It was a known fact that for many years female writers were not taken seriously unless they used a male alias for publication. This so enraged Irene Du Bois that she decided to use the pseudonym, Baisé Si Je Me Soucie, which loosely translated as “Fucked if I care.”

It was meant to be a modified Faraday cage, designed to hide human lifeform readings from the invading aliens’ sensors, something that would provide the top minds safety from being abducted and time to develop a strategy to repel the extraterrestrial threat. And Dr. Saundra Tobin’s plan might have succeeded had the aliens not caught on…

We are more than astronauts, more than astrophysicists, geologists, biochemists, and electrical engineers. We are explorers of the unknown, caretakers of peace and diplomacy, chosen and trusted with the honor of traveling unfathomable distances, powered by the best engineering Earth has to offer, searching the spaceways for our celestial neighbors.

There is no doubt in my mind that the universe was created by a Divine Spirit and human beings are not alone in intelligent existence and we are meant to find and befriend our sisters and brothers in creation otherwise we would not have been granted the knowledge and ability to travel beyond the limits of our planet, our galaxy.

Bearing this in mind, the only question I have is, if we are following our interstellar manifest destiny, why do all the extraterrestrial lifeforms we encounter want to kill us so badly? Can someone explain this simple fact to me, please?

Her fear was not easily detectable on her stoic face but it slipped through the cracks in the form of the crease of her beautiful brow and the ever so slight down-curve of her rose petal lips. And her eyes, the portal to her innocent soul, revealed to me a stunning universe filled with untapped passion and childlike hope. This hope which had no foundation in reality would cause her to struggle against me, to fight to the very last breath for her life.

But as I said, it was a childish hope for as my teeth sank into tender flesh, her blood sprayed against the roof of my mouth and it was so sweet that it caught in my throat and made my nose tingle. My plan was to turn her, make her my companion in this unlife, but the hunger had taken hold and I could not help but devour her.

In the history of human relationships, it has never been easy for anyone to come to the realization that the person they have given their heart to is not what they seemed to be. Such is the case with Takibi, and when he confronted his bride, she simply said:

“Count your blessings, my love. Consider all the miserably single men in the world, struggling to find a soulmate and settling for whichever wretch stumbles across their path. You were fortunate enough to married a yukijorō, a beautiful snow woman whose body is a wuthering wonderland.”

“What’s your deal? Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course I’m not mad at you. Where’s this coming from?”

“You’ve been avoiding me—”

“No I haven’t.”

“We used to hang out together all the time and now you’re never around. We’re supposed to be best friends but lately I’ve been picking up this vibe, so if we’re not cool anymore just rip the bandaid off so I can move on with my life!”

“You think I’m ghosting you? It’s not that—”

“What is it, then?”

“I met someone.”

“You what? No way!”

“And I think he may be the one.”

“How long have you been seeing this guy? It is a guy, right? I mean, hey, no judgments, I’m cool with it all—”

“It’s a guy, and we’ve been seeing each other for about a month now.”

“A month? And you’re just telling me about it now?”

“I wanted to be sure. After Harry—”

“That turd-weasel. You’re lucky to be shut of him. If you ever find out that he died, let me know which cemetery so I can piss on his grave. But enough about him, gimme deets on the new guy!”

“Gustavo’s nothing like Harry—”

“Gustavo, huh? Dipping your toe in the exotic pool?”

“Well, I don’t know about exotic. He’s really shy, so I had to make the first move.”

“You brazen hussy!”

“But it was totally worth it because he’s so kind and doesn’t brag about himself all the time—”

“Like Harry.”

“And he’s a really good listener and he’s interested in all the things I’m into.”

“So, what’s he look like?”

“Well, he’s a bit shorter than I am—”

“I knew there had to be a drawback.”

“Shut up. I don’t mind at all. And there’s something about his eyes that are simply mesmerizing.”

“All right, I guess nice eyes are an okay trade-off for height.”

“Oh, and he’s a family man.”

“He has kids?”

“No, no, he’s the legal guardian of his two younger brothers and their adorable, just like he is.”

“Your journey has been a challenging one, hasn’t it, Senator?”

“It’s certainly been interesting, I can’t deny that,” Pamela Cormack said.

“You may not be aware of this but my first break as a field reporter was covering the story when you first joined the crowded field for the open U.S. Senate seat and spoke to voters for the first time about the stakes of the election. I remember you coming on stage holding your two-year-old son on your hip and your six-year-old daughter by the hand and you told the crowd—”

“I said the race wasn’t about me or my opponents, and it wasn’t. As a 44-year-old single mother and a proud American, I knew the race was about our kids, our families and our future.”

“And while you were out on the campaign trail, it was revealed that your children were the by-product of in vitro fertilization and that you had just come out of a five year same sex relationship, news that, no offense, could have crippled your bid for the Senate seat, yet you seemed to take it all in stride.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about Danielle and Mason being referred to as by-products—”

“My apologies.”

“But my IVF treatments were never meant to be kept secret. I love both my children very much and they are the best thing that ever happened to me. As for my relationship status, I refuse to put up a front in order to project the illusion of adhering to societal norms. Love and truth are more important to me than keeping up appearances. Those who cannot accept that are free to follow candidates who better represent their lifestyle choices.”

“A bold stance.”

“And an honest one.”

“I’d like to address a quote you made during the primaries when you stated that Washington D.C. has lost its way on too many of the priorities that matter to our state. What did you mean by that?”

“Let me put it to you simply, if you have twenty problems and each one of them is a top priority then none of them are a top priority. I’ve made it my business to assign levels of priority and committed myself to solving problems instead of handing out excuses and I pride myself on working across party lines, without picking sides, in order to find common ground.”

“You do have a pretty impressive track record, Senator.”

“Thank you. When I see something is wrong, when I see people struggling, I think about what am I going to be able to do today to make a difference,” Cormack said. “That’s why I decided to run for President.”

“Did you really think the nation was ready for a LGTBQ president?”

“How can you be certain we haven’t had one already, and more importantly isn’t it about time we started looking past labels? I ran because our country is in desperate need of leaders, not politicians. Despite how people self-identify, I know we all want the same thing. We want to make a good life for ourselves and our families.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, but now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to move on to a more serious matter—”

“The campaign center bombing. I always know this topic is coming but I’m never quite prepared when it arrives.”

“I realize how difficult this must be for you but can you walk me through the events of the day, to the best of your recollection?”

“I remember waking up early that morning to help set up the campaign office. I know we had volunteers tasked for that sort of thing but I’d never ask anyone to do something I wasn’t prepared to do myself. No job was too small. And even though the pandemic is in our past, I began the day sterilizing and cleansing all the workstations because it didn’t hurt to be careful. When the office opened, I helped our elderly constituents and those potential voters without computers or internet connection to register to vote online. Toward the middle of the day I helped process donations to my campaign and—”

“And?”

“If you’re asking about the explosion itself, I don’t remember it, what I was doing when it happened, where I was…nothing. I just remember waking up to a sickening smell that made me want to run away. Then I saw rubble where the campaign office used to be and in the debris were dead bodies…and it wasn’t men or women but children and small babies as well.”

“I can’t imagine—”

“No, you can’t, nor should you have to. I knew the risks when I decided to run for office and dwelling on events that could happen wasn’t of any use to me, or the people I was trying to help. However, after the…event…I found it difficult to sleep, control my emotions, and even focus on my duties.”

To be continued…

It’s a little odd that I haven’t realized until recently that when I look back over my childhood, there’s a line drawn between two sets of memories: the happy times when it was just me and my mother together and she loved me more than anything in the world, and the rest of the time when I had a sibling rivalry with alcohol, which she loved above all else.

It was untimely plucked from the garden that sat beside the frozen lake, Cocytus, in the Ninth Circle of Hell, and although the weeping bone rose was most assuredly dead, when steeped in hot water, it made a joyous tea that sang when sipped slowly by those sinners whose souls were free of treachery.