Interview Overheard

I hear them talking as I open my eyes, a hazy something lingers on my lips like lava, threatening to erupt. I hear question then answer, then questions plural follow up: detectives discussing something green, something sticky, an alien lifeform discovered in the night “…crawling, sobbing, limping home somewhere.” The ceiling moves, rotates above me. My eyes open pinprick size, holding my breath to prevent a sudden lurch, a rolling and spinning flood. I hear their words and their whispers, their chatter and then a gasp - a mention of slime and something odd, something unusual, some “poor sod.” Stars shimmer overhead, yellowish, glowing, light flying off in speeding lines. The two people mock someone, some freak, some oddball, “…be quiet” one reminds. I hear them hush now, talk stops as I risk turning my head. I pause and they pause, perhaps looking at what they’ve captured, kept fed. A pain behind my eyes brings a flashback of white light, a hovering and a hum, noises from the melee that followed that one drink too many, when my face turned the colour of mint, pale, an unpolished emerald. No yellow brick road here though, apart from - I smell rather than see - a lone path crusted on my top. I’m on a child’s bed in my friend’s kid’s room. The night sky above taped plastic stars. The alien they discuss, my friend and his wife, “needs help” after stumbling on concrete, this lifeform they’ve recovered “shouldn’t be here”, not for their son to see and repeat. This interview about a lifeform, green and sticky and crawling, is in fact, yes, barely human, a pale comparison of what used to be. This night of the living dead, otherworldly version of me.