When the aliens were finished with Polly, they deposited her on the steps of the Soldiers' and Sailors' monument with a Manhattan in her hand, which was a thoughtful gesture. She came to standing bolt upright and staring into the traffic of Monument Circle, the knowledge of her abduction as solid and unavoidable in her head as the elaborate tower in the circle's center. The constant, slow swirl of early morning commuters hypnotized her, and she couldn't tear her gaze from the moat of cars until her attention was disrupted by sudden nausea. She vomited in a thick arc that slapped against the cement and drooled down the steps in a lumpy, sluggish waterfall. She wiped a trace of bile from her face with the back of her free hand before inspecting the cocktail. The drink smelled like Christmas and, when she tipped the glass so the caramel liquid could touch her lips, it tasted like pine needles marinated in battery acid. Polly retched but refused to toss the liquor aside, despite the increasing glances cast from pedestrians. Cupping the glass close to her chest, she staggered down the steps and into the shadow of the stone banister for a bit of privacy.
The sculpted soldiers on the tiers above her averted their eyes from her slumped and shivering body. In all her years living in the city, Polly had never properly observed them. Now that her eyes thirsted for a familiar sight, she drank them in. They didn't look like the rigid, victorious soldiers of her memory. They squinted, leaned, huddled, and drooped. They pulled the reigns of stubborn stone horses and reclined, frozen in conversation, around a campfire. Some were dead. She turned her attention back to her drink when she could no longer tolerate the discomfort from twisting her neck to see them. She took a braver sip and endured the blaze of its descent into her stomach, a swallowed comet. She then took inventory of herself.
"Polly Hilton," she said to taste the name and see if it was still hers. It felt natural on her tongue. She nodded to herself in affirmation. So far, so good. She proceeded to her clothes, also familiar, though unusual. Her dress-up blouse, slightly over-frilled and dangerously green. She groaned at her calf-length black skirt, obviously meant to disguise her wide hips and thick thighs. Only a few of the sequins that once ringed the hem remained intact. These were not part of her normal couture. These items spent most of their days crushed into the back of her closet, retrieved only when jeans and band tees couldn't be socially justified. She slipped a small purse from her shoulder and, after another nip, set aside her Manhattan to investigate the contents. She pulled her wallet free and found it to be light, but not empty. Her phone, however, was nearly drained. The only evidence of last night's doings was a message from a coworker inviting her to drinks with the rest of the wilting grocery department gang. Polly hadn't replied because she hadn't intended to go. She scanned her surroundings again. Apparently she'd changed her mind.
Polly reassembled her bag and grabbed her cocktail before standing again. As far as she could tell, she'd gone out for drinks and been taken by aliens in the process. Her heart began to race. No, that couldn't be right. And yet the thought was there, pushing through all of her logic. She'd been taken, she was sure of it, but at the same time her rational mind knew it to be impossible. Her throat seized as if she might vomit again, but she forced herself to focus in the Batman-like silhouette of the Blue Flag Tower until the feeling passed. She lifted the glass for another taste.
Someone knocked the glass from her grasp before it reached her mouth. A firm hand closed on her elbow and pulled her from her hiding place. She bobbed along with her captor like a balloon behind a child, down the steps, around the water features, onto the sidewalk.
"You're going to be arrested," said the woman holding Polly's elbow.
"Okay," said Polly.
"Not okay," chided the woman, stopping so abruptly that Polly stumbled and broke free of her hold.
Once she'd corrected herself, Polly squinted at the woman. Though her eyes were dry from contacts that had obviously been in place for far too long, she could clearly see the deep wrinkles in the woman's dark, round, jowly face. The woman was slightly shorter than Polly, despite her rigidly upright posture. Her clothes incorporated every hue Polly had ever seen in home improvement paint aisles arranged in flowery patterns and whorls. Polly recognized the garish ensemble, though she couldn't recall why.
"I didn't take you for that kind of person," the old woman told Polly.
Polly shrank with guilt as the woman shook her head and gazed out into the ring of traffic, radiating disappointment.That kind of person. What was that kind of person? The kind that soiled military monuments with puke? The kind that sampled drinks that might have come from extraterrestrials? The kind that worked in a chain grocery store years after graduating from an expensive school, trapped in a mire of mindless repetition, devoid of motivation, drained of passion?
"Oh God, I am that kind of person," Polly wept, slumping against a light pole and cupping her hands over her face.
The woman appeared surprised and a touch embarrassed by the sudden emotional shift. She shuffled uncomfortably as Polly continued to cry and snort back globs of snot. She reached a hand toward her shoulder, but then withdrew, as if Polly were a very sad cactus in need of comfort and the woman wasn't quite sure how to handle the needles. Polly blubbered an apology and sank further down the light pole. The woman apologized in return for upsetting her and tried to coax Polly back up the pole, mentioning that she was drawing stares. This well-meant observation succeeded in collapsing Polly entirely. She landed hard on her tailbone, a pain she felt she deserved, like a spanking from the city.
"What happened to you?"
Polly detected mostly amazement in the woman's tone. The fact that it wasn't disgust gave her the strength to lower her hands, slick with caught tears. "Aliens," she answered. When the woman's eyebrows lowered in suspicion, Polly continued. "I was abducted by aliens. That's the kind of person I am. The abduct-able kind."
"What makes you think you were abducted by aliens?" The woman's voice was too grave for the subject matter.
Polly sniffled and tried to pull her scattered thoughts together. "I just know. I was in my apartment and then... then there wasn't an apartment. There were lights, and I was spinning. Someone was talking in my head. Oh my God, I've lost it. I'm going to be institutionalized."
Before Polly could succumb to the fresh wave of panic, the woman interrupted her. "What was the voice in your head saying?" she asked.
"You want to know if it was telling me about government conspiracies or demanding that I kill people?" Polly giggled, the beginnings of mania coloring her words. The woman's stony expression pressured her to go on. "It was equally crazy. The voice told me I was chosen as 'fuel' for a civilization beyond my comprehension, and that I was going to be called to action. I don't know what that means! But there's something in me insisting that aliens took me and did something to my body and I-"
"What sort of something?" The woman's voice had lifted several pitches. Alarm, fear.
"I don't, I couldn't, I don't know," Polly stammered, confused by the stranger's intensity. "Listen, lady, I've had a psychotic break. I'm delusional. I went out for a drink and got a fugue state instead. I don't know why I'm telling you about my E.T. hallucination."
Polly had managed to get to her feet while she was discrediting herself. It had finally happened. She'd snapped, rubber band-style, across the city with a head full of crazy and a pocket full of liquor funds. But now she was back to reality. Her reality was a bit blurry and queasy, but she was familiar with its basic components. The competing scents of cooking food and trash trucks, the concrete spire reaching up toward towering office buildings, the eternal distant clatter of construction underway somewhere in the city. Her mundane reality, the static of her life. It was reassuring in its normalcy, comforting in its constancy. And yet it appeared to have contributed to a mental breakdown, complete with memory loss and fantastic hallucinations.
"Do you remember anything else? Other than the voice and the lights? What did the aliens do to you?" the woman asked. Her eyes, deep brown and intense, locked with Polly's in a way that made her feel trapped.
"I told you I'm crazy," Polly insisted sharply as she attempted to melt into the light pole. "I just want to go home. I don't even know if I'm supposed to be at the store today."
That's how she recognized the colorfully clothed woman. She was a regular purchaser of oranges from the produce section Polly oversaw. They'd talked before and her name had reminded her of an old show.
"Lucy," Polly said as the name returned to her foggy mind.
Lucy's intensity faded and her lips pursed in a small smile. "I'm sorry to admit that I don't recall your name, but I do remember you. We commiserated over the current state of the economy, I believe. You said some witty things about the job market."
"I'm Polly," said Polly, and out of professional impulse, she extended her hand. Lucy shook the offered hand with an amused chuckle. Polly could picture her laughing at one of her sarcastic comments as she bagged her oranges. The old woman had seemed legitimately curious about Polly, which both flattered and confused her. They'd had an authentic chat about living in the city without going broke and Lucy had asked her about her education, an aspect of Polly's past that she disliked discussing. However, Lucy hadn't brought the subject up with the disbelief or pity Polly was accustomed to hearing in relation to the use of her degree in her underwhelming job. There were no judgmental head shakes or rude laughs at the English major stuck rearranging vegetables. Lucy had congratulated her on her academic success and her independent gumption. They hadn't spoken since. Polly's will to make small talk with customers had flagged over the past few months as her interest in daily life dwindled. She was aware that her routine was her cage, yet she lacked the "independent gumption" to break free of it. She was ashamed of her apathy initially, but that faded with time as well.
"Are you hungry, Polly?" Lucy inquired.
Polly blinked away her private reflection. "Hungry?"
"Would you like something to eat?" Lucy rephrased.
"Maybe a little," Polly downplayed. Now that her attention had been turned to the potential of food, sharp pangs sprouted from her stomach.
"Come with me. We can have breakfast at my place."
