Blue Haired Alien Girlfriend

Blue Haired Alien Girlfriend

Description 

Joshua is a manager at FishBurgers who walks home alone every evening. One night, he comes across an unusual young woman by the name of Mariella sitting on a bench. He's thrown for a loop when she tells him where she's from, but he doesn't mind. He doesn't mind the fact that she has blue hair either, in fact it makes her all that much more interesting.

The people around Joshua feel that he's a bit odd and know very little about him. Each comes to their own snap judgements about him.

Sometimes love can be a little quirky, sometimes it can be a lot quirky.        

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What inspired the story

My wife and I met at Burger King where I was a manager.  She had a crush on me and I was oblivious to that fact as well as much of reality.  We've been married for 16 years, so I'm sure she's forgiven me for that fact.

Because I was so quiet all the time and never brought a girlfriend to work, my wife was told by co-workers that I was gay.  She took a chance anyway.  Three kids later . . .

I would always take long walks at the time and listen to my music.  She always teased me that I had a blue haired alien girlfriend that I would meet on my walks.  I admitted to it of course. ;) Anyway, that series of events led me to write this short story.  It's a mix of moments in my youth, mixed with a generous helping of fantasy.  None of it actually happened, though similar things did.

Writing process

This is one of the first short stories I wrote.  After writing my first book, Rojuun, I went back and looked at this.  I really liked the story, but realized that my writing at that time wasn't very good.  It helped me to understand why it was initially refused by Asimov Magazine when I submitted it to them back in 2006.

The biggest problem when I was editing was that I didn't start a new paragraph each time someone talked.  I understand that rule now, but at the time I didn't.  Recently, I made even more changes to improve the quality.

The cover is the Antennae Galaxy (one of my favorites) as taken by the Hubble Telescope.  I found a picture of a park bench overlooking clouds and merged the two photos for what is my second favorite cover from my books.

Excerpt

Joshua stopped in front of the girl.  They stared at each other, losing track of time.

“Hello,” she finally said in a silky voice that flowed over Joshua’s body.

He sat down next to the girl.  “Hi.”  The word seemed deep, not just a word, but so much more.  It was as though Joshua was saying ‘hi’ with his soul instead of speaking a casual greeting.  At that moment, hello and hi were the most significant concepts in the universe.

Her blue eyebrows wrinkled in puzzlement.  “Nobody should be able to see me . . . why are you able to?”  Her voice didn’t just enter his ears, it filled his entire being.

“Yeah.  I’m kinda like that too.  No one really sees me, which is the way I like it.”

She frowned and tilted her head slightly to the right.

Joshua noticed her eyebrows were blue all the way to the roots rather than dyed.  He leaned in to study them.

She leaned in as well, gazing deeply into his soul.

Her violet eyes were faceted like gems.  It was nice being so close to the girl.  She smelled . . . different . . . nice.  The scent wasn’t a perfume, but nice . . . like her voice.

“That’s not what I mean.”  A mystified expression crossed her features.  “I’m invisible, as in people can’t see me.”

Her face was perfect with smooth, flawless skin.  Joshua had an urge to run his hand along her cheek.  “What do you mean?” he asked in confusion.  Speaking in full sentences was difficult because he just wanted to stare at her.  The girl’s lips twisted a bit.  Joshua noticed they seemed to have a touch of blue as well.

“What I mean is that I have a device that makes me invisible.”  She tapped a round object attached to her utility belt.  It had little lights that slowly blinked.

Joshua did a double take.  He hadn’t noticed the utility belt at first, being too lost in her eyes.  He looked at the rest of her.  She was dressed in a simple burgundy tunic and a long black skirt.  Around her waist was the silver utility belt with devices attached.  Many of them had flashy lights like the invisibility device.  “Ahh, you’re a Trekkie,” he said with a nod.

Her eyebrows furrowed again.  Joshua loved staring at them.  They were the most amazing eyebrows he had ever seen in his life.

“I am not a Trekkie, whatever that is.”  She took a deep breath, which was enjoyable to watch whether she was a Trekkie or not.  “I’m not even supposed to be here.  I just . . .”  She trailed off, looking toward the silhouette of the mountains.

Joshua put his hand on her shoulder.  “Are you okay?”  He tried to concentrate on what was going on with her and at the same time, pay attention to how nice her shoulder felt under his hand.  He succeeded at neither, his mind exploding in a mixture of sensations.

Conclusion

If you get a chance, I hope you check the story out.  It's a fun little tale of a lonely young man and his blue-haired alien girlfriend.

All my best,

John H. Carroll