MISADVENTURES OF AN ALIEN(ATED) LANGUAGE TEACHER

Part 6

PART 6

I sat up on the bed and they gave me back my clothes to get dressed (minus the coat I had used as a rug in the cell. Don't worry, I have no interest whatsoever in getting it back).

The three of us went out of the room, walked down a corridor, (Oh, it was so refreshing walking willingly without being dragged by the arm!) and entered another room which looked like a doctor's office (which means it was a doctor's office). It had a nice wooden desk, three comfy chairs, lots of books in shelves and lots of degrees on the walls. I guess the matter of the symbol was too urgent and Carter didn't want to delay its decoding any more, so I would work on it here, at the hospital, instead of at the secret police headquarters. Fine by me.

I didn't want to push things too far, but since the secret police and I were in better terms now, I risked it:

"Any chance of a cup of tea?"

Ok, let me explain to you the importance of tea. I don't know if this is a language teacher thing, probably not, but I need tea. I have an absorbing, essential, indispensable, imperative, demanding, longing, urging, need for tea. If you want a car to function, you put petrol in it, if you want me to function, you give me tea. This is my only fundamental requisite if you want to keep me sane and working. So you understand why I had to risk it.

"Sure", said the doctor. "I'll tell the nurse".

Wow! That was easy. Shit, I should have asked for a million dollars and a helicopter! "Easy, easy, don't get cocky. You know what happens when you get cocky", said my wiser self, who had just come back from its holiday in Cancún.

When the doctor stepped out of the office to get my tea, (yes, I now have doctors serving me, I have come up in the world in the last fifteen minutes. Be careful, queen of England, I'm now in a position to get even your job if I so desire), Carter produced a briefcase and took a big brown envelope out of it.

Ok, show time. I started feeling butterflies in my stomach. When a human being feels butterflies in his or her stomach, it may mean one of three things: excitement, anxiety or fear. As I am an alien, I can feel the three of them simultaneously. This means that I was eager and excited to finally see the symbol, and I was also utterly terrified at the prospect. I sat down at the desk, (it is always advisable to sit down when you are in my state).

Carter pulled a sheet of paper solemnly out of the envelope and put it slowly on the desk, before me. I looked at it and... Holy shit!!!! Of all the symbols in the whole wide universe... How was it possible? I bloody knew this one!!!! I knew what it was and I knew what it meant. But how did an earthling have access to this?

"Ok, easy now, time to practise the blank stare. They probably know it is an alien symbol so you cannot give away any expression showing that you know of it". Thank you, wiser self, I'm glad you stayed for the show.

I traced the lines of the drawing with my fingers, pretending to study it.

"This is a very complex symbol" I said, which was true, and then: "I have never seen anything like this before", which was a blatant lie.

This is a common practice among aliens: they always feed humans with truths, carefully mixed up with lies. This keeps them interested and confused at the same time. Perfect combination.

"Can you figure it out?" he asked, and he sounded more anxious than me.

"Possibly..." I made a long pause for effect, "if you give me some time to study it and access to my computer".

Stalling, what a beautiful thing! An art every student should strive to master, especially during an oral examination. A tool that can get you out of the tightest spots in life. But I'm just a rookie in this craft, a humble beginner. If you want to learn it fully, you have to go to the experts. Yes, of course, you guessed it right: the top experts in the field of stalling are the public service employees. They have taken this art to a level of magnificence and exquisiteness that is hard to achieve for us mortals, either humans or aliens. Luckily, I didn't need such a level of proficiency in stalling to get Carter to give me some time.

Yes, yes, I can hear you. You are asking: "Why does she need to stall when she already knows what the symbol means?" Well, the answer to this has two parts:

First, I'm not supposed to know what the symbol means. If I show that I already know what it is, they will add one plus one and discover that I am, in fact, an alien. And more precisely, an alien of the same race that created that symbol. That awareness can lead to all sorts of complications in my present life, which I don't care to have right now.

Second, this is a symbol that contains sensitive information about my people. So I need a little bit of time to assess the consequences of revealing it to the secret police. As I see it: I can invent another meaning and deceive Carter, for which I need time to create something plausible. I can give him part of the meaning and leave him wondering at the rest, for which I need time to decide what part I'm going to tell him. Or I can decide to tell him everything, for which I need time to remember my exo-history lessons and figure out if the information is still important as a secret for my people at this point.

You understand now why I need to stall?