text: The Ugly Duckling The days of my past are shady at best. The thought of my dad travelling to earth to find the ideal host for carrying a baby makes me shiver. I wish I could have gotten to know her, my dad in his sleep has revealed many features of her which is why I sneak into his room at night and lay under the bed waiting for him to sleep. My world is small, and almost all of the humaliens live in big space ships to raise their children and teach them the ways of alien life on planet zero. The aliens on this planet have huts, made of stone, and over the thousands of years were able to create a space station. The space station has a huge warehouse full of different minerals stolen from earth. They have tanks full of fresh water, soil also taken from earth. Another warehouse has animals needed to sustain life such as pigs, goats, chickens, cows, plants, bees. The biggest warehouse made of metal has hundreds of old tossed out computers, and technologies. Outside the wind turbines power the warehouses. The warehouse with the hundreds of computers have discovered that mixing certain minerals and melted rock from our world make the spaceships for the humaliens. These spaceships can travel 2 x’s the speed of light, have fire resistant panels to travel to earth easily going through the ozone layer. These things I remember as a child, the mechanics, the planting of vegetables, and working on the lights that simulate the sun. Our world has no sun, it is always dark unless you are in the warehouses or spaceship. Our humaliens (part human part alien) are very pale skinned, has gaunt eyes, very frail, and are very light sensitive. My mom-a blur of visions and memory used to read to me before bed, chase me around the spaceship, and cook amazing meals in the spaceship. I have seen these behaviours when travelling to earth to get supplies. I wish I could stay on earth and learn the ways of humans. At 16 years old the boys must look for mates on earth that can host a baby. It is the law that the hosts can only stay for four years and be brought back to earth. Time would only lapse for the humans for a day or two at the most on earth, and the women would not remember being captured or giving birth on planet zero. I remember her smell, which reminded me of the lavender that I plant for the butterflies and bees, I often find myself laying in the fields imagining her. She had long red hair, freckles on her face, and a smile that light up a dark room. I remember her voice and her reading my favourite stories. One of my favourites was the ugly duckling. It was my favourite because on earth that is the way I feel, with my very pale skin, sunken eyes, and only three fingers on my right hand. When I sneak into my dads room at night I can hear him talking to her and reaching for her. He talks about her green eyes so bright, and asks her to dance with him. It makes me cry because she has been gone for so long and she would never remember us. I will be turning 16 soon, and do not want to fall in love with someone for only four years. I don’t want to see my child cry and call for their mom for years. How could I pick someone to say goodbye. My heart feels like it is twisted and making me sick when I think about it. I want to ask my dad why he didn’t leave the ship on earth and hide for the rest of his life just to be with his family. I wonder if he thought about it, and if he did what would happen if someone did hide and then only be found years later? He is so sad, he tries to smile when we talk and eat our mostly freeze dried meals. He often looks down at his food, to only push it away. My departure is coming soon, and try to imagine my life on earth, with a beautiful girl, walking, swimming, riding one of those bicycle things, dancing and so much more. Some of the other boys my age are excited and can’t wait to depart to earth to find their mate. The ship drops us off in different places around the earth to walk amongst the humans to search for our mates. After the ship fills with water and harvest their minerals, they go to the place where they dropped you off and pick us up with a young girl. Our humalien minds are far more advanced than humans, we can read human minds and manipulate them into anything we want or need. It is almost like hypnotism but our minds can target anything living within less than a second, and if we brush by anyone we can search their minds and retain a-lot of information. Many times travelling to earth we are dropped off at universities, space station tours, labs, pharmacy’s ext. Tomorrow is my day to be dropped off to find a suitable mate, I am ready to say goodbye to my world forever and join the humans. I will miss my friends and father but I can not love someone to only say goodbye. The boys on the ship are excited, and I pretend to listen but my plan is to be dropped off, find a bus, and travel to a small town never to be found again. It will be easy to get a job, find an apparent and live a humble life. Mind manipulation can get me anything I want, but once I have money I will be able to actually live the life of humans. I hope. A year later has passed since my drop off and I have a job, now a house, and a bicycle It is very hard to blend in with the humans because I am different. People shy away from me, they are polite but get away from me as soon as they can. I find myself walking by the lake that is close to the community that I live.It is so beautiful, the wind, the sun, the birds, the clean air. The humans take this planet for granted and I really don’t know why. I plan to stay here for the rest of my life, even though it will be shorter than my life up at planet zero because the gravity is much more dense here and plays havoc on my system. One day on my walk around the lake I saw a beautiful older woman who had red hair and green eyes and she was reading to her granddaughter the ugly duckling. I pretended that I was skipping stones, but I was listening to her. I wondered if she could be my mother. I glanced at her and her smile was so beautiful. I could feel a connection and sat on the bench that was close to the bench she was on. Every Saturday I went to the bench to see if she was there with her granddaughter, I wanted to get to know her better. I really wanted to brush up against her to see if I could search her brain of any recollection of her being up in space. But, I dare not. The days turned into weeks, and I still had a hard time fitting in. However, my co-workers were starting to warm up to me and trust me, but the girl I work with has no interest. I refuse to use my abilities for mind manipulation but I hope to find someone soon before I get to old to have a child of my own.