Chapter One
       page 4

It was a reflection of an image from the south window. Henry was walking along the edge of the woods behind the garden. At the moment she saw his reflection, he froze. Then he turned his face almost towards the house, swinging his head from side to side like someone trying to locate a sound. In the relative darkness of the house, she was quite sure he could not see her. But when his head stopped moving halfway turned towards the south window, she knew that he knew exactly where she was. He dropped to the ground in the tall grass and she lost sight of him.
      Without thinking, she was out the front door at a run. In five seconds she was at the spot where he had been. The grass was flattened in a trail leading to the woods edge. Right at the border of the trees she saw a black object partially hidden under thick grass. It was a laptop computer.
      In her darkroom with the door locked, she took a look at it. He had a password at startup so she couldn't get at the contents. It was brand new. The battery was almost fully charged which meant he was probably plugging into her own outside outlets or those in the kennel. She wished she knew how to get by the password.
      When the phone rang, she picked it up and said “Hello, Henry.”
     “You, you, you, you...”
     “Yes?” She was going to enjoy this.
     “Will-ill-ill immediately return my, my notebook!”
     “Why don't you come and get it?”
     “Take it into the woods.”
     “Answer some questions and I'll think about giving it back.”
      There was silence, but he didn't hang up.
     “Where did you get such a nice computer?”
     “At the computer store.” His voice was acid.
     “You can afford this? So what are you doing running around the woods bothering me?”
     “We don't ‘afford’ things, we take them. Our species lives off of human surplus.”
     “You stole it.”
     “We take whatever we need.”
     “I see. You are a wacko, mentally-deranged, paranoid, ugly thief.”
      This time she could hear him breathing heavily through the long silence before he answered.
     “It is only ‘stealing’ when done within one's own species. Done to other species, it's called ‘farming’. We harvest the goods we need. This is what all species do to each other. You are our host species. Your productivity and health are our constant concern.”
     “Henry, you are not another species, much as I would like you to be. That would mean your race had been around for thousands of years without ever being discovered. That's absurd.”
     “I have stood in front of you and told you what I am and you refuse to ‘discover’ me. We choose not to be discovered by the broader population. We are a superior race. To interact with lower life forms is not in our interest. Humans carry diseases, are terribly violent and they stare at each other. Also, we do not do labor. Humans labor very nicely and we harvest the desired results.”
     “You sound like jackals, hyenas, buzzards. You are parasites.”
     “We are the master race.”
     “You are a total nut. Go ‘harvest’ another computer. I'm keeping this one.”
      She hung up and thought to herself, “and if you keep hanging around I will catch your sorry ass and cut off your hair and draw out all your blood.”

When she came back from taking pictures that afternoon her front door, which she had locked, was standing open. The dead-bolt lock on the darkroom door had also been opened. The notebook was gone.
cont. on page five

Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich. All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com