My Friend Is An Alien

4 My First Fight

4 My First Fight

After a while, Ryan, who was sitting on his bed, was playing on his phone. I found it interesting that humans had become somewhat addicted to these devices. They needed them constantly which was odd as they missed out on life itself. Some, I had studied, would be hit by a car or a train or fall from ledges to their demise because they were paying attention to their phone rather than the environment around them. And not only that, but some children's fingers were becoming elongated and deformed because of near-constant use. It made me curious and so I asked Ryan why he was playing with his phone. "Hmm?" He replied, not looking at me. I repeated myself and he finally glanced at me. "Oh, it's a game I'm playing. It's really fun."

"And addictive," I said and he nodded with a smile. There was absolutely nothing to smile about. It was quite upsetting. "And do you only do this for fun?"

"Well, I ride on my bike now and again and I've got an Xbox and I play with Rach's PlayStation. What do you do for fun? I don't see you with a phone."

"You mean recreationally?" He moved his shoulders again. I couldn't tell him that in my spare time I fix the onboard gravitational nodules on our ships which get tripped out by the small phantom-like creatures we called Urzt that love to eat the dark-matter fusion molecules that help disperse even gravity so we don't float away. It's tricky and sometimes a complicated sequence to re-route and recalibrate the nodules in the order they needed to be triggered for the system to work. But I like being challenged in such a way.

So, I simply replied with, "puzzles."

"Cool. I have a one-thousand piece I got for my birthday I haven't done yet. Just don't tell anyone that I said it was cool? People would think I'm a nerd."

Ryan groped under his bed and pulled out a plastic-covered box. Humans annoyed me with their plastic. Our planet has called this age of humans the Plastic Age. Ripping the plastic coating off, he showed me the front of the box. It was a village scene of thatched houses, a few birds, a car and a pond. It was a very rudimentary painting but it seemed pleasant to the eye.

"I'm not familiar with the word, 'nerd.'" I spoke. "What does it mean?"

"It means someone who is smart." Taking the lid off inside was another piece of plastic, a bag with the one-thousand pieces inside.

"And it is bad to be smart because you will be called this name?" I asked.

Ryan tipped the pieces onto the carpet and began sifting through those with edges on them. "Being smart means, you can be bullied and isolated from friends. I don't tend to tell people my grades or pop quiz scores. I'm not clever at everything, but I'm not someone who is completely devoid of brain cells." After a few seconds, I began to copy him, finding the edges quicker than he did. As I had an eidetic memory, I began to start fitting the pieces together. After a few minutes, I had nearly one-third of the puzzle done. Ryan then stopped. "You are really good at doing this. It would have taken me ages."

Stopping I sat back on my heels. "Perhaps we should stop and savour it. I hear that taking longer to do something feels better in the end because it means more."

Ryan got up and flopped on his bed and took up his phone. "Yeah, okay whatever." I didn't get anything out of Ryan for a while but instead listened to Lori and Ronnie downstairs who were both talking about me. It was nothing malicious, it was more to do with my eating habits and they discussed the radio node I'd found that was stopping their internet.

A few minutes before ten o'clock Lori came to ensure Dillon was asleep and after closing his door, went into Rachel's room. She was still on her computer. "Ten more minutes, mum. I'm doing my homework." She replied.