'Goda, try to calm down. You do realise it‘s not possible, don't you? If you weren't such a good friend of mine, I'd hang up right now, offering to call an ambulance,' said Odette, controlling her irritation. 'That's just im-po-si-ble! You're imagining, making up things! How many times have you told me that? God knows, if it wasn‘t for our friendship... '
'Odette, don't be angry... I'm terribly confused... I'm scared to be at home; I'm scared to stay alone in my office; I'm scared to go out on the street. I have nowhere to hide! They‘re watching me everywhere!' Goda was almost in tears, frustrated that she could not convince her best friend.
'Try to calm down,' Odette was at a loss for advice. 'Drink some fennel tea, it will be better'.
'I hate fennel, anise and herbs like that! What can herbs do against aggressive aliens?!'
'My dear, you're devastating me. I don't know what to advise or what to think,' Odette raised her eyebrows, unable to convince her friend that aliens are nonsense, and being watched by them is even more so. 'We will have to wait till Mick returns, but two weeks is not forever. Then everything will be fine. It wasn't like this with him at home, was it?'
'No, never in my life!' Goda confirmed. 'They started watching me when he left and the children went to camp and I was left all alone. At this time I'm the easiest person to cope with...'
Goda burst out crying. She felt utterly desolate. Even her closest friend sees her as wacky, unaware of the scale of the problem. Fortunately, at least she hears her out, unlike others. Right now she has been complaining to Odette for about fifteen minutes, and Odette, who might be wringing her hands on the other end of the phone, still hasn't finished the call. Anyone who hasn't encountered this won't be able to understand what a relief it is not to be observed by intrusive visitors from other galaxies for fifteen minutes, although later the same hell will inevitably follow as it has already been for the whole week.
The story began exactly seven days ago. Goda's husband went abroad on business, the children were at a summer camp. Surely, not for the first time she stayed alone. In the past there were no problems. In Goda‘s high-rise many people stay alone day and night, but apparently no one seems to have an issue.
The first sign came on Sunday. Goda poured herself a coffee and went to brush her hair. When she returned a few minutes later, a good portion of the dark drink was spilt on the table and even more on the saucer. She's not a dummy – she knows she didn‘t spill it. So someone must have spilt the drink. Quietly and silently. Even though the windows are plastic, Goda would have been willing to believe it was the wind. But the night before she‘d seen strange flashes in the sky, only she had no guts to go to the window to take a closer look. But after finding her coffee spilt she noticed a grey person mingle in the crowd of people outside the window. Why couldn't this be a sign that the aliens took interest in her?
In some unusual state of mind, Goda lingered out her Sunday. On Monday before going to work she got another surprise: some soil around her flowerpots. A naughty house spirit? Goda might have come to that conclusion, but she spotted a very strange vehicle at the corner of the yard, which later disappeared behind the garages. There were no people around. Goda would never have dared to go and check. Obviously, it was not a car. She tried to mention this to a colleague that day, but the look in her eyes made her shut up. There is not a grain of support here.
However, on Tuesday Goda got a 'present' at work. Of course, her colleague had gone out. When Goda switched on the printer wishing to print out the spreadsheets of last month's reports, a mysterious triangle appeared on one page. Goda dug into the documents and found no triangle. She browsed the files on the USB stick – all documents right. She tried printing again. The document came out as it should. Goda rushed to the window. This time she didn't notice anything suspicious. Also, she didn't mention it to her colleague. She didn't throw the triangle away, though – she kept it as proof that alien civilisations were interested in her. Maybe one day she will muster the courage to show it to someone.
Goda felt uncomfortable at home. Fortunately, she only came back in the evening. Thus she found out strange things can surprise her at work as well.
On Wednesday night a cupboard door slammed loudly in the kitchen. Goda heard it four rooms away. Thoughtless, half-naked, catching her breath, panting as if she were in the Alpine highlands she jumped out of bed. She wouldn't have dared to crawl up there to look around, but luckily her husband had installed a switch in the bedroom that turned on all the lights in the apartment. So, after chasing away the gloom, Goda snuck into the kitchen. Everything seemed in order. To be on the safe side she didn't turn off the lights all through the night and was pleasantly surprised that the lamps didn't go out on their own. In the morning she had to unflick the switch.
On Thursday something even more extraordinary happened: a piece of brick fell down near Goda as she was walking past a church. The sacred building is collapsing! Goda was terrified. She instinctively looked up. The church didn‘t look like crumbling. The woman was startled when a hand poked through one of the tiny windows – God willing it had five fingers. But it was grey! Sure, it looked black against the white sky, but Goda certainly knew it was grey! Why? Because a tip of a hot-air balloon from out of the blue had hidden behind the roof. Goda was unable to utter 'a spaceship' or 'a flying saucer'. Seeing her stupefaction, passers-by also raised their glances skywards. They did not notice anything special and thought the lady was looking out for rain clouds.
At first, Goda took the piece of brick as a relic. Then she threw it away – it had been thrown down by that ill-fated alien, who may even have deliberately broken it off a UNESCO World Heritage object.
'Come and see me next weekend,' Odette invited her confused friend.
'I will. Thank you,' Goda replied. She meant, if she could only hold out until the weekend.
Well, on Friday Goda felt herself being watched not intermittently but constantly. Nothing inexplicable had happened during the day, but the watchful gaze of tireless eyes followed and haunted the woman everywhere and always. She barely worked that day. Strangers watched her in the living room through the portraits of Mum and Dad, in the bedroom through the eyes of a Buddha from the mirror, probably through the windows or in the corridor through the peephole in the door. Even in the bathroom Goda felt uneasy as if there was a video camera somewhere on the ceiling. There may not have been a camera there, but she was being watched even in her most intimate moments! Really!
On Saturday night, a dazzling light flashed outside the window. Not the headlights. Straight into her bedroom. She didn't dare to open her eyes. The light penetrated her eyelids. Maybe Goda was wrong, but it felt like she was floating in the air that night in a state of weightlessness. She didn't open her eyes until morning. And when she finally dared to look and saw her room, she shouted with happiness!
Unfortunately, these optimistic thoughts quickly dissipated. Goda had no recollection of whether anything had been done to her on Sunday night. In the morning she went to the mirror and screamed with horror. Her forehead was adorned with a beautiful black equilateral triangle. It wasn‘t sore when she touched it; the skin seemed to be intact. Goda rushed into the bathroom. She frantically started washing, scrubbing, rubbing her forehead with all the washing and cleaning products at hand. As she had feared, to no avail. The triangle on her forehead was irremovable. The skin turned red.
Goda applied some cream. In despair, she sat down on the floor. And why had she agreed to stay alone? Why had they chosen her? What made her more suitable for the aliens than others? If she got sick, at least she would be able to confide it to others, no doubt she would get sympathy and support. From now on she is trapped at home. Will she go to public with a triangle on her forehead? She will be afraid to take out the rubbish.
No. All is not lost. She won't have to sit between four walls. The black triangle can be hidden under a hat and not be seen! Caught up in the excitement, Goda immediately went through her wardrobe and found five hats for all seasons. She tried them on. One covered the forehead. Although it covered the eyes quite a bit, it served its purpose.
Then Goda got even smarter. She ran back to the bathroom and drew an eye with a lip liner in the middle of the triangle – in any case that symbol would be much more justifiable. A God‘s servant. Better to be regarded as a member of a sect than as a lunatic. Of course, she was mostly avoiding her neighbours, who knew her well. Goda was even silently happy that it was 'only' a drawing on her forehead. If the skin had turned green or the headgear hadn‘t able to hide the greenish pointed ears, it would have been much worse.
That's when she called Odette for one more consolation. Odette listened to her, but alas, no more help from her. Not even a visit. Maybe she feared for her safety? She is not afraid of Goda, of course, but of the aliens... After all, while Goda is on the phone, the aliens cannot watch her. They don't like it...
Goda went to the shop. She looked like an idiot wearing a knitted winter cap in summer. With a bowl on her head she would rather look like an artist. Now she looked like a cranky artist. That's how most passers-by looked at her. It's a good thing they didn't say a word. Easy to imagine what they would have told...
Goda bought some oranges, a nut mix and tomato juice. Then she thought she would stock up on supplies – buy more flour, oil, groats and bread in case she couldn't go out for a longer period.
After getting back home loaded like a donkey, the woman hurried to examine the triangle on her forehead, into which she herself had drawn the eye of Providence. The view was not awful – just like a regular sectarian, a follower of her own god. There are worse cases in the world.
That evening, for the first time, Goda prayed very sincerely. Maybe it was a sign from God that she was to have an eye painted on her forehead? She prayed and pleaded. God protects us from evil spirits, but aliens from outer space is another matter. They are alive, material, sentient. She had seen them. God would probably disapprove of them. It is worth asking for His help.
The next morning Goda woke up with triangles on her hands. Panic seized her. She tore off her nightgown, examining her whole body in front of the mirror. No more drawings. But that doesn't mean there won't be any. Black equilateral triangles. If she was 'modern', she‘d say she'd got tattoos for beauty. But how to justify herself in this case, when everyone knows her inside out? The eye in the triangle on the forehead was rubbed out, but the pillow was smeared with greyish streaks.
'Odette, I'm getting drawings on my body!'
'Dear Lord, Goda, I would love to help you!' her friend was frightened.
'I really don't want to be kidnapped!' Goda burst into tears. It's unlikely her friend will save her.
'Wait! Don't do anything! I'll think of something. Are you all right?'
'So far, yes. Just don't call an ambulance. It's not my case. I know. If they want to, they'll kidnap me from the hospital. Here I have more chance to resist them. I might even fight.'
'Goda, you're refusing the most effective help!' Odette was obviously upset. 'What else can I do? Perhaps you should talk to others...'
'I'm telling you, an ambulance won't be of any use.'
'If you know like a fortune teller what will or won't help you, don't call me again!' Odette interrupted angrily. 'Fight, disobey! Perhaps it will work!'
Odette was irritated, but Goda was not cross with her friend. That just means there will be no help, not even remote, from anywhere. Odette has also lost her patience.
Goda was making pancakes imagining what might happen to her if she was kidnapped. She might be taken into a spaceship, flown through space, to the unknown worlds, maybe even other dimensions. She would see things, she would hear stories. Perhaps they would reveal her the essence of phenomena, the meaning of life, or answer unknown questions. Maybe even shed light on the future – of her and of the whole Earth. She might hear that humans are an alien species, a species that has been settled on Earth like on a farm, closely watched and studied. Perhaps Goda would become a guinea pig: they would take her blood and other bodily fluids, measure her pulse, scrape her cells, maybe vaccinate or infect her to analyse her body's response. Goda prayed that she wouldn‘t be tortured and dumped, that she would be treated humanely. Uncertainty and insecurity are the worst.
Of course, the worst tragedy, apart from murder, would happen if some humanoid raped or otherwise impregnated her and she had to carry in her womb a child from another galaxy. What it might look like after being born is more horrible to think about than the rape itself. Goda has heard that women in the western part of Siberia are carrying relatively large numbers of such babies started by aliens from the Universe. That area is somehow favoured by interstellar visitors. On the other hand, if the aliens' offspring are the so called indigo children who have recently begun to appear on Earth, who look exactly like humans, then maybe it‘s not so nightmarish. Except that there is no way she could tell her husband who she got pregnant from. She would have to pretend it was their child.
From then on Goda used to draw an eye in the triangle on her forehead every day because she liked it so. She was feeling closer to God. The feeling that the time of her abduction was approaching grew stronger. The signs on her body also multiplied with each passing morning. Goda was no longer surprised, less and less devastated. What is inevitable is inevitable. If you have been chosen, you have been chosen, you cannot escape it. You have to accept it as an incurable disease.
Goda never left the apartment again. The hands could be hidden by wearing thin gloves, but when triangles appeared on the cheeks, the neck, the nape of the neck, not even the thickest layer of powder could conceal them. If Goda doesn't want to be taken to mental asylum, she cannot go out at this time of the year wearing northern clothing.
Goda was stuck. The aliens are to blame for this, having implicitly placed her under such a 'home arrest'. She did not resist anymore – contrary to her initial attitude. She stopped calling anyone. Nobody called her. She lived on the provisions she had prudently accumulated. For the time being, it was enough.
With each break of day more and more triangular marks appeared on the woman's body. Eventually they covered the scalp, all sides of the body, the back and stomach, the buttocks, even the toes and fingers. The tongue was still clean. Eyeballs too. That gave at least some hope.
Her husband and children should be back in four or five days. Then, surely, this whole damn thing will be over. Unfortunately, Goda felt that she might not live to this moment in this apartment.
Finally, when Goda became more mottled than a zebra, and the triangles were so numerous that they overlapped, a premonition told her something was about to happen. There was a crimson evening behind the windows. Goda quickly grabbed the smartphone.
'Odette, I'm being kidnapped...' she murmured in a submissive voice of a lamb to the slaughter.
'I'm sick of this!' her friend retorted.
Goda took a bath before covering the mirror, trying not to look at her tainted body. She put on long clothes. She concealed the intersecting triangular lines on her face and neck with cosmetics. She leaned back in the armchair and waited.
Around 11 pm a dazzling light shone through the window. The light covered the whole window as if the pane had been the lamp. Even a gust of wind blew into the room.
Suddenly Goda understood she had something to say to others before leaving wherever the aliens would take her. She grabbed a piece of paper and quickly scribbled down:
Dear family, relatives and friends. I am being abducted by aliens. I am going somewhere I don't know and I‘m not sure if I‘ll return. Please be informed that if just one person had believed me, if just one person had taken the time to help me as much as they could, they would have chased the strangers away and I would not have been kidnapped. My only friend tried it, but in the end she ran out of patience too. I was left powerless against the aliens. Now they are abducting me, and I am not resisting. I am not angry with anyone, I do not feel wronged by anyone and I do not feel indebted to anyone. Stay well. However, I would have been able to stay with you... But now I am leaving. I'm about to board a high-tech spaceship. Five, four, three, two...
Goda hadn't finished counting in writing when she was flooded by a blinding flash. The whole room was drowned in extraterrestrial light.
