Choosing Day

Click!

I switched off the television. I had had enough. It was well into the night and I had been monitoring updates all day for the election results.

I was always angry at these times. Most people took it as a point of pride not to vote. And of course they complained when the people and policies that hurt them and so many others came into effect. It made me crazy and I hated it.

I needed another cup of coffee. And a smoke. No — I was trying to quit. I needed a walk. Yes, that sounded good. I needed a walk. A long hike up the trail to clear my head.

I had come out to the cabin to clear my head and ended up getting sucked into the news. I really needed to get rid of the TV. It just spiked my blood pressure. I looked at the stack of books I’d brought to read and the overflowing bookcase and felt their judgmental stare.

I pursed my lips. Yep. Time to go for a walk when I start imagining my books are guilting me for not reading them.

I pried myself from the old battered goldish-brown recliner with effort, its soft microfiber inviting me to stay just a little longer, and headed toward the bedroom.

I pulled on my warmest jeans, undershirt, red flannel, thick wool socks, and boots. November wasn’t quite cold enough to need heavy-duty winter gear, but it was still damned cold. It seemed colder this year than in the last few — maybe I was imagining it, or maybe it was age. Forty-four in December. Not quite a Christmas baby, but close enough to get my birthday rolled into Christmas presents. I never got double the presents, which I found to be a sham.

Speaking of, my phone lit up on the bed. I checked the caller ID. It was Mom. I let it go to voicemail. I wasn’t in the headspace to deal with her today — especially not when I was trying to quit smoking.

She probably knew I was screening. Oh well.

She left a message.

I groaned. I’d need to listen just to make sure it wasn’t important. I could already tell what it was most likely about. Phil.

Mom was high-strung, but she was worse when she was with a guy. She always seemed completely unaware of this and kept chasing a “Dad” for us — my brother, sister, and me — when we were kids. She took care of us and we appreciated it, but she was always chasing the idea of a stable family while her pursuit destabilized the family she had.

She was currently dating a guy named Phil, and it was the same story all over again.

The phone lit up again. She was calling again. Twice in a row. If she called back a third time, I would have to pick up. But I just wanted to clear my head before I dealt with whatever she was going through — more than likely with Phil.

The call went to voicemail. She left another message.

I ran a hand over my face and was about to grab my phone and leave when another call came in. I almost picked up and was glad I checked by reflex. It was Brenda.

Not in this life, Brenda, I thought to myself.

As I headed to the hallway to grab my coat, gloves, and hat, I played the messages.

Mom’s voice was strained. “Honey, do you have a sec to talk… okay, I guess just call me back.”

Guilt hit me.

Her second message sounded sadder. “Danny, sweetie, please call me back when you get this… it’s Phil… he… just please give me a call back, okay, honey.”

Right on the money. It was about Phil.

Then I played Brenda’s message.

“Danny, hey… it’s been a little bit and I thought maybe we could catch a movie and get something to eat. You know, catch up, put the past behind us, and start over. We’re really good together… and it was one time. Danny, I got kinda drunk and it didn’t mean anything. You know that. You know we are so good together. Just call me back and we can pretend like that little bump in the road never happened. We can spend Christmas together and then I can give you your birthday gift.”

She ended it on a seductive note.

I hit erase.

No thanks, babe. Not interested in an STD for my birthday.

Feeling more on edge than before, I stuffed on my hat irritably and left the house, shutting the front door a little too hard. I heard something fall. I sighed. I would clean it up when I got back. I needed out of the confines of the cabin — or perhaps my mind.

So I walked.

And walked.

And walked.

My thoughts circled back to politics, then to Mom, and lastly to what Brenda had put me through all this past year. I was in a crappy mood, which was a shame because the trail by the cabin was stunning any time of year.

I thought back to coming up here as a kid with Grandpa. Good times. Peaceful.

That stilled my churning thoughts. I missed Grandpa… and Grandma. Even in my forties I still didn’t really feel like an adult — like I could handle everything an adult handles. I did it… but I didn’t feel like I could.

I was standing by the lake — I’d walked pretty far with my head in the clouds, storm clouds to be sure but clouds nonetheless — when the night sky above me lit up in a blaze of greenish fire.

Whipping my head up, I saw something hurtling out of the sky to land smack dab in the lake with one hell of a splashdown. Good thing I backed up instinctively.

I blinked at it.

It was saucer-shaped and its lights were flickering in and out.

I stood staring.

I had just witnessed an honest-to-goodness UFO crash.

Holy crap.

Scotty was gonna be psyched when I told him about this.

Hell, I needed to tell him now.

I pulled out my phone to call my UFO enthusiast pal and found nothing but static.

Then I remembered what Scotty was always telling me about alien abductions and scrambled behind a bush when an opening roughly the size of a door appeared in the ship’s side. A walkway extended out and a being emerged.

He looked human.

Maybe it was a government craft?

Then the guy opened his mouth.

Those were not human teeth.

And there wasn’t a language I knew that sounded like that — although the tone was pretty clear.

Usually that tone meant: CRAP.

I was so shocked I forgot to hide and he saw me.

The look on his face said he wanted to hide too.

We stared at each other for a minute the way two people do when they’re both caught and afraid of what will happen next.

He blinked and touched a spot on his collar. It looked like a tight dark grey jumpsuit.

“Hey, nothing to see here. Just some water maintenance.”

He attempted a smile and waved at me.

Smart Danny waves back and leaves.

Smart Danny was not driving the bus today.

I looked at him on his spaceship gangplank in his spacesuit and gave him the look my mom would give me when she knew I was lying my face off.

“Okay. You are standing on a crashed spaceship gangplank in a spacesuit. I saw you crash in the lake. Dude, come on. Lake maintenance? Really? Is that the best you’ve got?”

Yeah. Like I said, smart Danny wasn’t in today.

The poor guy actually looked embarrassed.

“You think you could maybe not tell anybody about this?”

He scratched the back of his head, looking a little sheepish.

I walked over and sat on the thick fallen log Grandpa and I used to sit on for lunch after we got done not catching any fish. I pulled a candy bar out of my coat and waved it at Mr. Lake Maintenance.

“Want some?”

He debated.

Then came over — across the lake.

Standing in front of me, he had to be at least seven feet tall. Up close, I could see minor differences beyond the teeth. His skin was off — too smooth, almost like a stingray’s — and his features were subtly wrong.

He looked at me. I scooted back so he had plenty of space on the log. He sat.

I broke the candy bar in half and handed him the bigger half. Intergalactic relations deserved the bigger half, right?

He pulled a device out of his suit and scanned the bar. Looked at the screen and nodded, then took a nibble. His eyes lit up and he took the rest in one bite.

I’d had those kinds of days.

“Better?”

“Yes. That was good. What was that?”

“Chocolate and caramel.”

“Wow. I’m impressed.”

We sat in silence for a minute.

“So what happened?”

He rubbed a self-conscious hand over the back of his neck.

“Engine trouble.”

I gave him a skeptical look.

“Okay, fine. A meteor I forgot about hit the engine.”

“Forgot about?”

He groaned. It was a little burbly but it was definitely a groan.

“Personal stuff. Drama. I got so distracted that this happened. I feel so foolish.”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“I getcha, man. It happens to everybody. Is there somebody on the way to help with your ship?”

He looked relieved.

“No. It is fixing itself now. It should be done within the hour.”

“That’s good.”

Then I heard splashing and an unmistakable crunching sound. Then more.

“What was that?”

Worry crept into my tone.

The visitor held up his hands in a gesture of I mean you no harm.

“It’s the ship. It needs to intake protein to fix its wounds. The local fauna in the lake.”

“Wait… your ship is alive?”

“Yes. In a fashion. It is a living organism, but it is run by synthetic intelligence. It is not self-aware.”

“Wow. A living ship. That’s amazing.”

“It is normal. But I am glad that you find it good.”

“And wait — it’s eating the fish in the lake to repair itself?”

God, I wished I could do that. Also, that was kinda creepy.

He looked a little worried.

“Yes. It needs living protein to repair itself. I apologize for your loss, but I must repair my ship. I must be home for… choosing day? I believe you would call it voting day.”

I blinked at him.

So an alien is rushing home to vote.

We are doomed as a species.

I chuffed gloomily.

“Well, at least you guys take it seriously. Hell, most folks here treat it as a badge of honor not to vote or even participate.”

He looked shocked and slightly uncomfortable. He tapped his collar again.

“Hmm. I see. Your system is free to all. For my kind, the choosing is very strictly structured and mandated. It is a privilege to participate and highly sought to be allowed to have a voice in the choosing. It is a high honor among my kind.”

I blinked at him.

“Are we talking about the same thing?”

He nodded.

“Choosing leaders. Regional and global. The global also rules the colonies. The choosing happens every five solar cycles.”

I nodded. Same thing, just a little different in setup and term times.

“Wow. What do you guys do? What are the mandates?”

He smiled proudly.

“Ah. Well, firstly there is a fee to have a voice in the choosing. And you must have the necessary qualifications.”

That was a radical idea.

“What kind of qualifications?”

“Well, you must have citizenship. You must own property and have a merchant or commerce enterprise with a physical and accessible location.”

What a concept.

“Wow. Okay. And what are the fees to participate?”

“Oh, not much. For the larger choosing it is two hundred zenbies — I believe one hundred of your USD — and it reduces from there in the smaller choosings. Not bad at all.”

Huh.

This was interesting, so I probed a bit.

“So… how did you guys come about this system?”

He nodded.

“It came to be due to extreme lack of participation. The public resistance to being part of the choosing was so great that it actually started crippling our leadership and much of our world began to fall apart. Then an engineer suggested a charge for participating. She was also a generational merchant. She said that if the masses did not want the product that we offered — the choosing — then we needed to find the ones of our kind who did value it and give them a physical link to its value.”

He paused.

“And she was correct. Even those of my kind who did value the choosing were so lackadaisical about participating that we went through the same issue all over again. So we began to charge and levy mandates on participation qualifications. There was a huge uproar… and then it happened. Everywhere there began to be participation from those who were qualified. Some even tried for temporary qualifications, but we made stricter rules for that.”

He looked at me steadily.

“In the end, the only way for us to stay solvent as a species was to make our own kind pay for the privilege of being able to choose. It works very well and has worked for two centuries now. We have one hundred percent participation in the choosing. Every choosing.”

I stared at him, my mouth agape.

Ding.

He smiled.

“Good to talk to you, human. My ship has repaired itself and I must be off. Take care.”

He got up to leave and, as an afterthought, tossed me a strange-looking device.

“Yeah, great meeting you. What’s this?”

“Historical notes. You can look at our world’s history. Good luck with your choosing day.”

With that he raced back across the lake, hopped into his ship, and within minutes it lifted — dripping from the lake — into the air and shot off skyward.

I ran my hands over the device, then put it in my coat pocket.

I ate the rest of my candy bar and walked back toward the cabin.

I needed to call Mom.