The Garden and the Universe
“I wonder if the flowers would be grateful, if they knew,” Jace wondered aloud. He hadn’t really been speaking to Shirla. He talked to himself constantly, but whenever she was with him she never seemed to realize it, as she didn’t now.
“If they knew what?” She was facing away from him, bent over one of the garden beds, trying to free the roots of a particularly stubborn weed. The tight brown curls of her hair bobbed as she worked a spade back and forth, trying to dislodge a rock from above the root without spoiling the blooming dahlias just beside her right shoulder.
“If they knew we’re growing them. I know not all flowers are like this but these definitely wouldn’t exist if we didn’t grow them. Do you think they’d be grateful that we went to all this trouble?”
“Trouble?” She spoke with a familiar laugh in her voice, so familiar to him after all these years, wonderfully familiar. The laugh wasn’t fully voiced but behind the words, waiting its turn. The word it put in his mind was ‘crinkly’.
“We spend hours at this! My back hurts from hauling compost, my fingernails are constantly filthy, and we spend every waking hour out here. Sure, okay, we like it, it’s a hobby, but it still takes up most of our time, to say nothing of the money! So do you think they’d be grateful?”
Shirla straightened with the root in her hand, triumphant, and tossed it into the waiting bucket with the others. She saw that now the question was actually poking at him, and her brow furrowed in just the way he’d known it would as she gave his query some actual thought.
“Depends on whether they like their life, right? I mean if they know we grew them they must know they’re plants, and they must know we’re not plants, and presumably they can see us move and stuff so they know they’re limited to just, I guess like standing here in one spot, and they might be mad.”
She seemed to consider that a full answer. She turned away, moved a few inches down the row to the next weed that needed pulling, and readied her spade. Jace had a premonition that she was going to do a very particular little hand motion where she regripped the spade before she bent over, and when she did the exact motion he had anticipated, it brought him a little jolt of joyful recognition that was one of his favorite things about being married to Shirla for so long.
“If we know they might be mad if they knew what we’re doing, should we even be doing this?”
Now the open laugh escaped her throat, as he’d known it would.
“I love when you get like this.” She dropped to a knee and turned to grin at him, showing all her teeth. “What are you even talking about? We should stop gardening because if plants hypothetically gained awareness of our presence, they might be mad? Is that literally what you’re asking me?”
He was grinning now, too. He did love to poke her in this way, inventing moral dilemmas and impossible choices and forcing her to answer. On their second date he’d taken her to a park for a picnic, and argued that if she cared at all about the climate she’d come home with him to save on gas by avoiding a trip to her apartment. It hadn’t worked then, but soon it had, and three months later they were living together. For years afterwards he’d lorded it over her that he argued her into loving him with pure intellect.
“You’re the one who said they’d be mad, I’m just—-“
He cut off as a strange light descended on their garden. It was orange in tone but almost invisible, as if it was very nearly off the spectrum the human eye could perceive.
“What is that?” Shirla asked, perturbed, as he was, although he was also glad that she could see the light and he wasn’t having a stroke or something.
He opened his mouth to answer, but cut off again as the orange light deepened at one end of the garden, becoming more visible and brighter by far, until it grew so bright that he shut his eyes and turned away. Brighter still, and for a moment it seemed like it was going to burst through his eyelids and sear his eyeballs to dust. But then it slackened, and he opened his eyes to look.
An alien being stood in the garden, not ten paces away from them. It had emerged out of the orange light, which was now fading away without revealing any visible source. The being was taller than Jace, who was tall for a human. It was humanoid, but bulbous, reminding him of nothing so much as the Michelin Man. It had identifiable legs and arms, a round torso, and a large head with tiny, pupil-less eyes that stared deep into him.
Its mouth was a slit that never opened more than a finger’s width, but it did move and part in time as the being began to speak, in perfectly formed English, in a squeaky and insubstantial voice like that of a bad lecturer at a second-rate college.
“Hello,” it said. “I am Blinky. Welcome to your wellness check-in. How are you feeling today?”
Jace and Shirla’s head swiveled from the being to each other in unison, checking in to make sure the other saw the same thing. They didn’t have to speak, and it wasn’t a question of being long-married—each’s face was painted with shock a toddler could have appreciated.
Jace turned back to the being, as he assumed Shirla did at the same time. Jace was usually not short for words, but now just getting two of them out felt like bailing the ocean with a bucket.
“Wellness check-in?”
“Yes,” replied Blinky evenly. But then he stopped. He seemed to consult something inside himself, then made an almost clucking sound before continuing. “I’m sorry, I skipped something in my script. This location is remote and I’ve brought minimal resources so appearing in this form and translating to your language taxes my current limitations. I keep asking central command for more compute but they—“
It took hold of itself again, and seemed to realize it had been speaking aloud.
“What sort of a name is ‘Blinky’?” Shirla’s voice indicated a somewhat recovered equilibrium, but Jace could hear the tension there, the defiance with which his wife asked the question instead of asking it easily or naturally.
The being’s tiny eyes narrowed, an unmistakable posture of confusion even in those alien features.
“Blinky is a normal human name, isn’t it? My files indicate—“
“‘Normal’ is a bit strong, I’d have to say,” Jace broke in. “I’ve certainly never heard of a ‘Blinky’ until you.”
He tried to put mischief back into his voice. Shirla looked over at him and he flashed her a small wink that he didn’t really feel, but she returned it and even if she didn’t feel it either, it felt good.
“How about ‘Destrier’?” It seemed genuinely concerned. “Is that better?”
“That’s worse, Blinky. Swing and a miss.”
“Okay,” said the being, still engaging for some reason, “what about—“
“‘Blinky’ at least sounds like a name, even if it should be a children’s entertainer. The second one sounds like you’re coughing or something.”
“Okay! I’ll be Blinky. Now let me go back in my script, please.”
“Honestly, after the name thing I can’t imagine this is going to be any good, but go ahead, I guess.” Shirla’s voice was stronger now. It had to sound stronger than she actually felt. For all this moment of fun and courage between them, what was really happening gnawed at the pit of Jace’s stomach. He wanted to be expecting to wake up, but he wasn’t; this didn’t feel like a dream.
“Hello! I am an alien being from elsewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy. You may call me Blinky. I—“
“Okay, on second thought, it can’t be ‘Blinky’,” Shirla broke in again. She flashed a grin at Jace, and how much he loved her shone through his fear. Even if she was faking this confidence, it was magnificent.
“She’s right,” he said, before the being could interrupt. “Blinky is terrible. What else you got?”
“What about—“ she started, but then cut off as the orange light sprang up again, screwing their eyes shut and renewing their fear tenfold.
“ENOUGH—“ Blinky’s voice became momentarily terrible, loud enough to split stone, and unmistakably inhuman.
The light receded and they opened their eyes. The being was still there.
“I am here because you are part of my experiment. I am testing a variety of conditions for growing humans for maximum flourishing. I have come to perform a wellness check. Your vital signs, genetic stability, and mitochondrial health are currently being monitored by nano-scale instruments secreted in your bloodstream. However, the check-in also has a subjective component. How are you feeling today?”
“We were just talking about this!” Shirla sounded genuinely excited by the discovery. “The plant thing, Jace. We’re the plants!”
“Wait,” said Jace, still addressing the being. “You’re testing a variety of conditions? Does that mean you’re controlling the conditions of our life?”
“Of course,” the being said evenly. “How else could we achieve scientific rigor?”
“But I make choices all day,” he said. “Random things happen all the time. You’d have to control the whole earth and my brain and everything else!”
“Mostly correct,” said the being. “Parts of your brain are an experimental variable, and so we do not control those. The rest, yes.”
A thousand questions wrestled for control of his mind at once. It was impossible. As impossible as the idea of fertilizing and weeding was to a flower.
“Why do aliens always look like you?” Shirla had forced some lightness and sass back into her tone that he knew she didn’t feel, and he loved her for that, cherished her strength and familiarity to him. “Like why do you look almost human? Why don’t you look like a rock or something?”
“This is not my actual body,” said the being. “I am aboard a starship in orbit, controlling this body remotely.”
“Then what do you actually look like?” Jace stepped over beside his wife, suddenly wanting to be close to her, to present a united front.
“Enough questions,” it warned, “Don’t make me flash the light at you again.”
“Oh come on, just this one and then we’ll be good lab rats,” he promised, knowing he was lying. The yawning gap inside him created by this break in reality would swallow him the moment he looked down at it, and this small rebellion he’d started with his wife prolonged the period before that inevitable collapse. “We dropped the subject of how stupid your name is, just give us this one thing.”
The being sighed. It was longer and gurglier than a normal human sigh, but still unmistakable.
“Fine,” it continued, grumpy. “I don’t look like anything to your eyes. I am what you would likely understand as a computer, although my physical substrate is quite different than the microprocessors your species uses. But I am a computation machine that has achieved sentience. The species that built my original form was limited from interstellar travel because of the vulnerability of their own bodies, which were gaseous in form and broke down after only millennia. They thus had available only the two stars in their solar system, which have both gone supernova, wiping them completely out. I and my kind are what is left of their legacy. NOW— Answer my question: How are you feeling today?”
“That’s kind of a ridiculous question, isn’t it?” Jace rolled his eyes and elbowed his wife in the ribs as he spoke. He expected the orange light to flash again, but the being seemed inclined to be patient. “I mean, you’ve just told us that every aspect of our lives is controlled by aliens as part of a grand experiment—don’t you think that’s likely to put a damper on everyone’s day? Wouldn’t it be more scientific to ask us how we were feeling without the whole alien bit?”
Shirla elbowed him back, grinning now but refusing to look at him. Love for his wife welled inside Jace’s chest. Whatever happened here, whatever this was, they were together.
“Oh and follow-up question. If this isn’t your real body and it’s like a drone or a robot or something, why don’t you make the drones look exactly like humans? Like what’s up with the whole ‘Michelin Man’ thing?”
“Style, obviously,” replied Blinky as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Human bodies are weird, if you hadn’t noticed. This body is much more stylish.”
Jace did a take that was half eye-roll and half sardonic smile.
“That’s your idea of style? I guess you named yourself ‘Blinky’ so I shouldn’t expect too much, but geez—“
“You said you would drop the name thing!” The orange light flared around them and Jace and Shirla were forced to cover their faces until it passed. The being was still standing there when it went. It wasn’t doing any particular human expression, but Jace was still pretty sure it was annoyed.
“You know what, Blinky, you’re right. I’m sorry I brought it up again. But honestly, I don’t see how you can expect a real answer to your question. We just found out aliens are real! Like I’m not in touch with my innermost feelings at this moment, it’s a lot to process.”
“Would you like to die?” Blinky asked that in an even tone, still unreadable, but a jolt of terror shot through him, and he reached for Shirla’s hand. He found hers already reaching for his at the same moment. Something about the way it asked made it clear that even if it wasn’t currently planning to kill them, if it decided to it would do so without the slightest hesitation.
“Humans have a pretty strong preference against dying,” said Shirla. “Not wanting to die doesn’t mean we’re doing well.”
“That is interesting,” Blinky replied. “Yet you know that if you return to your life, you will not be in control of it. It’s course will be determined by my experimental plan. You will die on a day of my choosing and by a method I design. You are as stuck in your place as these flowers you tend. If that were the case for me, I would want to die. But you do not?”
Jace looked out over the garden, at their cozy cottage behind it, at the woods behind the house that led into the foothills of the mountains to the east. He felt his wife’s hand in his, its solidity, its roughness, the dirt stains that were a different texture than the rest of the skin. He wondered if it could mean the same thing to him if he had to live with the knowledge that he hadn’t chosen any of it. He could see how that could eat away at him over time, how he might come to hate his life and what he was.
Did he want to take the chance that he would come to hate her? He knew he would rather die now, loving her, than live to hate her. But what chance would he accept? How much risk for how much time? They were relatively young, with decades left before them. Lots of time as a prize, but lots of time for the knowledge to drive him mad.
“I remember a time when I almost killed my grandfather,” Shirla said, quiet but steady, no hint of playfulness in her tone now. “He had dementia, badly, and before he’d gotten it he was very clear on the fact that he did not want to live that way. He’d even joined the Hemlock Society, and they’d sent him a kit with poison in it that he could take if things got bad. But by the time they did, he didn’t have the faculties anymore to pull it off. The pills just sat there on his dresser while he ranted and raved and wasted away in bed. I went there to care for him, which meant fixing all his meals, wiping his ass, everything. He was like a child.”
Jace could hear that she was crying now, and a tear streaked down his cheek as well. He’d heard this story, and he knew where she was going with it, and it made him love her all the more.
“Every time I’d serve a meal, I’d look at the pills. All I’d have had to do was give him the pills and it would have been over. It was the right thing to do. He wanted it. But I just couldn’t. All my knowledge of right and wrong went out the window, it wasn’t about that. I just couldn’t do it. And this is like that. Am I happy to know what you’ve told us here today? No, I’m not. I wasn’t perfectly happy before and I’m less happy now. I even think it would be right to die rather than go back to that life. But I won’t choose it. I choose my life. I choose my husband. We’ll live with this knowledge as best we can and try to keep from hating our life together. Even if you tell me it will fail, that you will guarantee it fails and we end up in misery, I’ll still try.”
Her voice broke. Jace squeezed her hand and she squeezed back but didn’t look at him, instead gazing steadily, defiantly at the alien being.
“The flowers don’t resent us,” Jace said. “And I don’t resent you. This life isn’t mine but I accept it, whatever it is.” In that moment he felt more love flowing between him and Shirla than there’d ever been before. It was a love based in true understanding, in shared pain, in a triumph that neither of them could have authored alone.
“Interesting,” said Blinky. “Thank you for your cooperation with the wellness check. Stand by for memory erasure.”
“Wait, memory erasure?!” Jace suddenly felt panicked again. “You’re going to erase our memories?”
“Just of this wellness check,” said the being. “You will be back to working in your garden as if this never happened, and I’ll be back on my starship to make my report. Stand by in three.”
“Wait, please!” Jace’s mind was reeling. Blinky did seem to pause, its tiny eyes fixed on him, waiting for more.
Jace felt his wife’s hand in his. Something had happened between them today, something profound and powerful, some deepening that he was afraid to lose.
“Can you leave us our memories? I’m worried if you take them away, we won’t appreciate what we have as much after. I guess I thought the flowers would be mad we’re growing them and mad about how limited they are, but I think they’d be even more grateful to know how much has been done so they could flower, however limited and temporary it is.”
“I can’t do that,” said Blinky evenly. “Regulations. We used to do it sometimes, but people always swear they won’t tell anyone and then they always do, and it’s a big hassle to come down and erase memories so no one figures out we’re here. Sorry!”
“Oh, so that’s where alien sightings come from!” Shirla’s voice had the excited notes of discovery and realization. Jace loved her so intensely he felt he might burst with it. “And they’re all different because you make different styles of drone bodies!”
“Indeed,” said Blinky, already fading away. “It’s all one grand experiment, after all.”
The orange light began to rise all around them once more.
Shirla turned to Jace and smiled up at him just as he smiled down at her. This had never happened, and yet it had meant something. It did not exist, yet it meant everything. All memories fade, fast or slow, and the events that caused them are wiped away like patterns in the sand of a windy dune, but the wind that destroys carries whispers of the ultimate.
The orange light peaked, and filled everything, and they were there in the garden, but they were gone, and so was the being.
END
Thanks for reading! As always, if you enjoyed today’s story, please help me out by liking, commenting, or sharing this story on your social media or with a friend. It’s an enormous help to me, and I really appreciate anyone who does that!
I will be back next Sunday with a fun post of some kind, and then in two Sundays with my spooky Halloween story. Have a great week everyone!
So good! I love this, “ All memories fade, fast or slow, and the events that caused them are wiped away like patterns in the sand of a windy dune, but the wind that destroys carries whispers of the ultimate.”
Beautifully written!
If fate does exist, if someone or something is manipulating your life beyond your control, then it’s better to make peace with it and try to be happy than be miserable about things you cannot change.