Earth in Love: Her World Is About to Change

By Eisja

"It was such a direct question. Why did I want to know her? As if she was not the kind of person that a person should want to know."

Annal'Y'Amin is four hundred years old. He is the crown prince of Lucidan, the regent planet of the Morphis system on the furthest arm of the Andromeda Galaxy. He is the prophesied savior of the Universes' oldest religion. And he is trapped in the body of teenage, human boy Neil Black. But, when traces of the soul that he replaced upon taking Neil's body begin to resurface, Annal is faced with the most unpredicatable of foes, his own feelings.

"He looked at me. Like. Actually looked at me. I almost wondered if he was not the personification of the Universe itself, with that undiscovered, immeasurable dark matter in his eyes."

Hannah Jane Stone is seventeen years old. She doesn't play an instrument. She isn't into sports. Her parents aren't home long enough to scold her for not making her bed. She wastes her abundant time debating the meaning of life with her goldfish and mashing the replay button on her iPod. But when a long-time acquaintance whom she knows nothing about offers to walker her home from school, Hannah discovers that sometimes we want to be understood more than loved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483575384

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Terminology

Part One

Prelude I

Hannah Jane Stone

I was never one of those wackjob nuthouses that preached the indisputable existence of life on other planets. I mean, I never denied the possibility but I’m no believer. And even if I was, I’d know better than to buy into the little green men misconception.

Honestly, if there is other intelligent life out there, where is there even a hint of logic in assuming their skin is pigmented the most revolting of all the colors in the visible spectrum? I’m no science buff, but I certainly stayed awake in biology long enough to know that our skin shades vary according to how close we are to the equator, or really how close to the sun. And assuming other intelligent life forms would inhabit a planet with a bio system similar to our own they would also have to be a similar distance from a similarly sized star to our sun. So then, wouldn’t aliens just be colored like us?

Maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe the point is that aliens don’t live in similar conditions as us. Maybe they don’t breathe oxygen or reproduce sexually or even sunburn, God that would be nice. Maybe they are utterly and completely alien. Or maybe some species are more humanoid and others are miniature and varying shades of mint and forest and neon. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s not a huge deal to me, or it wasn’t. Back when I was convinced War of the Worlds and Area 51 and Star Trek was just a bunch of hooey that the government used to make us feel like they were protecting us from something. You know, back before I found out my boyfriend is an alien.

Last Tuesday

Hannah Stone

My name is Hannah and I hate Mondays.

So, you know how there’s that generalization about Mondays being bad days? Yeah, well, forget bad days. They’re awful, terrible days. Monday’s are the evil that God invented to punish Adam for his sin. They are the starting line for the chaos, the demise of a perfectly peaceful weekend. Long and frustrating and pointless. Needless to say, I’m not a fan of Mondays. And the reason for that? My life is a Monday.

The deep, trill, coo-cooing of a dove. The ever present whish, just a few blocks north, from the highway. To me, it always sounded like some kind of otherworldly cloud racing over the desert. Like waves, constantly rolling up but never crashing.

These are the sounds of a morning.

I always seemed to wake to these sounds, despite having set an efficient electronic alarm on my cell phone. The call of the dove soothed me. Though it only lasted a second and was often uttered in passing, as the adventurer flew over our house and on to better horizons. As I child, I believed them to be called morning doves because for me, they called to the rising sun, the beginning of a day. But as I have grown older, I’ve learned they are, in fact, called mourning doves. So, it would seem, they are in fact crying for the setting stars, the end of a dream.

And yet, their sobs endear me. Reminding me that once more the sun had risen, once more the day demands me to put away my fantasies and partake in the chore of becoming a human being. The smell of a dusty sidewalk, the glistening skirts of the desert bushes dampened by a stray sprinkler, and the sound of the doves’ coo-cooing. These coaxed me to get up and face the day.

There was a thick wall of haze over the sky that morning, like waking up in an ancient sepia film reel. The four mile stretch between the dinky dirty trailer park I called home and Harold Master’s preparatory high school was dustier and twice as monotonous as usual. The air was dry and left a sandy filament draped from my half frozen nostrils to the walls of my lungs. On my right, there stretched a seemingly endless block of un-urbanized desert. The sun was just peering through the army of black cacti.  On my left, a similarly immortal ribbon of asphalt was alive with the grumbling and wheezing of the early morning traffic.

I clutched my backpack straps with fingerless gloves (which honestly, makes no sense at all). I mean, first thing on the human body to frickin freeze and fall off is the fingers. But Ki thought the pattern was charming, and they were the only gloves I had so I wore them.

The sidewalk dipped in front of the decorated entrance to Aloe Estates, Mesa, Arizona’s version of 90210. I paused for a minute and ran my eyes over the bronze sculpted stallions on the ideally green lawns. Then, as always, I held out my thumb, squinted, and traced the looming silhouette of Aloe Mountain, around which the utopian community was strung.

My arm fell to my side. Yup, the loose spire still stood. The empire was still untouched by even nature. Ah well, maybe tomorrow.

I shoved my hand down into my pocket and changed the song. Repeat. Again. The melody hiccupped and my favorite song slipped through the buds in my ear. That iPod was the coolest gift anyone had ever given me. It kept me company on lonely mornings and lonely nights and the lonely hours in between. Helped me think.

I tripped a little, ducking through the low hanging Palo Verde trees that lined the last stretch of the Aloe Estates roadside landscaping and pressed on.

At the corner of the last intersection before my school there stood a decades old 7/11 gleaming like a reminder of human equality in at least fuel dependence. Rubbing my numb fingers against each other I assessed the treacherous parking lot. How many times my pathetic 17 years of life had almost come to an end in that teeny plaza! I mostly dreaded my breakfast stop every day because it was almost always a guarantee that Chris Heaves was working the register. He was the reason I left half an hour early every morning.

The automated bell on the door made that ridiculous bee-doo sound. The linoleum gleamed and reeked of bleach. The neon sign in the window…wait a minute.

I chuckled.

The sky was Crayola bright peeping through the haze now. The winter chill was lingering but it was obvious that by the end of the day I’d be wishing my jacket could magically morph into swim trunks.

In my sweatshirt pocket, the smooth round corners of the familiar iPod entertained my fingers. The whizzing and screeching of the early morning traffic was muffled only slightly by the wedges in my ear, so I rolled my pointer over the face of the device and the music blared.

Seems like it’s always moments like that when I can hear Ki in my head complaining about how my texting, tuning, skinny jean wearing generation is going to be a thumb twitchy, deaf, and sterile. But who cares. It’s not like I crank it that often. And even so, you can’t tell me that listening to the traffic was really all that healthy either. I figure Michael Jackson at least has some groove, if I can even use that word in the 21st century.

I stopped in front of the Aloe Estate gate, traced the spire and cursed to myself. But my shoe randomly kicked a small rock up from the crack in the sidewalk at that moment and sent it directly into the neatly trimmed green lawn. A gnarly white pimple on perfection. So I grinned and continued on.

Snatching a bag of M&M’s from the rack I wondered what kinds of labor trials a mother must have gone through to torture her daughter with a name like Billy Jean.

The small line in front of me stood anxiously. A woman in a fitted plaid skirt and pointed kitten heels leaned on her right hip, checking a silver watch on her wrist. In front of her an elvish postal worker with cartoon-like calves jutting out of his dark shorts coughed on a wad of phlegm as he slid his wallet into his back pocket and took his purchases from the counter. He adjusted his hat, an ironically bulgy windbreaker leaving the rest of him shapeless. The woman with the pointy shoes rolled her eyes, placing her coffee tumbler on the counter and plucking a carton of Tic Tacs from the register-side display.

Behind her, and in front of me, a bent fellow in slacks with a ratty sports jacket over his arm stuck his nose out and squinted. Obviously trying to read the magazine covers on the rack below the counter from just five or so feet away. His white hair stuck out from every direction and his raisiny fingers clutched a bag of salted peanuts and the cap of a sweating Pepsi bottle.

–––

Have a nice day! The clerk waved as the fellow with the crazy hair stuffed a pair of Lotto tickets in his jacket pocket and pushed open the door.

Lloyd! I said cheerfully, placing my bag of candy on the counter. You’re open sign is off, again!

What would I do without you? The bearish man flicked my nose.

I folded my hands on the counter. Oh you know, you’d go outa business. It was pretty much the same story every third day. He was a rather forgetful man. Though, how the open sign in the window of a 24hour convenience store ever managed to not be on still escapes me.

Lloyd sighed playfully, running his club-like fore arm over his nose and punching the four digit code into the cash register. Let’s see, ‘a bag of M&M’s’, he said, and one medium coffee…’you know the deal’.

Yep. ‘That’ll be two dollars and twenty six cents’. I replied, slipping the coinage out of my jacket pocket and into his cupped paw, leaning over the counter.

The six foot, three hundred pound manager leaned in too. His ear turned.

I looked over my shoulder. "Is he working today?"

The red polo about his rotund core shook as Lloyd deposited my payment. The mighty Jaws? Oh yeah, he’s working. Got him watching for the Pepsi truck out back.

The owner chuckled as I let out a sigh of relief. Even with 30 years and 300 chili cheese hot dogs between us we could agree on the annoyance of Chris’ incessant babbling. He handed me a steaming foam tumbler and I held it as he snapped on a sip top cap.

Wait, Lloyd, I frowned, snagging the first bag of candy sold for the week from the counter side rack. Pepsi comes on Tuesdays.

He laughed, "And that’s why you should have that numbskulls job."

I pushed open the front door and shook my head, Cant, Lloyd, gotta study!

He waved, just visible behind a group of customers pushing through the open door. "At least mention me in your Nobel speech?"

…and a special thanks to Lloyd Stone. My favorite convenience store clerk… I bowed, pushing the door open with my back and waving. …love you, Lloyd. Be home for dinner tonight, yeah?

He called after me, Only if you are!

My head didn’t stop it shaking. That guy. I stepped off the front curb and into the lot. He really is something else. Aw, ouch. I stuck my pointer finger in my mouth. I hate it when the coffee drips down the side. And then you go to wipe it off and…

Screech!

My life flashed before my eyes on the silvery grill of a white Jeep Cherokee. And flashed was the right word for it. Pathetically uneventful.

I closed my mouth and untensed my entire body.

Behind the wheel, just visible through the tint, Neil Black gaped, his eyes like saucers.

How embarrassing. I’m sorry. I mouthed. So sorry.

He blinked at me and rolled down his window in a sudden nervous jolt. He stuck his head out and called to me, Are you alright?

I half laughed, double checking for all of my limbs, Yeah, I think so. Geez, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. Neil looked around. Then he looked at me. I’m going to school. Do you want a ride?

I closed my mouth, which was open, for God knows what reason.

"You are going to school, right?" He reasoned.

Oh, no, yeah, of course. I replied, nodding spastically and switching my coffee from my left to right hand. No, you know, thanks, you go ahead, I, uh, I like the walk. Good thinking time.

Neil frowned, You sure?

Yeah, I mean. I used the hand with the cup in it to gesture, It’s just across the street.

Neil nodded slowly, Right.

An angry horn and a shout came from behind him just as I went to speak. Neil checked his rearview mirror and held up his pointer finger, looking towards me.

Thanks but…. I said, Maybe some other time.

–––

Ok.  So I’m not your average teenager. My dad doesn’t work a 9 to 5 and my mom doesn’t make meatloaf on Wednesdays.

I don’t have a dog or cat or even a brother. I mean, there’s Herodotus (my goldfish) but he’s not much of a conversationalist. I think it’s the lighting. I don’t exactly prefer the glare of fluorescent lighting myself, but it’s been half a decade since the window above the sink shed a tear of light past the mile high stack of Consumer Reports. Lloyd’s got a thing, I guess.

But it’s not all bad. I mean. No one ever steals the last slice of Caesar’s meat lovers out from under me and my parents don’t see each other’s faces long enough to argue about anything that matters.

Well. I say my parents. Truth is, I have no idea whose unprotected intercourse is to blame for my existence. I don’t really remember much before Lloyd and Ki anyways. The story goes I was adopted. Sometime, somewhere, by a convenience store manager and his Korean wife. Don’t really know why, don’t really care. They’ve always treated me like an independent human person who deserves love and respect, which is more than what most of my not-adopted friends can say about their blood parents.

I love my parents because they don’t need me and they don’t expect me to need them. They didn’t plan for my arrival. They didn’t force me to wear pink bows or blue overalls. They didn’t buy me anything I didn’t express my own interest in owning. They have no inherent pride about my appearance, my favorite music, my life choices…because they had no part in my creation. They are, in the truest sense, my friends. They accept me as I am, every day, even as I grow up and change. We laugh at each other, we break the law every now and again, and we always have each other’s backs, no matter how much of an asshole anyone is to anyone else.

They rejoice with me when I rejoice and they scold me when I scold myself. They let me succeed and the let me fail. They sit with me when I need company and they leave me to myself when I need silence.

Once, I told Ki that I hated my name and wanted to change it.

What do you want your new name to be? She innocently asked, handing me a plate to dry.

I shrugged, I don’t know. Maybe when I am older I will know then.

Maybe. She said softly, And for now, Hannah is a very pretty name. She replied, scrubbing a plate with the dish rag.

I agreed.

Hannah. That is what they called me at the home. The nuns gave all the babies Bible names. Hannah was the barren wife of some Old Testament guy. He loved her more than his other wife but because she couldn’t conceive she was ostracized from the community. So she prayed for a son, who she promised she would give back to God in service. You know, after his birth had made her an acceptable member of society. Her son was Samuel, one of the most important Hebrew prophets of all time.

So my name is Hannah. But I’ve always related more to her son. His life was laid out for him before he was even born. And everyone pretty much figured he would just go with it. It was like, he had to go along with it, because if he didn’t, he would have dishonored his mother’s deal with the Divine.

I feel that way. About my name. I mean, how wrong is it that the most important thing about a human being, their own name, is chosen for them? Hannah? It means ‘favor’ or ‘grace’. Like, a person who is shown grace? Or a person who gives favor? I don’t know. The baby name book doesn’t specify. It just says ‘favor, grace’. And it’s kind of a cruel joke because grace-wise, I’m rather lacking and life has shown me no favors. But, Sister Whoever thought that I needed the burden of representing ‘favor, grace’ for the entirety of my life. And I’m sure she intended for a Bible name to inspire piety in my life. I’ve tried not to blaspheme it, at least.

After all, Hannah wasn’t nearly as important as her destined son, Samuel. She was just a means to an end and no one really knows anything else about her except that after having Samuel she had five more children, who all remain nameless. Because only the people who change history get their names remembered. I’m going to change history. But first I’m going to change my name.

–––

I don’t usually go to people’s houses. I’m not antisocial or anything, I just don’t like being in someone else’s space. Like, the smell of their couch. Or the color of their plates. I’m not a prick or anything. I just prefer my space, my couch, and my plates.

But I’ll do just about anything for someone I perceive to be in danger. And Carter was in serious danger, danger of breaking his own heart, falling through the cracks in his own sanity. And I couldn’t let that happen. I don’t know why.

It was almost spring. I wriggled out of my cardigan and stuffed it down into my backpack. The sun was hanging low in the sky and we were alone in his house. His huge, pristinely decorated house. The floors were some kind of granite marble that resembled the color of muddy snow. The walls in the foyer were a deep dangerous red color. Each couch and chair was an untouchable white and the only piece of furniture I felt safe to sit on was a dark brown suede settee next to the grand fireplace.

Can I get you and Hannah something to drink? Carter asked, hanging his leather jacket on a standing coat rack in the entryway. He came into the foyer and began rolling up the arms on his pinstriped Oxford. His Converse on the marble floor might have made the perfect Polaroid snapshot.

I shrugged, looking around the room nonchalantly. Decadence doesn’t impress me. It’s excessive and pointless.

I guess. Sure.

He nodded, vanishing behind the foyer wall, presumably down the hall to a kitchen somewhere behind the ornate stairwell I had noticed when we came in.

The glasses might have been crystal. Coca Cola had never tasted so fresh. I figured I’d walked into that world where commercials are filmed, where everyone is always dressed all Old Navy and talks all Truman Show. How plastic.

Have you told your dad and Vera? I asked to break the silence.

Carter was sitting forward on one of the white chairs staring into his glass. His eyes were wide and hollow.

No. He shook his head and took a huge gulping mouthful of Vodka.

Then he hissed through his teeth and wiped his lip with his wrist. What would I tell them?

I shrugged. The truth.

He scoffed, Sure. Yeah. Great idea.

I don’t know what to tell you, I’m sorry. I replied. If it was me, I would tell them the truth.

Yeah, but Hannah… He took up the bottle from a nearby side table and poured another full glass for himself. My dad, Mr. Fast Cars and Hot Babes, you want me to just walk up to him and say I’m…you know…

Gay? I said blankly.

Yeah. He nodded, taking another