Free The Everborn by Nicholas Grabowsky

into a lemon-sized fist which lazily lifted to stifle a raspy cough. His lipless mouth could not have opened any wider than the face of my wristwatch. When his mouth closed, it formed a simple, placid, horizontal line.
    I expected his body to be hairless and sleek, with skin of slate, or skin of creamy-colored off-white as his hands and visible facial features appeared to be against the lamp’s soft glow. Standing, he could not have been more than four feet in height. He sat with legs crossed, silently but for a series of ill-repressed coughs. I could not yet see his eyes, could not strain my own should any attempt at deliberate observation prove offensive to his company.
    He spoke to me, and in the reflection in the window I could see the fleshy, horizontal slits of his mouth which indented vertically, then expanding into a diamond-shaped cavity in much the same way the top flap of a milk carton would open. When he spoke, he did so in a voice completely unexpected to me, for I hadn’t anticipated anything less alien than a high-pitched sort of intonation or a bass-low royal utterance of authority.
    Instead, he spoke with the voice of a man. A contemporary human male, no less, with a kick-back slang spoken almost lazily, almost in depressed sorrow, hinting of a certain sarcastic resentment I could have taken personally if I hadn’t noticed immediately that it was directed not towards me but towards circumstance. There was an air of confidence, not in how he spoke but in the words themselves, which he used, carefully chosen, and in these words I found the underlying pronouncements of a being agelessly knowledgeable yet somehow human enough to remain at odds with that knowledge.
    “Do you love your wife?” he asked me.
    I did not expect this to be his first words, and I placed myself in check to expect the unexpected. Feeling subjected to a surge of humility in his presence, I instead gave in to my own professional instinct to question and not to simply kiss ass. And I had many questions. “Why do you ask?”
    He answered with a shrug, and was silent, but his shrug displayed an indifference which assured me there was no cause for alarm, although the apparent lack of concern pissed me off.
    Maybe this was his way of breaking the ice, because my sudden indignation reduced my awe considerably and I felt free enough to speak on human terms. But before I could answer, and quite demandingly I might add, yes I love my wife, what of it , he spoke again.
    “She loves you, and very much, I should say.”
    I didn’t expect this, either.
    Okay, so I still expected things.
    When I chose to keep silent, not knowing what to say to this, still absorbing my delight in his words and anticipating more, waiting for him to go on, he continued.
    He changed the subject.
    “How was your journey? Manic? Surreal? Frustrating?”
    I didn’t know how to answer.
    “You hungry at all?”
    I had forgotten about that. I remembered my M&Ms feast on my way there, and I couldn’t believe I was as hungry as I was. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t the least bit hungry now. This reminded me for crazy reasons not of food but of my equipment I had brought with me, the microcassette recorder, and I cringed as this in turn reminded me of my clumsy pratfall at the diner entrance.
    “You don’t talk very much, do you, Mister UFO Investigator? Or is it detective UFO Investigator?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “The Church On The Rock . Lawndale. Remember? You went there looking for my kind. You couldn’t very well tell the pastor of that holy place that you were there on official UFO business now, could you? You were the sly one, weren’t you? You could tell, Uncle....”
    Again, the detestable sarcastic cool. Wasn’t there a more reasonable method to pacify my butterflies than to pique my temperament?
    “ Private Investigator,” I found myself answering, “I did not impersonate an officer.” I also found myself remembering. Remembering more .