Visitor by Wednesday Klevisha
Orginally Published in August 2021
The stars. Endless pin pricks. Universal pixels.
Inga Bossanova started counting them and quickly stopped.
Don’t get caught up in counting the countless.
She stood among the lavender by the young elm at the center of the fenced yard. The dozen or so neighborly windows with their lights extinguished. A new moon. Very dark night.
Inga lay the thick plastic crates on the ground and clicked them open and begun assembling the pieces. Unfold the portable system. Plug the wires into place. Boot up the monitor. Extend the antennae. Twist knobs and a two hundred yard ethernet cord running into the house.
Inputs and outputs.
The screen blinked and booped its initiation sequence.
Hello world…
Hello.
Inga set up a coin toss program into the broadcaster machine.
[visitoranswer==1
display <it is inevitable>
visitoranswer==2
display<try again later, dweeb>]
click
The stars. Endless possibilities. To be up there. Green letters across the screen…try again later, dweeb…
Inga remain undeterred. She connected her Spotify and began playing new tunes she’s gotten into. Lucy Dacus. Carseat Headrest. Caterina Valente. Marty Robbins. It’s good to get a spectrum of music. The Golden Record that Nasa sent into space had a pretty good spectrum. Still broadening my horizons. Then when she got bored of playing music she surfed the web and looked up random subjects on Wikipedia and Youtube, going down a black hole researching the death of Stahlin and winding up going through Steve Buscemi’s filmography and ending up on skimming through research articles on actual black holes.
The quiet residential neighbor hood just within earshot of the highway was a sea of night blue shadows besides the green monitor and the illuminated face of Massachusett's’ most ambitious conspiracy theorist and alien hunter. She connected a condenser mic to the broadcaster and began speaking into it.
Good evening extraterrestrials. This is Inga Bossanova broadcasting from planet Earth adjacent to a single sun in the Milky Way galaxy. Can’t miss us. In case you can’t see us though, I am sending out coordinates as well as a hand drawn map I made which may not be super helpful. It is 2am Eastern Specific Time and it is a moonless night. Temperature temperate. Clouds, not there. And my elm tree is doing pretty good.
What’s it like where you are? Is it covered in as much water as our planet? Do you have governments? Are you a biological species or some sort of sentient mineralbot? Can you withstand the heat of the sun? Are you giants worms?
Inga lay back in the grass with her microphone staring up at the stars. Endless questions.
Maybe you smell really bad. Or your a fragrant flower people. Or like ghostly space fish. Whatever you are, I hope you don’t judge my taste in music.
Do you have jobs on your planet? I have to work a job. It’s okay. Gotta pay the rent ya know. If you don’t know what rent is, well then you’re probably better off for it. And these gadgets aren’t cheap. I’ve developed some leads on my investigation into the death of JFK. Not looking great there. Landlord is renting out the other room. Means someone’s going to creep in and just be present. I got the place to be alone and now… Not cool man. I just hope they’re not an asshole. And they better do their dishes. And also not be loud. And preferably barely there.
Guess I’d have to get used to that at some point though. If I were to ever go away on a ship. I imagine UFO’s being pretty small. Maybe like the size of an apartment? Need a kitchen. Cockpit. Place for the engine. I dunno. It’s getting real late. What time is it?
…3:45am…
I’m getting sleepy, Space. Might just put on a Buster Keaton film and just hang for a bit longer. Look at the lights.
Birds began chirping up a storm around 5:00am, when Inga woke up covered in dew and shivering.
“Are you okay there kid? What is all that? Is that legal”
“Yes, it’s just for a science project.”
“Oh like some astrology thing? Is that for school?”
“No, I’m just a hobbyist.”
“Is there money in that sort of thing?”
“Luckily none at all.”
“Seems like a waste of time. Should set up a tent next time. It’s almost fall and will get too cold for sleeping out.”
“Oh I’ve been doing this for a while now. Like a couple years.”
The machine sparked and whirred. The dew had seeped into the circuitry causing a shortage.
“Oh fuck me. Are you fucking serious.”
“That’s some strong language miss.”
“Aww you piece of shit. Fuck. I should have broken down last night.”
“I’m going inside and gonna make a Loxom bagel. Good luck with whatever the hell you’re doing.”
The neighbor turned over and let the screen door creak shut behind him.
I’m so stupid. Shit. I need to bring this back. I still have till Monday though. Maybe I can fix it by then.
Inga spent her entire Saturday watching Youtube videos, reading forums and tinkering with the oversized machine. At first it was furiously frustrating. Afraid of making any mistake to make things worse. Then as information began to be corroborated and the pieces became familiar the tasks became not easier but at least comprehendible. But even as the entire day passed her by, she was still not able to restore the device’s functionality and she fell asleep at the dining room surrounded by tools and components and her broken alien radio.
Outside was pitch black. Darker than the night before. And there was no moon. And no clouds. And no stars. And then while the entire neighborhood slept, a piece of static started to flicker. And electricity illumed the fences and the houses and the lavender. And under the young elm stood a green shadowy figure. The light extinguished and the shadow walked on past the wide windows.
