Chloe’s hearing my every thought is most annoying.
“And you don’t think you’re annoying?” she asks. Quickly she adds, “Don’t answer that. I’m in a hurry. The only thing I want to know is how do you exist without a body? I was thinking about that the whole time I was getting ready.”
So she can do more than one task at a time. “Getting ready for what?” I ask.
“I already told you,” she says. “School.”
This seems ridiculous. I feel that she is now lying to me. School is about the mind. It has nothing to do with looking—
“Welkin,” she cuts in. “Please. Just tell me what you are. Don’t you dare just say you’re a Universal. I mean, what is a Universal? Because so far as I know, everyone has a body. Even aliens.”
“You know some aliens?” I ask.
“Welkin!” she shrieks. “Focus. What are you?”
What am I? “I am a thinking being. I am an evolved being. Therefore, I don’t require a body to exist.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Chloe says. “You must have some sort of… substance.”
Ah. Her primitive mind requires physical proof. I can’t give her that. She must know I exist, because she’s talking to me. But clearly, this is a difficult concept for her. I think hard about how I might explain the nonphysical in simple terms. Simple enough for her to understand.
“If you’re so smart,” she says, “why can’t you explain? Come on, Welks. It’s almost eight and I have to get going. If I’m late again, I’ll get detention.”
I’m unclear on what detention is, but she’s given me an idea. “You know what an eight is, don’t you?” I ask.
“Well, duh. It’s a number.”
“Correct,” I say. “And what is that?”
“It’s…just a number. That’s it.”
“Do numbers have a physical form?” I ask.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she says. “Why are we talking about numbers?”
“Because you believe they exist,” I tell her. “And they do. But, like me, they don’t have a physical form.”
“I can write a number eight,” she retorts.
“That would simply be a symbol for the number eight,” I say. “Then there’s the concept of time. That too lacks substance and…”
“The time! I’ve gotta go, Welks.”
She dashes us back to her sleeping chamber and rummages through numerous items of clothing. While doing this, she mutters aloud. “These jeans? No, I wore them yesterday. Maybe those? No, they’re icky. These? I guess. Which top? The blue one. Yeah. Oh, but not with the light blue jeans…”
Selecting apparel seems highly complicated. I try to guess why. Perhaps some clothing is better for protecting the body? Yes, that must be it. Certain parts of the planet are extremely cold while other places are hot. But does this theory apply to the items Chloe is struggling to choose from?
“Again, Welkin,” she says, “it’s about how they look. It’s about style.”
Style. I remember this word. But it was one I couldn’t understand. Much like art, sport, music and dance. These things don’t seem to have a purpose.
“Wow, you’ve got that wrong,” Chloe says. “They’re all important. Also, they’re fun.”
“Fun?”
“You’ll see,” she says. “Let’s go.”
Chloe has managed to reclothe our body. She grabs some baggage from the floor and moves us briskly out of the room and along a hall. Then she hurtles us down a flight of stairs, moving so fast, I fear we’ll crash.
“Is such speed necessary?” I ask.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” she replies. We enter an area where the air is filled with aromas, and our stomach reacts. It actually emits a growling sound. I also notice another human seated at a table.
“This must be a kitchen,” I say. “The food room.”
“Yup,” Chloe says.
“Huh?” says the other human.
“Nothing,” Chloe responds.
“Who is that?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
“May I greet this human?” I ask.
Chloe removes us from the kitchen and whispers, “Rule two, Welkin. I can’t talk to you when other people are around. They’ll think I’m nuts.”
Nuts. A form of fruit produced by trees. “I fail to see why they would think…”
“Not those nuts!” she hisses. “Let me grab some food, and we’re out of here.”
“But who is that human?” I ask.
“My brother. He’s a pest, and I usually ignore him. So no more talking. Got it?”
“I guess.” But I’m unhappy about this situation. As we re-enter the kitchen, I recall that part of my assignment is to interact with other humans. But with her maintaining control of our body, I can’t use our vocal cords.
“Suck it up,” she whispers.
“Huh?” says the brother human.
Chloe ignores him. She tosses some food items into her baggage, then grabs a small container from a refrigeration unit. She opens this and spoons some of the contents into our mouth. It tastes much better than the toothpaste. “What is that?” I ask.
But she simply shakes our head.
“What’s wrong with you?” the brother asks.
Chloe spoons another portion of the soft food into our mouth, looks at the brother and rolls our eyes toward the ceiling. The brother reacts by opening its mouth and sticking out its tongue. I believe that muscle is normally used to produce speech, but it doesn’t say anything. Rather, it seems to be displaying its partially chewed food.
Chloe sighs and turns away, and the brother sniggers. I realize that they’ve communicated without using a single word. Fascinating.
Chloe swiftly eats the remaining soft food, grabs another clothing item from a hook on the wall and puts it on our torso. She picks up her baggage and wiggles her fingers in her brother’s direction. We exit via a portal, step away from the building and proceed along a cement path.
“Wow,” she says.
I believe she may be referring to the food we ate. “What was that?” I ask.
“Peach yogurt,” she replies.
“I enjoyed it,” I say. “I think we should have had more.”
“No time, Welks. We’ll eat more later.”
I consider pointing out that our stomach would like more also, but she doesn’t give me a chance. She says, “Welkin, is there any way you can, like, tune out while I’m at school?”
“Tune out?” I ask.
“You know. Stop being in my head so I don’t hear you? Like, go to sleep or something?”
I think about how often bioethics class puts me into doze mode. “It’s possible,” I say. “But if I do that, I’ll miss studying the other juveniles.”
“What about that mind cloak thing?” she asks.
“I’m not very good at it.”
“I noticed,” she says. “But ignoring you is harder than ignoring Josh.”
“What’s a josh?” I ask.
“Not what. Who. My brother. The kid in the kitchen? Who, by the way, is a he.”
“Ah.”
“And,” Chloe says, “in a few minutes, I’ll be hooking up with some friends. We walk to school together, and we talk. I can’t be talking to you at the same time. And another thing. This is even more important.”
“Oh?”
“Absolutely,” she says. “In fact, it’s crucial. See, there’s this guy I like, and I think he likes me, so I get sort of nervous around him. But that’s bad because I need to play it cool, right? I want to find out if he’s going to the dance on Friday.”
I’m baffled.
“See, I knew you would be. Which means you’ll ask a lot of stupid questions, and I’ll get mixed up.” She sighs and adds, “Sorry. They’re not stupid questions. They’re distracting. Oh. There’s Madison.”
Chloe waves our hand at the approaching human. “So please, Welkin,” she whispers. “Just try to lay low, okay?”
“I’ll try,” I tell her. “But I can’t promise anything.”