Author: Colin Jeffrey

If there’s anyone who knows more about aliens than Dreagle Fungebiskit, I’ll eat my hats.

He’s what you’d call an authority on all the extraterrestrial beings, their habits, and motivations. And I don’t say that lightly – he’s only got a bunch of them living in jars on his bench.

Ugly little creatures, with just two arms and two legs. And don’t start me on them only having the one head. How the Gumley do they manage to eat and think at the same time?!

But, then, I know nothing about them compared to what Dreagle knows. Particularly as he’s cut up a few in his time. He lets me watch sometimes – they have innards like a swamp bug and, by Gumley, the poor little things put up a mighty racket when you put the knife to ’em!

Dreagle says that’s because they feel what he calls “pain” and – the worst part – their limbs don’t grow back when they lose one! Dreagle says they’re primitive, backwards creatures.

He keeps them all in jars supplied with some sort of nutrient via a tube. Their skin looks soft and a bit greasy under the glow-lamps – not robust and shiny like our scales.

Sometimes, at night when I’m sweeping the floors, I swear they’re staring at me with those unworldly, round eyes. Big and wet and so full of something I can’t name. Dreagle says its “fear,” but it feels like something else to me.

“They’re fascinating, in a pathetic way,” Dreagle says, poking at one of them with a pair of tweezers. “So flimsy. One circulatory pump, very few filtration units, and a single, unarmored skull. One good hit and they’re off to Gumley. Probably Nature’s clumsiest accident, really.”

I nod as always. He’s the expert, after all. But sometimes I see them huddled together in the jar, holding hands. Makes me almost believe they have real thoughts and feelings, just like we do. But Dreagle says I’m just mistaking dumb animal responses for our own, superior, behaviour.

Dreagle’s been studying them for years, and only he’s allowed to handle them directly. Says I’m too soft. Says I “hesitate,” – don’t snatch ’em up fast and kill ’em quick. Maybe he’s right. But every time he opens up one of their bodies on the bench, I feel a little something in my own chest twist a little.

The other day, Dreagle told me he’d learned enough about the creatures. “Time for the final round of experiments,” he said, grinning. There was something in that statement that made me like him a little less just then.

Last night, something got the better of me. While Dreagle was sleeping, I crept down to the workroom, looked in on them. I pressed my hand to the glass and one of them put its strange, five-pronged appendage up against mine. It made a soft, low sound and I could almost swear it said something like “please.”

I don’t know what Dreagle will do when he finds out I’ve unlocked all the jar seals, let the critters run free. Maybe he’ll cut me up, too.

The way I see it, though, any animals smart enough to fly to the stars with just one head, and limbs that don’t regrow might just deserve another chance. And, somehow, I feel better for giving it to them.