Author: Susan A. Anthony

Huge spherical objects, each with a pale green tail, laid end to end seemed to stretch forever.

The interior roof of the building was a dome shape, also green. The floor concave and squishy underfoot. She reached down, pulling at the white matting at her feet, bringing it to her nose. It smelled like food. Breaking protocol, she risked eating it. Moist. A little chewy. Sweet.

She pressed a hand to one of the giant balls. It depressed slightly where her hand had been. She dragged a finger against the surface leaving a narrow indentation, green under her fingernail. She sniffed, licked. Same as the floor but sweeter.

Through a small gap she saw daylight. She jammed her boots into the soft surface and climbed towards the hole still wondering where her transport was but it would wait. Peeking through, she saw a giant eye. She flew backwards, startled. Another look. It pulled back, revealing an even larger head.

The building she was in started to vibrate from side to side. She was thrown off the wall, onto the ground. The whole structure then turned upside down and she crashed past the giant green spheres landing at the opposite end, her feet jammed into a crack. She tore at the sides, trying to break free. Handfuls of white matter clogged her nails and piled around her.

Where the hole had been, there was now a tear. The giant eyeball was back. The tear widening, the building splitting in half. If she had not been wedged, she would have tumbled out.

A massive claw came in and pulled out one of the spheres, then another. She heard a sound as they disappeared like a stone falling off a cliff, finally all the spheres were gone and it was just her.

The eyeball appeared again then a booming sound she could scarcely bear, like standing under a thunderbolt.

“What do we have here?”

The green structure was bent open by the giant claw and her feet popped free. She fell through the air, into a different white material, rough to the touch, an enclosure of sorts but not symmetrical. She bounced around inside it as light faded, and then falling again, she dropped to a hard floor, surrounded by glass walls with two eyeballs staring at her.

Above her head, far in the distance, a round copper roof was turning then vanished. A giant pipe was placed inside and a small pond of water appeared. One of the spheres was added, floating in the water. The pipe was removed, the copper roof returned, turning, the sound so loud she had to cover her ears.

The eyeballs were back, along with another object she recognized, marveling at its size, the diameter of a radio telescope, but it was a magnifying glass based on the eyeball behind it.
The eyeball pulled back. Less loud than before, she heard, “What the heck?”

And then the eyeball came back for a second look.

“Can you understand me?” it asked.

She nodded.

“Oh, my goodness. What happened to you, Elizabeth?”

“Mother?” cried Elizabeth, running into the glass and falling backwards into the water.

“Can you hear me mother?”

No response.

She ran to the water, swimming to the green sphere, a pea she now realised, scraping off the green exterior and gathering it in her hands. She then went to the glass side opposite from the eye and wrote.

“Help me. Call NASA. Get me some thin paper and charcoal.”