Elvis fell asleep.
Bower wasn’t sure how he could sleep sitting on a chair, but he was resting his head on his elbow propped up on the table. His feet were up on another chair and he seemed comfortable enough.
Bower watched Stella.
The alien had found a spider’s web in the corner. With a deft touch, she examined the silk threads of its web, observing how the spider responded to various vibrations. Flies buzzed around, Stella caught one with her lightning reflexes, catching it between two pincer-like ends of her scarlet-red fronds. She held the fly gently, so much so the insect continued to beat its wings, trying to pull away. From her core, extraterrestrial insects streamed upward toward the fly, examining what, Bower wasn’t sure, but they were busy. After a few minutes, Stella placed the fly in the spider’s web and watched as the arachnoid scurried over and enveloped the fly in silk. At least, ‘watched’ was the best verb Bower could think of to describe the six or seven blades poised around the web, each with an extraterrestrial beetle at its tip, somehow observing what was going on.
There was a newspaper rack by the door. Bower picked up a glossy magazine adorned with images of the latest bimbo gaining her fifteen minutes of fame.
“Forgive me,” she said, placing the open magazine on the floor next to Stella. “Don’t look too closely at the content, but this is how we communicate in written form, with words and pictures.”
For the first time, Bower realized the creature was multitasking, and not in the swiftly switching manner that humans would multitask, giving only fleeting attention to several different things in rapid succession. The vast swirling arms on the creature continued their observation of the palm at one level, the spider on another, while several thin blades began examining the magazine.
Bower stepped back, wanting to observe how curious the alien was about the contents of the magazine and its compressed, two-dimensional images of three-dimensional people and nature scenes. The creature picked up the magazine with the tips of its fronds, making Bower wonder quite how it achieved such gecko-like grip.
Stella examined the magazine, but she was more interested in the media than the content. She probed the thickness of the paper, the binding on the spine, the dimensions of the page, but she only flicked through a couple of pages before putting the magazine down.
“I know how you feel,” Bower said, sitting back down at the table and staring at the alien creature.
Stella split open several of the palm leaves, but not vertically as a human would cut through a leaf, she split them sideways, cleanly separating the upper and lower faces of the leaves with surgical precision.
A swarm of insects at her heart moved in a stream out to her extremities. Whether they were simply all taking a look or retrieving samples for some kind of analysis back at the core of the creature, Bower wasn’t sure, but she got the impression Stella was in her element. The alien was content to examine a level of biology most humans would walk past without a second thought.
Bower was tired.
She rested her arms on the table, crossing them and resting her head on the soft muscle of her forearm. For a few minutes, she stared lazily at the astonishing creature with its brilliant red fronds reflecting the light around it, and its inner core a hive of activity. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep.
When she awoke, she woke with a rush.
Bower recognized the roar around her immediately. Fighter jets were blazing past somewhere overhead.
“Hey,” Elvis said, seeing she was awake.
Bower sat up.
Her neck was sore, but she was surprised to find her head had been resting on a pillow. Someone had seen her sleeping and slipped a pillow beneath her. Bower wiped some saliva away from the corner of her lips. She’d been dribbling in her sleep, and that made her feel embarrassed. There was a slight, damp mark on the pillow, but Elvis didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he just didn’t care.
The angle of the sun had changed. The shadows that had been so long in the early morning, now cut back at a sharp angle. The day was hot. Fans turned on the ceiling, circulating the air but bringing no relief. It had to be about one or two in the afternoon.
“Sleep well?” Elvis asked.
“Like a rock,” Bower replied. “Hard and uncomfortable.”
Elvis smiled.
He’d changed into a white singlet, leaving his blood-encrusted jungle shirt hanging over one of the chairs. A nice, neatly ironed shirt lay on the table next to him, but in the heat of the day he hadn’t put it on.
Although Elvis didn’t have sunglasses, he had slicked back his hair, having shaved to give his face a clean-cut look with sharply defined sideburns. Elvis was back. Sure, his arm still looked anemic and stunted, but he was as cocky as the first day she’d met him. Had he used water or vegetable oil from the kitchen, she wondered, looking at his neatly combed hair. Oil would last longer but would attract dust. It had to be water, she figured, either way, the rock-god was ready to go on stage.
Several rows of plants lined one of the walls and the bench-top. They hadn’t been there when Bower fell asleep. There were more palms, ferns, flowering Gerbera, daisies and orchids, every plant that spoke of somewhere other than Africa, plants that would only ever be found within an embassy in the sun-scorched country that was Malawi.
“They must have figured she likes botany,” Bower said.
“I guess so. I was asleep. Stella seems to like flowers. They keep her amused.”
Dirt had been tipped out on the floor and piled up neatly, like sand having run through an hourglass. Several of the plants were lying on the ground, their roots exposed to the air, and still Stella seemed enthralled by the diversity.
“Looks like she’s been having fun,” Bower said, trying to suppress a yawn.
“They brought you a change of clothes,” Elvis said, gesturing to a set of Army fatigues and a towel sitting on the table. The clothes were not only clean, they’d been ironed. Bower picked them up; a shirt, trousers, a nice new leather belt, a pair of white socks and some underwear. No bra, though, but that was no surprise as sizing wasn’t generic. The underwear didn’t look too flattering, but they were as white as new fallen snow.
Bower went to the bathroom. She was surprisingly stiff and sore. She used a hand towel to wash at the basin. After changing, she took some time to wash water over her face and through her hair. When she came out, Elvis was eating a candy bar. He offered her one.
“Chocolate’s melted, but if you’re looking for a sugar-hit, they’re not too bad.”
Bower took the candy bar, saying, “Thanks.” She didn’t recognize the brand, but she was sure it wasn’t supposed to be so limp and mushy. Peeling back the wrapper, she struggled not to make a mess as she ate. Bower ended up licking her fingers and placed the grotesque-looking wrapper in one of the paper cups.
The sound of helicopters grew closer.
Bower stood and moved over by the broken windows. As she stared out across the city, a flight of four F-18s banked hard to one side above the horizon, their engines roared as they soared low over the city. Explosions rumbled through the air. Smoke drifted upwards. A few seconds later the ground shook.
Jameson walked in.
The sound of helicopters passing overhead shook the building.
The alien bristled.
“Easy, girl,” Elvis said, and Stella visibly relaxed. Whatever connection the creature held with Elvis, its trust was resolute. Although the thump of rotor blades continued to beat at the air, the creature went back to comparing flowers. Troops slid down fast ropes thrown out of the helicopters, dropping onto the rooftops surrounding the embassy.
Elvis walked over and stood by Bower near the window.
“What’s going on, Sarge? Those aren’t US choppers. And those planes, they’re not carrying US markings.”