Band 1 E-Book

Ithaka O.

• Herausgeber: Imaginarium Kim
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

“Band 1” is a chronological collection of previously published short stories by Ithaka O.
- - -
List of stories in this collection

• Moonlight Through the Manhole
• To Me Who Is Useless
• Because They Don’t Bleed Red
• Silver Lining
• Replaceables
• Museum of Earth Art

Leseprobe

BAND 1

A CHRONOLOGICAL COLLECTION

ITHAKA WROTE SHORTS

ITHAKA O.

IMAGINARIUM KIM

© 2023 Ithaka O.

All rights reserved.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.

CONTENTS

Moonlight Through the Manhole

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

To Me Who Is Useless

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Because They Don't Bleed Red

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Silver Lining

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Replaceables

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Museum of Earth Art

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Also by Ithaka O.

Thank you for reading

MOONLIGHT THROUGH THE MANHOLE

1

As soon as Billy saw the reflection of the moonlight flashing from the manhole, he scrambled off his bed. Very little of that light entered his room because he had kept the curtains closed but for one tiny slit through which he’d been observing the manhole. But he wasn’t one to miss the tiniest clue. So, in the near-dark, he touched his way to the open closet.

Shoes—where were the sneakers he had hidden from Mommy? There. Way before he saw them, he smelled the unwashed sweat mixed with blood, spat out during the countless bullying sessions in the locker room. (Billy, the bullied, and the others, the bullies, to be clear. Things hadn’t worked out in Billy’s favor since entering elementary school, around which time he had begun wearing glasses—possibly because of his habit of reading copies of Alien Today in the dark without noticing that the sun had set—but he still had great plans for himself and never ever bullied anyone. He didn’t want to disappoint his future fans.)

Like a dog that could smell its way through anything, Billy snatched the sneakers from the sundries filling the closet, put them on (didn’t bother putting on any socks), groped for the flashlight, the one on his desk—but found nothing. It was supposed to be there.

Come on, hadn’t he practiced for an entire week for this very moment? Blindfold and all? From his bed to the manhole? To get out of the house while Mommy snored in the next room?

Billy whirled and whirled in search of the flashlight—thump.

Mommy’s snoring immediately stopped.

Billy held still. He had whipped the flashlight from the desk. The thing kept rolling across his tiny room for a second until it hit the bed with another, quieter thump.

“Billy?” called Mommy, her voice full of sleep.

She was an extremely light sleeper. That was the funny thing about being tired; one would think that as soon as the head touched the pillow, one would fall asleep and stay that way, but it wasn’t so. Mommy awoke at the tiniest noise.

As quietly as possible, Billy breathed in and out. Only his cotton pajama pants fluttered in rhythm, as if they were protesting how difficult it was for them to attempt to cover Billy’s ankles. He had outgrown them months ago; why did Billy insist on making them labor past retirement age? And especially his mother, shouldn’t she know better? Hadn’t she watched Billy’s grandma die at a premature age from overworking?

Just bear with me, thought Billy. Once I find the aliens in the sewer, I’ll let you retire. Not just that. I’ll mention you when all the newspapers and TV stations interview me. I’ll tell them—these pajama pants have stood by me when everyone else around me told me I’m crazy, including my mother⁠—

Mommy’s snoring resumed.

Billy let out a soft sigh and picked up the flashlight. Tonight, luck was on his side.

His heart raced and he felt hot. In this condition, he wouldn’t need a jacket. He turned the bedroom door handle slowly. The hinges creaked as they moved; but this door, unlike the closet door, Billy couldn’t have left open the previous night. Mommy would’ve noticed his suspicious plans. She didn’t approve of Billy’s alien stories, so much so that sometimes it felt like she didn’t approve of Billy.

But all of Mommy’s disapproval was about to come to an end.

Billy tiptoed down the hallway, out their two-bedroom apartment that was more like a one-bedroom with a thin wood panel between the so-called two rooms, then turned on the flashlight and began running. The light danced, shook, and jittered as Billy swept downstairs, past other apartments full of snoring men and women. He rushed faster than he had ever been compelled to run from the bullies who would never imagine just what he was about to do: finding aliens, proving to the world that the missing children staying with the aliens were in tip-top condition, and thereby bringing about the age of human-alien cooperation.

Billy Clifford’s name would go down in history as the almost-first person to have contact with aliens and the first person to convince them to admit contact. His pictures would be everywhere. He would be paid a million dollars per interview. He would demand it, because he wouldn’t possibly have the time to grant interviews to all the outlets that wanted one, so he would have to prioritize, and what better method of prioritization than through money?

But Billy Clifford had integrity. He vowed never to grant interviews to the broadcast stations with the front desk people who had laughed at him. There had been a time when he had wanted to let them know how cluelessly they were acting. That time was over.

The president who had visited their town of Everton multiple times since the disappearances began about a month ago; the bunch of choppers he had brought with him; the army that had surrounded the town; the mayor who ran around trying to look in control amidst all the newcomers—they all meant well, but they were all clueless.

No blood, no hair, no shoes of any of the missing children had been left behind. The perfect crime—a human couldn’t do that. Of course the aliens had done it. But no one had paid attention to this theory of Billy’s, at least not officially.

The law-enforcement officials treated the cases as if a completely normal human criminal had taken the children. Those “professionals” looked where even the most moronic of criminals wouldn’t think of putting their kidnapped victims. The nearly-collapsed shed in the woods behind Billy’s school, for example; or the abandoned tuna can factory across the river from his apartment building.

Then there were the really clueless people who thought the president was overdoing it by visiting Everton only to find four missing children. Not that child disappearances didn’t matter; but such cases happened all across the country, all the time. So why Everton? Why all this fuss?

No one but Billy had an answer: the president was in Everton because he knew that the aliens were behind the disappearances; the Commander in Chief just couldn’t alarm the public with the truth. He, like Billy, needed a concrete proof to make the existence of aliens undeniable.

So Billy set out to find that proof:

To mountain peaks, ideal for communicating with extraterrestrial species visiting the Earth.

Through forest clearings, with traces of wax drippings and animal sacrifices, where magical rituals had been performed. (You couldn’t exclude the possibility of wise witches communicating with aliens before all the mundanes.)

And of course to the gas stations. Duh. Aliens controlled all things of value in the universe, and what was more ridiculously expensive than oil? In fact, Billy was pretty sure that the aliens nourished themselves by drinking oil.

At any rate, Billy had investigated patiently. Then, a week ago, the key breakthrough had happened: he had seen a sparkle move beneath the gaps of the manhole cover—the one on the street right in front of his apartment.

A fleeting movement, it had been, and the sun had been setting. The “magic hour” in which all sorts of beautiful light tricks happened, enough to drive big movie crews crazy—but Billy Clifford had clearly witnessed: the alien message.

So what did Billy do? Report it, of course, like a good patriotic American citizen. He had reported it to anyone and everyone who would listen. And listen they did, those front desk people at TV stations and police officers who screened prank calls. But “listen” in the purely physical sense wasn’t a synonym for “pay attention.” Those who had listened had once again refused to relay Billy’s important intel to the decision-makers.

Hence Billy’s solo investigation had continued.

He had to admit, over the past week, he’d been on the verge of giving up. Had those front desk people been right? Was he just a silly first-grader who didn’t have a clue about criminal minds, let alone alien minds? Should he instead focus on figuring out a way to see clearly without his glasses, so he could pretend to be cool, or a way to stop growing so that he wouldn’t look so ridiculous in his too-short jeans and sweater?

But Billy had made the conscious decision to push those unproductive, negative thoughts aside. No, Billy Clifford, he had told himself, the only way you’ll be happy with glasses, buy new clothes, and let Mommy retire at a premature age instead of making her die at a premature age like grandma, is to find the aliens.

He had kept observing the manhole, and that was how Billy was rushing out of the creaking door of his apartment building at 2 a.m., here, now.

For a brief moment, Billy regretted not having put on a jacket. It was April, which meant that it had been over six months since the first bullying incident in the locker room. April also meant that the New England night air was as chilly as oyster kept cool on ice for the enjoyment of tourists.

Billy’s teeth chattered. But he didn’t worry about that. Out here, at this hour, no one who could stop him could hear him. He breathed in deeply—the smell of dewy leaves, the first of this spring. Yes, focus on that, Billy.

His glasses kept fogging and clearing up at the alternation between his hot breath and the chilly air. The full moon brilliantly illuminated his path to the manhole where the light-flashing was still going on.

Now, you might be thinking, This kid is too stupid to live, even for a first-grader. What if human kidnappers killed the missing kids and are now living in the sewer? Why is this kid so optimistic?

But do not underestimate Billy Clifford. He wasn’t one to be blinded by groundless positivity.

Firstly, humans who hide in a sewer probably do so because they don’t want to be found. If Billy were to hide, he would ensure that he only wore black, and only of a kind of fabric that absorbed light rather than reflecting it. And he would definitely not make flashy displays using light signals.

Secondly, anyone who had watched a thousand crime and mystery movies, as well as TV shows, like Billy had, would know that the two most common motivations for kidnappers were money and ego display. But these particular hypothetical kidnappers had not demanded ransom or made a show out of the crime scene; in fact, the police couldn’t tell where exactly the kidnappings had taken place.

Was there a criminal in the world who would go through all this trouble without some sort of gain, monetary or imagined? Billy didn’t think so.

Oh, but of course, there was the third motivation for kidnapping: to be rid of a child. Apparently, TV people found this motivation too depressing to depict on TV, therefore few people knew about this, but the police had considered this one, which had led to the arrest of the father of one of the missing children, Hanna.

Billy knew her from school. If Billy was the boys’ favorite scapegoat, Hanna was the girls’ counterpart. She always wore her hair in pigtails and it was too obvious that she kept them so because she didn’t wash them often. Hanna smelled of clothes that weren’t sweaty or dirty enough to be washed (it wasn’t her habit to run or fall), therefore simply hadn’t been washed for months. Girls hated her for that in a way that scared even Billy; they could be mean without ever hitting anybody. Hanna twitched and winced without overt triggers throughout the day. Billy guessed that a never-ending internal monologue went on in her head, so that she constantly relived the moment in which an actual trigger had occurred.

Sometimes, during class, Hanna noticed Billy’s gaze and they made eye contact. Whenever that happened, Hanna held so still that Billy couldn’t move, like under a spell—until some girl behind Hanna giggled about something completely unrelated and Hanna returned to her twitching, wincing self.

Anyway, none of the vanished children’s parents had an inkling of where their children could’ve been at the estimated time of their disappearances. So what had the police done? Strike out ransom, strike out ritualistic serial kidnapping, land on the one remaining motivation: getting rid of unwanted offspring.

Which had led to a bunch of investigations into the home lives of the kids, followed by the revelation that all were dysfunctional but Hanna’s especially. Hanna’s dad was an abusive alcoholic, which had led to the questioning of Hanna’s mom, which revealed her wounds from beating, which put Hanna’s dad in prison, which led to Hanna’s mom’s public threat about how she’d kill Hanna if she ever returned, for having put her father in prison⁠—

All this, on national television. A big mess. A huge mess.

But Billy didn’t think those parents could have acted out of the third motivation. They were too disorganized. Making a person disappear without a trace took great coordination, or magic, or alien work.

And the petroleum that soaked the asphalt and the manhole proved that the third kind of force had been in play.

Billy turned off the flashlight about three feet from the manhole. He stood in the middle of the street. Nothing but a few trees and his pajamas moved in the wind. Billy pushed his hands under his armpits and soundlessly marched in place to keep warm. His bare ankles felt numb from cold, but at the tension of imminent discovery, his teeth-chattering had stopped.

Under the daylight, that ring of petroleum around the manhole shone in rainbow colors; under the moonlight, it shone in one color, that of a mysterious snow-white.

But to Billy, one thing was crystal clear without any mystery, and that was the aliens’ good intention. If they had wanted to do harm, why not just blow up a village? Blow up the Earth? Blow up a galaxy?

And now, after all this theorizing and observation, only the moment of revelation remained. The aliens were telling Billy to hurry: reflected moonlight still flashed in the sewers.

2

Billy imagined this phrase in his future biography: Billy Clifford remained cool, calm, and composed in the face of his imminent discovery.

So Billy pushed his little fingers through two of the small gaps on the manhole cover and heaved.

No. This wasn’t going to work. The cover was heavier than he had thought. It didn’t budge the slightest. How was he supposed to⁠—

At that moment, the cover hovered upward. Billy backed away. Billy Clifford had witnessed telekinesis, he thought, for another passage in his biography. Alien ability 101 was about to unfold.

Once the manhole cover reached Billy’s height, it stopped ascending. It moved laterally, then descended, landing next to the gaping hole. This process had occurred so quietly that the entire time, Billy could hear the faint snoring of his mother from the fifth floor. She always left the window open because it was her habit to smoke a cigarette right before and after sleeping. So, her not waking up meant that the process had been really, very, extremely quiet.

Gingerly, Billy peeked into the sewer. The putrid smell of decaying foodstuffs and excrement attacked his nostrils. He jerked back. But too late—he had imagined the taste of rotten apples and spoiled meat in his mouth.

“Wrehh, urgh,” he said, sticking his tongue out. Not even the strong smell of petroleum could cover up the organic reek or stop his organic reaction.

Billy peeked in once more, holding his nose. Soft sounds of falling waterdrops echoed. The dance of moonlight reflection had ceased. All was dark in there. The aliens weren’t stupid; the cover had been removed and they weren’t going to stand around to be attacked by who knew what. They had invited Billy, but couldn’t be sure whether he had friendly intentions or not.

A bright flash of light⁠—

Darkness again.

What was that? Billy blinked. His eyes hurt from the sudden stimulation to his optic nerves.

Another flash of bright light⁠—

Darkness.

This time, Billy had forced his eyes to remain open. That light had filled the entire sewer within his view. It looked dryer than he had imagined. The water droplets must be falling somewhere farther inside.

Billy stuck the flashlight in his pajama pocket and turned around, buttocks toward the sewer. Then he carefully stepped down the ladder attached to the sewer wall.

The rubber soles of his sneakers absorbed some of the clink-clanking on the metal ladder, but not entirely. The tiniest noises multiplied and amplified. Billy kept glancing around. He wished that he had decided to stick the flashlight, lit, in his mouth. But then again, he had a mild phobia about falling forward with a long object in his mouth. Yeah, that sounded odd, he knew. But haven’t you ever heard stories about people who were eating lollipops or brushing their teeth, fell forward, and died instantly from the stick piercing the back of their throat?

After a while, Billy stopped looking. There was nothing he could do even if something were hiding in the depths of the sewer. As long as he had decided to descend, descend on he would. The gentle echoes felt soothing on his ears.

Billy Clifford, a first-grade student at Everton Elementary School, single-handedly ventured into the darkness of the sewer system. The nasty smell of food leftovers, mixed with that of petroleum, numbed his olfactory senses until he could discern them no more...

Only when his foot didn’t find the next ladder step did Billy awaken from his musings.

He had reached the bottom.

And right when he realized this, the bright light went on once again, this time to stay.

Billy clasped the metal ladder with his sweaty left hand and blocked the light with his right arm.

“Who’s there?” he said.

“But I thought you’d know, my darling,” responded a female voice.

A familiar voice.

Billy squinted impatiently. Come on, eyeballs. Time to adjust, quickly.

And there. In front of him. He saw.

“Mommy?”

This couldn’t be. Light from all sides surrounded the forty-year-old Ms. Clifford. She stood in front of her son, Billy, in her extremely worn T-shirt and shorts, per the Clifford tradition. (Buy a T-shirt and shorts, wear them for outdoor occasions like grocery shopping. Wash them enough times to make them look slightly old, then wear them indoors, during the day. After that, when they become extremely faded and wrinkly, wear them at night, in bed.)

“Yes. Mommy,” said Ms. Clifford. Her breath smelled of petroleum.

“What do you mean, you thought I’d know?” said Billy. “You were snoring upstairs minutes ago. What are you doing here?”

Disappointment mixed with bewilderment, and Billy jumped from the last step of the ladder, landing on the dry concrete.

“Oh, Billy. I don’t mean the part where you didn’t expect your mother.”

Billy gaped at her. He shook his head. He didn’t understand.

“How else did you think I brought your friends here, without some sort of cover to reassure them first?” Saying this, Ms. Clifford gestured at the light all around her.

Billy squinted hard once again.

And now he recognized familiar faces.

“Holy shit,” he said.

“Tut-tut. No curse words.”

But Billy wasn’t listening. The familiar faces belonged to the four children who had disappeared:

Fat Freddy and Skinny Sam, who used to be bullied at school too—and living proof that neither extreme on the weight scale was safe (only the average ever guaranteed any sort of safety).

Drooly Dorothy, who would’ve been bullied the most, being the only kid in Special Ed, had it not been for the twisted “self-respect” that Everton Elementary School’s queen bee and alpha male displayed. (Which meant absolutely nothing, by the way. What, was Billy supposed to feel like a hero because the bullies weren’t bad enough to actively bully Dorothy and did it to him instead?)

And Hanna. Good old Hanna, not fidgeting and wincing anymore.

All these familiar faces were framed in silver helmets. Full coverage type, from the crown of the head to the neck; all dystopian-looking, minus the oxygen tanks. The helmets beamed out lights from above the glass visors, which the children kept open because they were sucking on straws.

Each child held a lean bottle in his or her hand. The kids looked sick. Real sick, with bloodshot, unfocused eyes and dark circles. Their complexion looked sort of blue. Their cheeks were hollow. Even Fat Freddy was leaning toward somewhat-chubby, not fat.

From neck to toe, all children wore reflective overalls—the sort of onesies that babies would be satisfied to wear at Halloween, and only because they didn’t have a fashion sense yet. Too much silver. More like aluminum foil than a piece of garment. Not practical whatsoever. These garbs had been the cause behind the moonlight reflection.