The Souvenir

It was a great day. A seminar that talked about Sol’s History. A convention that helped every galactic student-delegate understood the origin of the Solar System. It was held in Ganymede, millions of miles away from the planet I live in. They had chosen me as a delegate from our school… the only one from our planet.

I had never been to Ganymede. I had just made a simple and quick peer from the ship’s porthole when they sent me to Mars to attend a seminar about the planet’s history. Now that I saw the famous moon of Jupiter, it shocked me to see its subterranean place. It was a place where every surface had its natural illumination, which lit passageways. But, the one that fascinated me more was the delegate from planet Crowded.

She was a descendant of the original earthman; attractive, with a long and slender body, silvery skin, and long golden hair coiling tightly from her torso to her hips. She wore a fitted and smooth blue gown that sway about whenever she took graceful steps. Her body curves accentuated upon the sleek clothing. It made me shiver to watch her motion as she walked like the extinct earth mammal called feline.

She glanced at me. I did not know if she noticed my eyes fix on her. Her movement really pleased me. It was like some sort of art in Crowded ancient times. She turned once more to me. She blinked her eyes, and I slightly swallowed the natural secretions of my mouth. I felt my eyes bulged out of my head.

I was looking straight into her enticing blue eyes. If losing my soul would not exterminate me, she would have extracted it from my body and I would have been her captive forever. Captive of her beauty. I really wish it happened. I should have been within her body now, a slave to her.

When our location was facing away from the ancient sun, they set the bonfire upon the surface of the subterranean auditorium under the only fifty-mile-diameter dome of Ganymede. The chemical heat from the rock fuels created a conical blue and orange fire which extended up into the void but not reaching the transparent roof of the dome. The delegates from the different planets of Sol and Rixen, a star system near the heart of Milky Way, huddled off the bonfire, while the hosts, a male Martian and a genderless Jovian, began their introduction. Across from me was the seductive Crowdian female.

She stared at me again. Her flash jabbed my heart. The pleasurable pain could not take my willing eyes off of her. The dimness behind her made her built more discernible against the fire. I appreciated the view than anything totally lighted. I live on a dark planet, the farthest from my system’s lone red dwarf. Her mysterious gaze continued. Our eyes locked for a few moments. I wished it had been forever. I knew she read my mind. That’s the way Crowdian does when befriending someone of a different race. She was directly staring into my eyes, unblinking. And she entered my soul. She then made me understand her intentions on me. She also obtained my motive for her.

I did not listen to the discussions of our hosts and guests in the huddle. I did not even care about it. I knew she also did. Our eyes had been locked like Ganymede and Jupiter until the bonfire ceased out and all delegates headed for their underground quarters. I got her name. She fed it into my thoughts. She was Nodda.

Crowded was once a blue planet called Earth until it became crowded with the human population. Some of the human inhabitants migrated to other parts of Sol and other star systems in the Milky Way.

She had told me many things through thought communication, their way of interaction.

The next morning, she was leaving. She got near me and gave me a souvenir that made me never forget her in my entire life. It was an Earth interlaced-palm-leaf fan. She did not say a word. She turned and took her catwalk to her ship, waiting ahead. I was left alone, standing while holding the fan.

As her ship shot up across the aerospace of Ganymede, crossed the Big Red Spot of Jupiter, and vanished in the vastness of the heavens, I looked at the fan. The tentacle threads on my head swung over, touched my orange-skinned face, and blocked my sight towards the fan. I set my tentacles back over my head, using my hand, and brushed it with three bulky fingers.

There was a message on the fan, written in Sol’s ancient English.

“You’re such a pleasant friend to remember with…”

I asked myself why she had given me such a great souvenir. I had never had the answer until my Martian friend told me what the fan was for. Ancient earthmen used the fan to cool and condition their bodies after perspiring from strenuous movements. Then, I realized the answer to my question. The moment our eyes connected uninterrupted, my bodily fluids were gradually excreting from my body.