The Administrator Read online

  Purr-ching. Brrt-ting. There it was again.

  She tiptoed to the kitchen and parted the curtains just a crack. A shadow flashed past the window. Brrrinng.

  She smacked her head on the cabinet as she instinctively recoiled from the window. “Ouch!” Black spots swam before her eyes. “Damn.” She gingerly massaged the back of her head with an age-spotted hand. She ran her fingers through her wispy, gray hair, as she chanced peeking out the window again. No movement. Armed with a butcher knife, she loosed the safety latch on the door and gently eased it open a bare one-half inch.

  “Well I’ll be darned. It’s one of them—an alien.”

  It perched expectantly on the side of the feeder and cocked its fuzzy, pink head in her direction. Its chartreuse eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and its wings were folded neatly beneath its belly. “Brr-Ching?” The chiming sound it made sounded almost like a question.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  “Brr-Ching?”

  “Just a minute.” She closed the door. “Now where did I put those instructions?” She tapped her temple with a bony finger as if the action would stimulate her brain into remembering. “Oh yeah, I threw them away. Well, who would have guessed that I’d need them?” She went back to the door, opened it a crack, leaned on her cane with one hand and made fluttering motions with her other hand. “Shoo. Go away. I don’t have anything for you.”

  “Brr-Ching?” The alien didn’t even flinch at her waving hand.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll look for something.” Turning to get a box of cereal from the cabinet, She felt a feathery touch on her shoulder. Gasping, she jumped back and bumped her head on the cabinet again. “Darn!”

  The creature fluttered to the shelf. “Pinngg?”

  “You can ping, ching, and bing all you want, but I don’t have anything to feed you.”

  He started to peck at the can of coffee beans.

  “You want coffee? Well heck, okay, but you won’t like it.”

  The fuzzy little creature pecked happily at the pile of coffee beans she put on the cabinet.

  “Well, what do you know?”

  “Chinng,” it sang between mouthfuls and looked up at her with shiny, little eyes.

  “Did you just smile? I believe you did!”

  Chuckling, Sarah watched the little fellow finish the coffee beans.

  “Pinngg?”

  She giggled as she poured another handful onto the cabinet.

  “Thanngg you.” Musical tones echoed as the alien spoke.

  “Oh. You can talk?”

  “To zzome people,” he chimed.

  “Gosh! I don’t remember hearing that you can talk.”

  “Mozzt don’t know,” he sang.

  “Why not?”

  “Not here for mozzt.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “For youz.” His tinkling voice rang in the air and settled on Sarah’s ears like a warm breath. Somehow he made her feel a little better, not quite so alone—not quite so old.

  “Youz?” she echoed. Who are youz?”

  “Youz like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yez. Zeimers, like you.”

  “Zeimers? You mean Alzheimer’s?”

  “Yez.” He cocked his pink, fuzzy head, and his gleaming, chartreuse eyes watched her face.

  Her smile faded, and she felt ancient again. “Why?”

  “Zeimers don’t belong here.”

  “Here? What do you mean? Aw shucks, I don’t believe I’m talking to a pink sausage. I must be crazy, just like they say.”

  “Not crazy. Trapped.” The alien flew to her shoulder and rubbed his soft head against her cheek. “We rescue youz. Take youz back.”

  Sarah felt warmth spread from where the alien touched her cheek to wrap comfortingly around her shoulders like an old familiar sweater on a chill Autumn night. “Take me back where?”

  “To your where-when.”

  “My what? What the hell is a where-when?”

  “Where-when youz belong. Home.

  Sarah noticed that the alien’s musical voice continued to chime, but with each sentence, his vocabulary seemed to increase. It’s almost as if he’s learning language as he speaks.

  “I am. And you can too.” His little, red beak/mouth smiled at her.

  “You heard what I was thinking! Oh, no, I must have said it out loud.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “Oh God! I am going crazy.”

  “You’re not. You have been crazy, but now you are going sane. You are remembering your racial history.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The medical men here call it a disease—Alzheimer’s. It is not a disease. It is your natural rhythm. This where-when is too solid. In this three dimensional world, metamorphosis is impossible. Youz can’t expand to next stage. That’s why youz forget. Their brains hurt in the unyielding shell of a human body. Your body is trying to complete the cycle. It is time to change, but you can’t. Soon the pain will come to your joints. Your substance will struggle to transform. When it can’t, muscles will clench in spasms, your mind will try to escape the pain by retreating to before the time for transmutation, and you will be a mental child with an aged, useless body. The war in your mind and body will make you strike out with malevolent anger at those closest to you. Then you will die.”

  “So what? Everybody dies.”

  “But you don’t have to. We can take you back.”

  His ringing voice stirred Sarah’s emotions as he fluttered around her. The soft down of his feathers brushed her face, her arms, her shoulders, and wherever they touched her a warmth flowed, erasing the arthritic pain and the constant labored pull to fill her lungs with oxygen. Her mind began to clear as if a veil had been lifted. The haze she had been seeing through evaporated, and instantly, the brilliance of pure color was all around her. Even the black velvet of night outside the window seemed to possess a vibrancy, almost a life of its own.

  “Who are you? What are you?” she whispered as he stopped his circling and came to rest on her arm.

  “I am like youz. You are from us. Your ancestors were stranded in this where-when many centuries ago when the portal closed too soon. Their pattern was passed to you through the generations. We came too late for many, but we prepared for centuries, and when the portal opened, we were ready. We have come for you, my Kinsman. You, and the others who were lost in this where-when.”

  “Are you saying that my ancestors were pink, humming bird creatures, like you? That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. I must be dreaming ... or ... I’m dead! That’s it! This is hell!”

  “No you’re not dead yet, but you will be if you don’t remember and come home. We can take any form we like. We chose this appearance because humans think we’re cute. Since we are so small and harmless, they do not fear us. We entertain them. They have decided not to kill us yet, but soon they will. They always kill what they don’t understand, and they will never understand. You must remember your essence, Kinsman. You can not pass through the portal if you don’t. I will help you.”

  As he spoke the last words, he began to shimmer before her. The shimmering light grew until it filled the kitchen, then coalesced into a man-sized glow. The glow faded. . .and an angel with giant, golden wings reached to take Sarah’s hand.

  She jerked her hand away and lost her balance. Her cane clattered to the floor. She felt herself falling. She screamed, “I am dead!”

  The angel knelt, enfolded her frail body within his wings and began to sing to her.

  She collapsed limply and sobbed silently as he held her.

  He sang of unbelievable worlds, of shimmering silver seas, of iridescent, rainbow waterfalls, of laughing beings in all shapes and forms imaginable. Breathtaking golden castles sat amidst fields of vibrant, kaleidoscopic flowers.

  She fell silent and gazed up into his radiant, chartreuse eyes. “I remember a ... a gate-way ... something ... long ago ... before I was born,” she
breathed.

  The angel smiled.

  Ancient, racial memories rushed in to fill her being. She remembered everything. She knew she was not dead—she was being born. She embraced the angel and laughed with tinkling joy.

  He shimmered and became a pink alien again, but this time he was so huge his wingspan filled half the kitchen. One giant wing scooped her up and gently placed her on his back. “We must hurry,” he told her. “The portal will close soon.” Then, he swooped through the door and soared up into the star-studded night sky.

  “My daughter?” she asked.

  “She is not a Zeimer,” he sang. “She did not inherit the spirit. She will be happy. She belongs in this where-when. We do not.”

  A sharp sting of loss bit into her heart for a moment, then she looked up into the clouds. Far ahead, the giant portal glowed against the winking stars. She saw thousands of huge, pink birds sailing toward it. Each lovingly cradled a small passenger between its wings.

  The wind caressed her face and loosened her hair to stream behind her as they flew upward. She laughed with pure joy as she felt her body prepare to leave its cocoon. She was already feeling her wings begin to emerge as her alien guide carried her through the gleaming portal.

  Being God is Hard

  The sun hid its face on the day that ten-year-old Billy Thatcher realized that he was God.

  His revelation began while he lay on the living room floor watching Twilight Zone reruns and trying not to hear his mother and her boyfriend, George, fight in the kitchen. He was resting his chin in his cupped hands and concentrating on the rough carpet under his elbows so he wouldn’t think about what was happening in the kitchen.

  The crash had rumbled through the house like thunder. A low moan, that could have been an animal’s groan as its throat was slashed, followed. He knew it was his mother weeping. He knew the crashing sound was dinner being thrown to the floor. The noise was not new. Billy heard it almost every night lately.

  He thought about going outside, but a glance out the window revealed ugly, black clouds and lightning streaking in the distance. He turned over onto his back and stared at the chipped, blue paint on the ceiling. The light fixture had lost its globe long ago and now hung suspended by a single black wire. It swayed gently as if a breeze had brushed past it, but the air in the room was still and stifling.

  George bellowed from the kitchen, “This is slop. I want real food. Now get up and cook me a steak, or I’ll smash that skinny face of yours down your throat!”

  Billy covered his ears, but it didn’t blot out the sounds.

  “We don’t have any steak,” Billy’s mother yelled.

  “Then send that lazy kid of yours out to get some.”

  “Shut up! Don’t you call him names. Leave him alone or I swear I’ll...”

  “You’ll what? What’ll you do, Bitch?”

  Billy could picture George standing over his mother, his massive fists doubled, legs straddled—ready to strike. He had seen it before. Not just George, but the one before him and the one before him. In his mind, their faces all blended into each other until they became one big blotch perched atop large, hairy shoulders. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to exorcise the image out of his mind. Another took its place. This one made him smile.

  He pictured George hanging by his feet over a fire. He watched the man’s eyes bulge with horror as he struggled to untie his hands from behind his back. In Billy’s mind, George’s body rotated slowly as he swung gently back and forth suspended from the black chain around his feet. George’s head began to swell from the heat, until it burst like a ripe watermelon thrown against a brick wall.

  Billy opened his eyes wide, and suddenly his guts squirmed like a thousand snakes were writhing inside him. He was sweating. The whole scene had played in black and white, but then, Billy never had liked blood and gore. That’s why he watched the old reruns on TV. The blood was always black. Not real.

  His mother screamed from the kitchen. A long, horrified scream that rattled in her throat like sewage draining through a clogged pipe.

  Billy jumped to his feet and lunged through the kitchen door. “Mama! Mama!” His mother was backed against the refrigerator. He skidded to a halt, grabbed his mother around the waist and buried his face against her. “Don’t touch her!” He screamed into her skirt, afraid to turn and face the vicious George. He hugged her tighter and waited for the blows he knew were coming.

  Nothing happened. No screaming, no swearing, no fists beating at his head—nothing. Absolute silence. He couldn’t even hear his mother breathing.

  Slowly, he loosened his hold on her waist and looked up at her face.

  She stared wide-eyed and horrified in the direction of the stove.

  Billy’s gaze followed hers.

  George was on the floor. His body burned scarlet. Ragged pieces of blistered skin opened into corrupted wounds. He gasped once, then lay silent. Blackened holes where his eyes had been stared sightless at the stained, yellow ceiling.

  Suddenly, the stench of burned flesh registered on Billy’s senses. He felt dizzy.

  Billy’s mother covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, “He ... he was coming at me ... and ... and he just—just burst into flames! Burst, I tell you, just started burning! Then ... then the fire stopped just like it started. Instantly! Oh, God. What happened here? Oh God! Oh God!” She stopped talking and started screaming.

  The dizziness subsided, and the resiliency of the very young took charge. He called 911 and led his mother into the living room to wait for the police.

  An hour later, the burly detective who had answered the call ran his stubby fingers through his almost nonexistent hair and sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Must have been a gas leak from the stove. A freak accident. Can’t figure how it stayed contained in one spot. You’re lucky the whole building didn’t go up. As old and rundown as these apartment complexes are, I’m surprised any of them are still standing.”

  Billy stood beside his mother as the paramedics carried the stretcher with the black, plastic bag on it out the door. The smell of burned flesh pervaded the room. Suddenly his mother covered her mouth with her hand and sprinted for the bathroom.

  The detective shifted nervously from one foot to the other as sounds of her retching echoed. “Uh ... sorry about your mother, Son. Do you want me to call a doctor or something?”

  “No. I’ll take care of her, Sir.”

  “You’re awfully young to have to handle this, Boy. How old are you? About nine or ten? Sure you don’t want some help?”

  “No. Mama will be okay. We’ve been alone before.”

  The detective nodded and said, “Yeah. I guess you probably have. Where’s your dad, Son?”

  “He died about two years ago.”

  “Oh. Sorry. This guy ... he was her boyfriend?”

  “Sort of. He hung around a lot.”

  “Yeah. Well, if you need anything, here’s my card. Just call the precinct and ask for me.”

  Billy took the card. “Thank you, Sir. I’d better see about my Mama now.”

  “Sure.” The detective turned and followed the paramedics out.

  Billy closed the door, looked at the card in his hand and dropped it in the waste basket on his way to the bathroom.

  His mother opened the door at his timid knock and asked, “Are they gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You okay, Baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay.” He sat down on the floor beside the bathroom door and heard the toilet flush, then the water in the shower began to run.

  While he waited, he tried to remember what his dad had looked like. The face was fuzzy, but he remembered his bright blue eyes and white teeth when he smiled, which he did a lot. When he had told Billy that he was sick and had to go away, Billy had cried, and his father had taken him in his arms and cried with him.

  He remembered his father telling him to
be brave and take care of his mother. “You will be all she has for a while,” his father had said.

  “I don’t want you to go,” Billy had cried.

  “I don’t want to either, Son, but only God can decide who lives and who dies, who goes and who stays.” A far away look had come into his father’s eyes. “Only God can decide, Son, no one else.”

  Billy stared at the linoleum peeling away from the wall and whispered, “Only God.” That’s when he knew. “I am God! I thought George dead, and he died. I am God.”

  A giant roach crawled from under the peeling linoleum and began to march up the wall. Billy pictured him dead. The roach slowed its progress up the wall and dropped to the floor on its back. Billy watched its legs vibrate for an instant, then it lay still. Billy smiled.

  Later that night, his mother asleep in the next room, Billy lay on his bed in the dark, staring at the black ceiling. He thought about the other men that had come and gone since his father died. He summoned up their faces from the darkness inside him where he had buried them trying to forget them. The first was Mike. He pictured him floating face down in the river like a carelessly discarded cigarette pack. He saw in black and white images Mike’s maggot-white face half eaten away by the hungry creatures that lived in the gray slime floating on the river’s edge.

  Finally, he fell asleep with a smile on his youthful face, but he did not dream.

  The next morning he was up before his mother. He ran to the corner and bought a morning paper. Stuffing it under his arm, he walked home leisurely, smiling and waving to the few neighbors who were up and out this early. He didn’t look at the paper until he was home and settled at the kitchen table. He spread it out over the table carefully and turned the pages almost reverently as if the gray paper dotted with black ink was a holy book of some kind. He found Mike’s picture on page three. A full face photograph of him alive and grinning sinisterly was next to a reporter’s photograph of his body floating face down in the river as rescue firemen pulled him onto the slimy river bank.

  “I am God. I decide who dies,” he whispered to the picture in the newspaper.