The Others

The Others are everywhere, but I know nothing about them.

They walk our streets, wear our clothing, live in our homes. They know everything about us. But I know nothing about them.

I couldn’t tell you how they got here or why. I couldn’t tell you where they came from, what they do for fun or how they school their children. I don’t know whether they eat or sleep or piss or shit. I don’t know whether they have a heart or lungs, or how they breathe, or how they reproduce.

I guess none of that is surprising. So much changed in the weeks before they arrived and while they were here. There’s so little any of us know.

I suppose I know two things. I know they communicate through their minds, because I’ve felt it. I’ve felt the push, the weight of their cognition push against my own. I’ve felt understanding blossom in my brain even as I fought against it. I’ve had knowledge planted in my mind while my stomach tightens in revolt.

I also know how they think about us.

I would say they despise us, but that wouldn’t quite be correct. As far as I can tell, they are a species that does not know or experience emotion. So I guess I can say that I know that, too - that they do not seem to feel. Even when they break into our minds to communicate, into our most intimate, private spaces - it feels enterprising, business-like. Devoid of curiosity or empathy.

I know this because they wanted me to know this.

I suppose I should back up a second. Because their arrival seemed cataclysmically timed.

For right before they arrived, Earth had collapsed.

I was one of the lucky ones. I’d been living in the upper United States, in what we used to call Boston. The city was still wealthy enough and had stored away enough food and water for its residents to survive. But many of us had lost our jobs when the software industry collapsed in 2048, when our focus turned from clicks and vanity to needs more basal: hunger, shelter, protection.

That collapse should have stretched for an eon, the slow crumbling of humanity’s greatest achievements. But it happened in weeks. Software went from the core of our world to something nobody cared about anymore. We couldn’t care about it. Clean water had run dry for four-fifths of Earth’s populations. The crops had collapsed. Now, we not only had no meat or coffee, but no fruit, no almonds. No wheat.

It was inflation first; loaves of bread skyrocketing to more than it cost to buy a cell phone. Bags of flour going for the price of a second-hand car.

It wasn’t long before people started to panic. They couldn’t afford to eat before; there was no chance of it now. There was no work, either. And so instead there were riots, looting. All of the worst things that happen when people are afraid and have nothing left to lose.

After Boston descended into darkness, and those of us that remained had joined up with others like ourselves because there was strength in numbers, we staked our claim on whatever territory we could. Ours was the old, boarded-up bagel shop on East 57th street.

I had escaped my apartment in Boston with only what I had on me: my baggy Boston U hoodie, jeans, my iPhone, and the heart-shaped locket my mother had given me before I’d moved away for school.

We - Marcus, Petra, and I - had been living together in the back of that dark shop for weeks now, more out of necessity than shared connection. We happened upon each other during the riots, each of us taking mere moments to size each other up, the smoky skyline lighting up occasionally behind us, all of us silently aware that things were different now. And that we were together.

We had no electricity. No light, no television. Yet we clutched our phones as if they’d bring us back to before, their black screens illuminating our dirty, tired faces, their batteries having died weeks ago, the faint smell of flour and garlic still lingering in their air around us.

Every day we’d wake, and one of us would leave the shop as discreetly as possible. We’d sneak into the humid, gray air, the sun imprisoned behind layers of smog. We’d leave to find food and clean water.

Every time we left it was longer before we came back. Every time, our bounties were smaller. There were less people out, too, though we never saw any bodies. At least, I never did, and Marcus, Petra and I never talked about it.

I don’t know where Marcus and Petra went to collect food. And they never told. I’m assuming they kept it quiet in case things went awry between us. But food never varied much between the three of us. Certainly no produce or dairy or meat. No, it was small things, things that, in another life, I’d have been too haughty to eat: snack size bags of Doritos, gummies of no discernable brand, half-crushed Mars bars. Weeks ago we felt we had hit the jackpot when I found two cans of lentils, which we hacked open with Marcus’s pocket knife and ate greedily, slurping the salty preserve from the bottom of the can.

The day we learned of them, we were sitting in the back of the shop. Petra was looking at her phone. Marcus was staring at the floor. I was looking at my knees, absently caressing the locket at my throat.

And suddenly there were thoughts in my mind that weren’t mine.

Tall, hairless, gray-skinned beings, mantis-like in their stature. Hundreds of them, as far as I could see. A gray horizon, a tiny sun setting on a dusty, red landscape. And then a landscape I recognized as my own, and these foreign, gray bodies lit against the backdrop of my home.

I felt bile in my throat. A cry burst from my lungs. My mind was filled with these creatures and somehow, I knew they were here, on my planet, in my home.

It took me a moment to realize that Petra and Marcus had felt it, too. They were looking at me with a mixture of terror and revulsion on their faces. I felt my heart hammering in my throat. Petra was shivering.

Before I could open my mouth to speak, my mind was flooded again. But this time it felt like a memory surfacing upon the lake in my mind. Something that had always been there, only anchored, waiting.

It was a meeting between one of them and a politician from here, on Earth. An American.

And it’s here where we learned that other thing about them. That they didn’t feel.

The encounter feels so familiar it was like I was there: Schafer, the Earth representative, charismatic and perfectly coiffed, even while Earth burns behind him, standing feet from an invader whose motives we do not know. Schafer, speaking passionately and gesticulating about our bright, shared future, the friendships that would be forged between our races, the plans that would help bring Earth out of collapse.

The other, the one they sent, barely speaking or moving. This, more than anything, seemed to make Schafer uncomfortable, his charming demeanor slowly faltering over their hour-long meeting, until he let out an awkward, false laugh, running the back of his hand across his eyes.

At this, the Other tilted his head, his mantis-like eyes following Schafer’s hand as it fell beside him.

There are parts now that I can’t stop replaying in my mind. How the Other’s eyes rested on Schafer’s hand long after it had dropped from his face. How the tension between them had become palpable. How their conversation faltered, then stopped, as Schafer waited for the Other to move or blink or anything. But he only stared at Schafer’s hand, until more than a full minute had passed. Then he looked back up into Schafer’s eyes.

I don’t know what passed between them in that moment. The Others didn’t grant us that in the memory. But what I do know is that he didn’t understand the laughter. I know that something passed between them, because I can see Schafer saying, “Oh, I suppose I’m a bit nervous,” before laughing again, causing the Other to become icy in his stillness once more.

The rest of the encounter is less clear. I know that Schafer, and then his colleagues, tried to explain nervousness, then fear, then sadness, before finally realizing the Others had no understanding of feeling.

I don’t know why they gave us this memory, this knowledge. But they did.

When we emerged from the memory, and when enough moments had passed for us to pass from disgust to fear, Marcus, Petra, and I held a collective breath, our stomachs tensing.

What happened next, I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that all hope for cooperation had been lost.

SIX WEEKS LATER

The sun is setting. The sky is a dusty orange behind the skeletal skyline. Craitids are walking along the sidewalk in front of the bagel shop, passing the occasional human sitting in the dirt. If I squint in this light, it almost seems like both species are equal. Almost.

As I watch, an elderly woman stops walking and drops to her knees on the sidewalk, signaling fear or respect to an approaching Craitid. I can't help but wonder how someone her age has made it this long.

It approaches quickly, moving in its insect-like way, its long, flowing strides making it look like it’s underwater. I watch as it passes her, not even taking a moment to look down, no emotion passing over its gray, stretched skin.

Once the Craitid has passed her, the woman falls forward, her hands catching her. I can see her chest rising and falling. She stays where she falls. I could walk over to her, help her. But I’m safe here, in the darkness of this little shop, behind the plywood that frames the window.

I realize with a start that Marcus has come up behind me. He’s peering out the window above my head.

“It’s your turn today,” he says. As if I didn’t already know.

I nod.

Marcus looks toward the sky. “It’s getting late,” he says. I can feel the heat of his body behind me, smell dirt and sweat on his skin. I can hear the agitation in his voice. He’s hungry. So am I.

“I’m not gonna tell you again,” he says, and his voice has gotten dangerously quiet. I remember that we are a team, but only if I keep up my end of the bargain. I remember that it’s everyone for themselves. I remember that Marcus can become my enemy as quickly as he became an ally.

I nod again. “Yeah,” I say, mindlessly dusting off the arms of my sweater, as though it’ll help the weeks of dirt that’s amassed. “I’ll go now,” I say.

Marcus grunts. I feel him move away and I am alone at the window again. Across the street, the old woman is holding her wrist, sitting on the ground, as if it’s not worth the trouble to stand.

Absently, my hand comes back up to the locket around my throat. I see my mother’s smile in my mind, they way she crinkled her nose when she laughed.

I take a deep breath and open the door.

And come face to face with one of them.