The house was glass. I could see mountains covered

in snow; I could think I was in the Himalayans, if

the snow was white. But it had the putrid green

tinge. Fungus world. Fungus folk.

The floor of the house was wood or like wood, with rugs

of strange properties and feel.

The bed was a ten by ten cushion on the floor. There was

a shiny/spongy comforter upon it of changing colours.

While I watched, it went from shades of yellow to orange

to red to purple to blue to green, to yellow, mixing and

swirling, hypnotising.

There were no closets or
dressers or bureaus. Just the bed.

The bed in the middle of barrenness. Frozen barrenness.

I came to the door, stepped out hesitantly, began to notice

the house was moving, staircases were becoming hallways,

corridors becoming staircases, moving slowly. The floor I

stood on didn’t move. As I walked I could see parts of other

rooms. I went down a stair case, moving through nothing.

How to describe…

How to describe an unearthly house, which has rooms that

disappear, windows that become walls, first transparent,

then mirrors, then opaque…

It made me so dizzy, I put a hand on a wall, closed my

eyes. Concentrated on breathing. The air around my body

was the temperature of my body, making me feel dressed

in the air.

As I walked, I began to believe the house was making

rooms for me, creating segregated spaces which existed

only so long as I was inside.

I didn’t know if the bedroom I had occupied was up or

down or even with my position, and when I looked to

find it, I only saw glass panels, wood panels, the

wood becoming floors, and as the panels moved, breaking

the light, rainbows arced.

Maybe it was beautiful, but in a hideously terrifying

way.

The last thing I wanted to do was call Jane, but being

lost had lost its novelty. I felt to scream, changed it

to a shout and called her. Called her as if I wasn’t

lost and afraid.

“Come to the kitchen…” her voice was all around me.

“Follow the pink ball.”

There in front of me was a pink sphere. I could put my hand

through it. It was a hologram. It bounced in the air, and I

followed it, along a corridor, up a stair case, and there was

Jane in her kitchen. I didn’t enter, I didn’t want to be

naked in front of her.

“Please give me my clothing…”

She spoke in her language, a ledge holding my clothing moved

to me. I took my things, began to dress where I was, then

entered, angry. Angry at how she would leave me to get lost

in her house, take my clothes, treat me this way…

I made a fist as if I’d punch her in her face. She caught

my arm. I can bench press three hundred pounds, yet her

thin fingers held my forearm like a steel vise. I couldn’t

move my arm, she was that strong.

She looked at me, took a breath, softly;

“Tomorrow, when the first appointee comes and you fail, we

will both be outside. In your Fahrenheit scale, let’s say

it is fifty below zero.”

It would be cold out there, sure…that cold?

Carefully she explained how everything I’d seen belongs to

the Agency she worked for.

I shook my head. No. She wouldn’t leave herself without

a Plan B. I assumed.

She came from where she had been preparing food, walked past

me with two plates, one in each hand, using one to gesture to

a chair. I sat, a table appeared, she put down the plate,

went to another chair, I watched to see if I could catch when

the table was and when it wasn’t, but I couldn’t. It happened

too fast, too smoothly.

I began to eat. The food was different but excellent.

As her dinner conversation, she explained how Scouts, (I

assume her job description), were allowed two mistakes,

but as her boss hated her, she would get one.

Not that she was so obnoxious, but I understood what

happens when there are “artistic” differences. When

someone has the power to fire you, and uses it, not

because you can’t do the job, but because they don’t

like having you around.

I got to the point, the point I’d been making for

two days;

“I can’t do it, Jane. I can’t,” and asked the

most important question; “What will happen to me?”

“You don’t exist, Simon.”

“You’ll let them put me outside, in the cold? To die?”

“Let them?” She exclaimed.

Everything has to make sense on some level. Even insanity.

I was abducted, brought to this world to have sex with

females. Why should I be killed? Why shouldn’t I be returned

to Earth?

Surely a species that has space flight would be civilised.

I’m the victim here. Someone should apologise to me! Not

kill me. Not tell me I don’t exist!

Even illegal aliens…

illegal aliens.

Illegal.

It becomes as crystalline as the walls. How I was taken,

why I am kept in a house like this, even Jane.

She was a low level goon in some Mafia.

Suddenly I see how very bleak my future.

She’s babbling about her people. Who cares about her people.

I don’t want to die here, to freeze to death on a planet

I don’t know. Be brought across the galaxy, to die. I could

of died on Earth. At least I might get a funeral, and the

fans of Miko would come….

For ten years men like me, tall, handsome, healthy men,

but men who have no real connection to anything or

anywhere, are captured.

Taken here.

Taken here to service one hundred women, then brought back.

As if nothing happened.

Out there is ice and snow and sharp rock and nothing.

Nothing. Nothing.

I have been abducted by a criminal organisation,

I am a commodity, like cocaine. An illegal alien,

smuggled across a border.

In case of trouble, abandon the slaves.

They suffocate in a van.

They die.

Out there…what is out there? Death. Death is out there.

I can see death out there. I don’t want to die here.

Not like this…what did she say about taking me home? She

will take me home. If she doesn’t lose her job. And she won’t

lose her job if I can have sex with one hundred women.

If I can’t do it, I’m going to die. Die on this horrible

world. Die out there in the ice.

Die.

I can’t believe this.

What did I do that I should be punished like this?

She comes to me because I’m weak and crying, and puts her

green fungus hands around me, and her fungus face against

mine.

I push her away, jump back, why is she consoling me? She

caused this. We aren’t in this together, she put me in this.

And then, fungus female says;

“Most human men think it’s wonderful to have sex with

beautiful virgins, how was I to know you’re defective?”

She’s gone too far; “I am not defective!”

“Yes, you are,” she nods brightly.

“No I am not!” I will strike her. Yes. I’ll strike her and

she can kill me. I can die in here. Warm.

She walks from me, turns on her television. In the middle

of the room, there’s some kind of sporting activity going

on. Fungus fems, racing under water, some in red, some in white.

The image is so good I think I can touch it, but it’s

a hologram. She’s watching sports?

“I don’t believe this! You kidnap me, take me here to die,

and…don’t you care? No you don’t care at all. I’m nothing

to you. You don’t even see me as sentient. I’m a dog…no,

less, a rat. You see me as a lab rat…”

“I can give you a quick tour of this planet, Simon, if you

want, but you’ll have to fill your lungs again…”

I can’t believe this woman! I shake my head at the sheer

incoherence. Tour the planet for what? To see my coffin?

“Simon, don’t be silly,” she says, as if I’m turning down

a visit to Disney World. “You’ll never get another chance,

and as you’ll die tomorrow, you might as well enjoy today.”

She is taking it so calmly; I’m going to die tomorrow,

so I’ll have to take the tour today.

She is looking at me as if she’s said something sensible

that requires a positive response.

But if I am dying tomorrow, why not see this world?

Why not get as much as I can for the few hours I have

left? Why stand and stare at a barren wasteland in

this crazy house. I might as well see the world.

Funny, if I were straight, I’m sure I couldn’t wait for

tomorrow. Although their skins are green and they have

gills, they are rather beautiful. I’m sure a straight man

would be hard right now. Looking at her, if I was straight,

I would take her and she would enjoy it. Oh yes she would.

But I’m not straight.

“Okay…” I capitulate. Might as well. After all, I really

have nothing to lose.

I can’t but recall those minutes before I entered my house.

My house, on Earth.

Another series of rejections. The center of my existence,

had been getting another role, closely followed by figuring

out how to pay my bills.

Now, I have nothing to worry about. Simon Powel will never

worry about getting another role. He doesn’t need to worry

if his lights will be cut off. He’s going to die.

We entered the bathroom. I took off my clothes, no reason

for modesty. I got into the tank, the liquid felt as

pleasant as it did when I left it.

She gave me a thin suit and helmet, told me to put them on.

It wasn’t hard to slip on the legs, pull it up, slip in my

arms. I couldn’t put on the helmet until after I’d swallowed

the “water”.

I knew it wouldn’t hurt me, but my body was afraid and it

took all my control to stay under. I didn’t faint, I could

feel the strange sensation as the liquid filled my lungs,

pushing them out, and then I was breathing the liquid quite

easily and fit on the helmet. It pressed against my face,

warm, like a layer of skin.

Then she picked me up in her arms, walked with me, I moved,

I wanted to walk, so she put me down, and we went into a

vehicle.

“When we come outside, the pressure will feel very great for

a few moments, but then it will feel just like in my house.”

she told me.

The car rolled to the door, the door opened, and I felt as

if I were a mile underwater. I could feel the pressure in

my lungs pushing against the pressure on my chest, and then

there was a balance, and then my lungs won.

I tried to talk but gurgled, and she told me not to try

or I would choke, so I didn’t speak anymore.

I looked through the windscreen.

She was flying a few thousand feet above the ice and snow,

then there was water, not green as Earth, but a maroon

colour. The tide rolled, not breaking or choppy as on Earth,

but layers of water rolling over other layers.

Then she came over land. The vegetation was odd shades, but

even though I didn’t know what I was seeing, I knew this was

abandoned land. There was the hint that there had been farms,

but now things over grew and the geometric patterns scarcely

visible.

The cities were dark domes, but there was no one there.

Dust covered glass, easy to see this place was deserted.

She spoke of a war, of deaths, intercutting with; “Over

there was a fountain….”, “That was a sports arena…”

and kept flying.

I tried to show interest in the strange environment, but

kept thinking about dying.

She took us down to an island, lifted me out of the vehicle.

I was on a beach, seeing the maroon sea.

She named trees and birds, babbling on and on as if she were

a tour guide. I wasn’t listening to her. I didn’t need to. I

would just look at the sea, at the birds, think over my life.

Have a nice long flash back.

The sun was orange, going down, turning purple. As it got

dark, stars emerged, and three small moons in a clump,

rolled across the sky.

She gripped my arm, helped me to my feet, we went back to

the vehicle. I sat, numb.

We returned to the house. As we came inside I felt as if I

would float off the seat. Blood went to my head. She carried

me to the tank, I could distantly feel her undressing me,

then, taking me out.

While I choked and vomited, she held me, then carried me to

the bed, and lay beside me, stroking me as if I were a cat.

I turned to face her, she was crying. Did she care that I

would die? Is that why she was crying?

But maybe I didn’t have to die.