing?”

“Did any­body see the fog or strange lights or a UFO?”

                  His mouth curves, amused.

                  “Don’t, Peter. You remember.”

                  “Remem­ber what?”

                  “Please, don’t call me crazy.”

                  “Are you unwell?”

                  He gets up, goes to her, kneels beside her.

                  “Tell me what hap­pened last night.”

                  “Peter, you were there.”

                  “Tell me like I wasn’t there, from the beginning.”

                  “You drove us back from Kellie’s—”

                  “My dar­ling, Jodie.” He holds up his hand to hush her.

                  “Why are you pre­tend­ing you don’t know, Peter?”

                  “East­er was a week ago. The still­birth was a week ago.”

                  “Still­birth?”

•  

“You were both excit­ed about the preg­nan­cy?” Dr. Win­ters asks. She wears her red apple dress and seems more human than usual.

                  “So excit­ed,” Jodie says. “Mom came up to help us with the house. His par­ents were going to fly in for the birth. I nev­er felt so happy.”

                  “You were lit­er­al­ly full of life.”

                  “Yes, that’s right.” Jodie gig­gles. “We put plas­tic cov­ers on all the pow­er out­lets. We paint­ed the guest room a bright yel­low. Peter paint­ed flow­ers on the wall. I didn’t even know he had artis­tic tal­ent. We had a bassinet and a crib, a lit­tle chif­forobe. I guess we still do. The room is exact­ly as it was.”

                  “Peter wants to try again?”

                  “Maybe.”

                  “You don’t know if he wants to try again?”

                  “We haven’t talked about it.”

                  “How come?”

                  “We didn’t want to know the gen­der,” she says, still smil­ing, “and we had the names nar­rowed down to two each.”

“Do you want to try again?”

Jodie stiff­ens, not want­i­ng to say how guilty she’d feel hav­ing anoth­er with a baby already up there some­where. Not until they give this one back. She doesn’t want to risk them tak­ing it, too.

“They changed my insides. I might not be able to.”

                  “What were the names?” Dr. Win­ters asks.

                  Jodie smiles.

“Simon or Lewis for a boy,” she says. “Mar­garet Mary or Mary Olivia for a girl.”

                  “You still have no rec­ol­lec­tion of the stillbirth?”

                  Of course not, Jodie thinks.

                  “You were in the hos­pi­tal two days. Peter says you lost a great deal of blood.”

                  Peter’s in on it.

                  “Jodie, your grief is real, even if the aliens are not.”

She doesn’t want to hear Dr. Win­ters talk about false memories.

•  

She’s awake. She’s grog­gy and tries to focus her eyes. The ceil­ing is sap­phire and moves like water. The walls too. The floor too.

                  She’s naked. She real­izes she’s hov­er­ing midair, and this fright­ens her. She kicks, and her body turns upright. She pad­dles her legs and arms, and her feet tap tap tap to land on the floor. She feels a small rhythm in her feet.

                  She kneels and cov­ers her pri­vates. It’s when she real­izes the eight-month swell of her bel­ly is gone.

                  “No,” she says, already defeat­ed. “God, no.”

                  She breaks in sor­row and cra­dles her­self, screams, but her anguish is too much, and her achy, heav­ing yowl leaves her mouth with­out sound.

                  Then his cor­duroy leg is over her. She grabs it and climbs him until her head rests against his chest.

                  “Peter,” she says.

                  “Don’t cry, my bis­cuit,” he says.

                  “The baby,” she says, and he stead­ies her before she col­laps­es again.

                  “There,” he says. He motions for her to see behind her.

                  She turns and sees a cylin­der the size of a large hour­glass hov­er five feet in the air, filled with an amber-glow­ing liq­uid and their baby.

                  She rush­es to it, palms its sur­face. It’s hard like porcelain.

                  “Baby,” she says. “My baby.”

                  Her skin is gos­samer thin. Her tiny organs and bones and veins. Her tum­my push­es in, out. She stretch­es out a yawn.

                  “She’s breathing.”

                  Peter’s hand mas­sages her shoulder.

                  “Isn’t our Mary so lovely?”

                  “Help me get her out of there.”

                  She smells tur­pen­tine. The alien is behind them.

•  

Every­body wants her to go back to work, but she can’t believe how many abductees there are and can’t stop read­ing about them online. She finds the forums, the doc­u­men­taries, the first­hand video and audio accounts, some­times from way back when, some­times from last week.

There are sup­port groups, some­times online, some­times in per­son. One meets week­ly in Atlanta. She googles the address. An Epis­co­pal church. Maybe she’ll go, but some of these peo­ple lie like a no-legged dog. Some act like it’s the best thing that’s ever hap­pened to them.

One girl said she got her baby back. Maybe she did some­thing Jodie didn’t.

                  She’s in bed with her lap­top. Peter doesn’t say good morn­ing when he gets up. He doesn’t kiss her goodbye.

                  She checks her body for mark­ings. They’re there: a small brown dot that could be a freck­le if she didn’t know bet­ter and a pink dot, half an inch above it, three times the brown one’s size. A brown dot and pink dot on both hips. They weren’t there before.

                  So many peo­ple report mul­ti­ple abduc­tions. She can’t suf­fer another.

                  She just can’t.

                  She real­izes she’s spent the day in bed when she hears the door, Peter com­ing home. She con­sid­ers rush­ing to the bath­room to brush her hair, maybe get­ting in the show­er. She wouldn’t be sur­prised if she were cov­ered in a film of dust. How long has it been? This isn’t day one.

                  “We must talk,” she hears him announce before he even steps a foot in their bedroom.

                  She remem­bers how she could lis­ten to him say any­thing for hours at a time, how she want­ed him as her GPS voice. So sexy. Not just the words all Brits pro­nounce dif­fer­ent­ly, like sched­ule and adver­tise­ment. She liked them all. She liked him all.

                  “Jodie, it’s been weeks.”

                  He sits on the bed’s edge, places a hand on her knee.

                  “Enough,” he says.

                  “Peter, I—”

                  “Enough,” he shouts. She hadn’t picked up on his tem­per. “It wasn’t only you.”

                  “You were there, Peter. We talked. We saw Mary in the jar.”

                  “We did not,” he says. “We did not, Jodie, see our baby in a jar. There are no such things as aliens.”

                  “There are. You saw—”

                  “You said you were feel­ing unwell, and you would have a quick kip. I enjoyed the sun and the dri­ve, and, when I looked over to you again, you were a bloody mess. I thought— It was so awful to think I’d lost you both.”

                  “It’s not what hap­pened, Peter.”

                  “You held our baby, Jodie.”

                  “What?”

                  “At the hos­pi­tal. You held her as we said good­bye. She died in your arms.”

                  “That didn’t happen.”

                  “It wasn’t only you, Jodie. It has been extreme­ly dis­tress­ing for me as well.”

                  He stands, brush­es the wrin­kles out of his trousers.

                  “Would you fan­cy a cup­pa? I’ll put on some tea.”

                  He leaves for the kitchen.

                  He’s such a liar.

•  

Oprah says the aliens are immi­nent. Jodie’s pulse races through her neck.

                  Her phone rings. It’s her mom. She hits decline.

                  She hears the front door. She looks over to the foy­er and doesn’t see anybody.

                  “Who’s there?”

                  Peter comes into her line of sight, hands in pockets.

                  Jodie turns from him to the TV, back and forth. Oprah’s in the audi­ence with her micro­phone. Some in the audi­ence look amused, some concerned.

                  “What’re you doing here?” she asks.

                  “Every­one with­drew. They all want to watch that bloody program.”

                  “Come sit.”

She motions to his favorite spot on the couch, beside a side table with a lamp and a stack of magazines.

                  Oprah is talk­ing. Jodie can’t focus. Oprah’s say­ing some­thing about how they breathe air like the rest of us.

                  “I hap­pened upon some right gulls who said they’d play, but we must host the game.”

                  “Peter, no. Not tonight.”

                  “They’ll be here momen­tar­i­ly, my pet.”

                  “My show.” A tear blurs her vision.

                  “Easy mon­ey, my sweet. They’re all plonkers.”

                  “Plonkers?”

                  Oprah asks some­body what he hopes to hear from the aliens.

“That they come in peace,” the man says. They all applaud.

                  “Please, my show.”

                  There’s a knock at the door, and Peter leaves to answer it.

                  The audi­ence looks only afraid now. They’re see­ing some­thing off cam­era. Why won’t they just show the aliens?

                  There’s no sound in the foy­er, no door open­ing or clos­ing, no foot­steps, no voic­es, no anything.

                  “Hel­lo, Jodie.”

                  She turns.

                  “Dr. Win­ters, you shouldn’t be here.”

                  Dr. Win­ters wears her apple green dress. She stands beside Peter. They stare down at her with pity.

                  “Peter invit­ed us,” Dr. Win­ters says. “Won’t you join us in the real world, Jodie?”

                  “Dr. Win­ters, my heart is set on this show.”

                  “We should talk, Jodie. Come, sit with us.”

                  “I don’t want to.”

                  On the tele­vi­sion, the audi­ence stirs. Peo­ple whis­per. Cam­eras wob­ble. Something’s wrong.

                  “Peo­ple of the world,” Oprah says, her voice strained but steady, “I present beings from anoth­er planet.”

                  Jodie swal­lows her breath.

                  Two fig­ures step onto the stage. They’re avo­ca­do-green, big-head­ed, ridicu­lous. They wear glit­ter­ing pur­ple blazers.

                  “Oh no,” Jodie says.

                  Her phone rings. It’s her mom. She hits decline.

                  The broad­cast glitch­es. The sound warps. The image freezes mid-frame: Oprah’s face caught between com­po­sure and con­fu­sion. Then black.

                  Jodie hears cards shuffle.

                  “Jodie.”

                  “Dr. Win­ters, leave me alone.”

                  Jodie bangs the remote, hop­ing the show will return.

Her phone rings. She hits decline.

                  “Jodie, look at the pot. If you want this, you’ll have to win it.”

                  It’s then she smells the turpentine.

                  Jodie stands and turns to them. Peter is at the head of the table. Dr. Win­ters oppo­site him. Sit­ting between them: the aliens, the real aliens. Gray, inky-eyed, ter­ri­ble. The cylin­der rests in the cen­ter, glow­ing amber. Her baby’s peach body turns like a sun­flower tail­ing the sun. Her lit­tle leg kicks.

                  Jodie steps out of the sunken liv­ing room and takes the open seat between an alien and Dr. Win­ters. The alien across from her nods, and she hears it say hel­lo, a rum­bling tenor echo, with­out utter­ing a word.

                  Peter deals five cards to each of them.

                  “Look at that silli­ness on the tele­vi­sion,” Dr. Win­ters says.

                  Jodie turns to see a green alien’s long fin­gers wrapped around some heavy­set guy’s neck. The cam­era zooms in on the man’s face as it turns blue, and the screen goes to black and then to NBC’s logo.

                  “What will you wager?” Dr. Win­ters asks and purs­es her lips.

                  “Every­thing,” Jodie says.

                  “You under­stand what’s at stake, then?”

                  “I’ve always under­stood, Dr. Winters.”

                  “How many cards do you need, my flower?”

Jodie peeks at her hand. Queens full of fours, a full house.

                  She knows what she’ll do next.

                  She’ll find Peter’s ham­mer and a long nail. She’ll tap the glass until it cracks. She’ll wipe her baby clean with their best tow­els, the salmon ones her mom gave them last Christ­mas. She’ll car­ry her to the bed­room, bun­dle her in a soft blan­ket, and curl up beside her on the mat­tress. It’ll be the two of them, warm and snug.

                  No one will try to take or sep­a­rate them ever again, and no one will tell her that she’s only dreaming.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

“Abduct­ing Jodie” began with two unre­lat­ed cul­tur­al mem­o­ries that even­tu­al­ly fused togeth­er in my mind: the tabloid sin­cer­i­ty of alien abduc­tion sto­ries from the 1990s and the strange social lone­li­ness sur­round­ing still­birth. Both involve expe­ri­ences that lis­ten­ers often feel pres­sured either to ful­ly accept or ful­ly reject. I became inter­est­ed in what hap­pens when grief cre­ates a real­i­ty more emo­tion­al­ly bear­able than the one every­one else accepts.

I grew up in South Geor­gia, where con­ver­sa­tions about the super­nat­ur­al, reli­gion, con­spir­a­cies, folk wis­dom, and tele­vi­sion often exist­ed side by side with­out much con­tra­dic­tion. Peo­ple might dis­cuss angels, prophet­ic dreams, UFO sight­ings, and pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion in the same porch con­ver­sa­tion. I want­ed the sto­ry to pre­serve that qual­i­ty rather than treat belief as some­thing clean­ly ratio­nal or irrational.

The story’s struc­ture emerged once I real­ized that what mat­tered most was the real­i­ty of Jodie’s emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence. I wasn’t inter­est­ed in mak­ing the sto­ry a puz­zle about aliens. I want­ed the read­er to expe­ri­ence the exhaust­ing insta­bil­i­ty of a woman try­ing to under­stand an unbear­able loss while psy­chi­a­try, mar­riage, mem­o­ry, media spec­ta­cle, and her own expe­ri­ence offer com­pet­ing explanations.

Oprah became cen­tral because she occu­pies a unique­ly Amer­i­can space between celebri­ty, con­fes­sion, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and pub­lic trust. The idea of extrater­res­tri­al rev­e­la­tion occur­ring via a day­time tele­vi­sion host struck me as both absurd and strange­ly inevitable.

As I wrote, I found myself increas­ing­ly inter­est­ed in ten­der­ness rather than satire. Even at its strangest moments, the sto­ry became less about aliens than about a woman refus­ing to sur­ren­der the real­i­ty in which her child still exists somewhere.

Eldridge Thomas III lives and writes in Knoxville, TN, but he’s from a swamp in Deep South Geor­gia. He can be reached at eldridgethomas3@gmail.com.