The Journey to the Other Side

The journey to the other side

By Elsie Fleming

Dedicated to all life on foreign planets and galaxies

Maple Leaf Writing Program

Brattleboro, VT

Copyright 2016

I slumped as I walked. I had to make a big decision. I bent over and picked up a stone from the ground. It was long and sharp on one end. I tucked it into my back pocket then kept walking.

I lived in the Arc, in small galaxy with only one planet. Phinx, our planet, is almost completely flat and flips over in space like a coin. On one side of our planet is the Arc, and the other is Cription. The Arc and Cription are two different wings with different personalities.

In the Arc, we work hard. The people of Cription sometimes hire people from the Arc to do their dirty work. I have to admit, we do eat a lot of food but it’s probably because we burn a lot of calories in one day. There are plenty of jobs to do in the Arc, but we don’t have money. We are a community and the reason we work is for the whole wing and not for ourselves. Most things on our side of Phinx are black, white, or yellow and we have big black rocks of all shapes and sizes every 20 feet. These are caused by the time that Phinx crashed into the galaxy and became part of it. Before, Phinx was just a rock flying through space. At least that’s what I heard.

Cription is the happy wing. They decided to ruin their rock sculptures by painting them with pink sparkly paint. I disagree with their decision. Most of the girls wear pink tutus and T-shirts and the women wear pink sun dresses. The boys and men wear blue but the community is thinking about changing that color because they think that it is not happy enough.

The people in Cription care about having a good time and enjoying life. All the people that live there are nice and they always welcome new people to the wing.

I was 14. My parents died in a meteor crash five weeks ago. On this particular meteor there were aliens, blue slugs with three eyes on top of antennas. They leave a trail of dark yellow slime behind them. They are pretty cute.

These aliens are now living in the Arc with us because there’s nowhere to put them. They can be helpful sometimes but they like to rub up against you like a cat and they are big and slimy so people try to avoid them. Mom and Dad were in the house on the day of the crash. I came home from my job to a traumatizing scene.

After my parents died, there was no one to take me in so I had no other choice than to go to Cription to live. I could have lived with my aunt or maybe friends, but in the Arc, we have so little food that I wouldn’t want to take other people’s share of it.

Luckily, our family lived close to the edge of Phinx so it was only about a twenty minute walk over rocks and through some sand. When I got there, I climbed over the jagged edge of Phinx and experienced a very confusing trip. It felt like I had gone upside down. I felt dizzy and all of a sudden, the ground was zooming toward me, faster and faster.

I woke up and estimated that I had been out for only about 15 minutes. I got up and started walking, I needed water. It felt weird to be in the other wing. I saw the rocks that I had been told about, pink and sparkly. The paint had started to chip and it looked like a baby had barfed strawberry yogurt on it. It disturbed me a little. The sand was much smoother and it was warmer out too, and after walking for about three minutes, I got hot and sweaty and had to take off my black leather jacket (something I rarely have to do in the Arc).

After walking for about ten more minutes I came across a little straw hut. I knocked on the door and a chubby woman answered. She offered me cookies and tea but I refused and told her I’d just like water. I told her about my issue and she said that she would take me in but in her tiny hut there wouldn’t be enough room. She sent me away to a family with two infants and a big hut. When I knocked on their door they agreed to let me stay for a while.

My new family consisted of a dad, a mom, and two children named Tara and Millie. I slept upstairs with the girls and the parents slept downstairs on the folding couch. In the morning they made breakfast and I took care of the children. I helped with house cleaning and it was going very well for everyone until one night.

We ate a good dinner of green beans and chicken and I was helping Millie finish her dinner by pretending that the chicken on her fork was a crashing plane. We all took turns in the bathroom washing and putting on our pajamas and the girls and I went upstairs to go to bed. I tucked them in and got into my own bed but I couldn’t get to sleep. I thought I heard a noise downstairs but I was probably imagining it.

I laid awake in bed for about an hour, then I gave up and crept downstairs to get something to eat. I tiptoed across the squeaky kitchen floor, trying not to wake the parents. I opened the fridge and saw three orange snakes slithering around in a pot on the top shelf. SNAKES!!?? The pot tipped over. I only had enough time to start screaming in terror as I identified the species of snake that was falling me. I tried to get up but then I felt a sharp pain in my left shoulder and all went black.

I woke up in the hospital with tubes hooked up to me and nurses rushing in and out to check papers and study containers at the top of the tubes. None of them paid me any mind except for the occasional nurse who asked me if I hurt anywhere, but was too busy looking at a paper to get my answer. The type of snake that bit me was poisonous and doesn’t live in Cription. You rarely see them in the Arc except when you catch them slithering into holes in the ground. I couldn’t imagine why the family would have poisonous snakes in their fridge. I was very confused. Was the family trying to kill me? I layed my head back against the pillow and went to sleep.

As soon as I had woken up, a nurse came in to notify me that I had been asleep for about two hours and that my wounds were healing. My shoulder felt numb and so did a spot on my right leg but I tried to ignore the odd sensation. About ten minutes later, a plump nurse came bustling through the door and told me I had visitors.

The family gathered around my bed with low voices like they didn’t want anybody to hear them. My new mom told me that there were people living at the center of the planet called collectors . She said that their family were the only people who knew about them and how to get to their cave. Dad told me that the collectors were trying to kill their family because they don’t want people to know about them. They were planning to wipe out all of criptions population and then turn the land into a factory where they would use the things that they have stolen to build things that they would sell to other planets.

The collectors had ships that they made that travel through galaxies easily. They also wanted the land because they had come up with a formula that changes the rock sculptures into metal and they needed the metal desperately to make contraptions that they would eventually sell.

This was a lot of information to take in at once.

Mom is saying that they have no peaceful way of stopping them. They had an idea that they could cut off all entrances from the cave to cription but they would probably find some way to dig up through the ground. At this point I was considering going back to the Arc because I wasn’t interested in being a part of this. I would have rather gone back home and lived with my parents but I knew that I couldn’t do that.

To me, it had sounded like they wanted me to do something about it. They wanted me to help them. I didn’t want to help them but if they wanted me to, then I would have to because I was part of the family.

At about eight PM, a doctor came in and told me that I can leave. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and hopped out with too much momentum (forgetting that I had been on too many painkillers for the last three days) ending up off balance and heading toward the floor until the male doctor came swooping toward me. I ended up clinging onto the doctor’s shoulder. Sharp pain shot up my shoulder but I ignored it. He lifted me up onto my feet and helped me down the hall.

The white marble floor was very clean the hall smelled like my hospital room except stronger. There were also many hand sanitizer boxes along the walls. The doctor stopped a nurse in the hall and told her to collect my stuff from room 28. I had a vague memory of the nurse checking the tube that was connected to my shoulder, she had long black hair that was perfectly straight and her name tag said Sarah. The doctor, Matthew lead me to a dressing room and handed me my old clothes, washed and folded nicely (they also smelled like my hospital room). I closed the curtain behind me and got out of the hospital gown and into my black leggings, grey T-shirt, and leather jacket.

As I walked out of the dressing room the doctor was standing right there waiting for me. Matthew found a different nurse who had wavy blond hair and hazel eyes to lead me outside. I might have forgotten to tell you this but in the Arc we go everywhere on foot but in Cription they have things called arfes that are plastic things shaped like boats that roll around on three wheels. They were sold to the founder of Cription (who had been dead for twenty four years) by the collectors a long time ago. That’s what I learned two days ago when the family visited me. So anyway, the nurse brought me out to an arfe and helped me into it. When I sat down, something poked me and I stood back up. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a long black rock. I held it in my hand and sat back down as she typed some directions into the side of the arfe.

I arrived back at the house and tucked the rock back into my coat pocket. I watched as the arfe creaked away then I headed into the house and sat at the round kitchen table. The parents got up from the table as soon as they finished and when to consult in another room. I could hear the low muttering of them agreeing and disagreeing. Finally they came out to sit back down at the table with us. Tara and Millie were still nibbling on their crackers as Mom and Dad started to talk to me. They had agreed that it was not safe for me to stay here since their family was being targeted and they asked me to take the children with me to the Arc. They also asked if I had someone that I could stay with for a week. I told them that I had various people that I could try but I would probably try my aunt first because she was the only relative I had left. They said that we had to leave tomorrow.

This was a lot for me to take in at once but I managed to figure out how it might work. They also had mentioned that the collectors had set the pot of snakes up in our fridge and that they had done this by digging a hole up through the ground to under their floor and made a door in the thin wood for easy accessibility. This easy accessibility part made me a little bit scared like they were going to come in at night and kidnap us or something, but I have confidence in mom and dad.

We eventually, after a lot of discussion, came up with the plan that me, Millie, and Tara would dress as collectors and go down in disguise. The collectors big plan was to somehow get everyone out of the center of the planet and then use the device to implode the whole Cription side of the planet. When they evacuate the lair I will sneak in and work on shutting it off. Just in case there’s a backup generator, Millie and Tara will be on the edge of the planet pretending that they are guarding the plug to the device but they will unplug it as soon as possible.

The next day the parents showed us a picture of a collector and I was startled. It was dressed in loose black clothing and was definitely a different species than us. But we could totally pull it off.

The parents explained to us exactly when it happens, how the device worked, and how to unlock the plug.

The previous night mom had asked around for any extra clothing and dad had painted them black and in about an hour we were ready to go. It was about lunch time so mom gave us some food to eat on the way.

We parted more gracefully than I thought we would and wished each other good luck. Then we were off. I couldn’t believe that I was actually doing this. I started to hope really hard that I was going to wake up any second from a terrible dream where my parents died and I was about to risk my life to save cription. I was sure that I was going to wake up and my parents were going to be right there, by my bed, telling me that it was going to be okay.

I am questioned some about where we were going to live for the next week. I keep telling the kids that the people in the Arc were nice and that they will give us good food. They still seemed a little worried so I told them about the cute little aliens. This seemed to take their minds off it.

It is weird being home again. I’m thinking about staying with my Aunt so we are going there to check it out. I don’t know how much food she has considering that she lives by herself.

She was sitting at her wooden table with her head in her hand. My Aunt is a tall lean woman who was the oldest sibling in the family so she’s kind of like my grandma in a way. She has been depressed for most of my life because my uncle died of some sort of sickness. I don’t think that the meteor crash helped her depression either.

I told the kids to wait outside and I went in and quietly approached her. She noticed me and said hello. I told her the short story about why I was here and why there were two little girls waiting outside the door. She agreed to let us in but warned us that there wasn’t much room for sleeping. I told her that we would be fine then slipped out to get the girls.

We had a small dinner, the girls didn’t say a word to my aunt. We went to bed on the floor. When we got up we ate a small breakfast and wandered around outside until lunch. Outside, I would teach the girls about how to climb the rocks and show them the slugs. We would eat another small meal then wander some more until dinner. This was basically what we did for all the days that we were there except on the last day, we reviewed the plan, went through the equipment to make sure that we had all of it, my Aunt gave us her share of the food, and right before bed we put on our disguises. We set off the next morning and thanked my aunt for all the help that she had provided for us.

We each wore a backpack that blended in with our costumes that contained everything that we would need for our specific jobs. We found a hole and each of us took turns going down it. Everyone down there had no sense in direction and when you walked you floated a little bit. We headed for the crowd to blend in and when we got there one of the creatures grabbed a megaphone and yelled something into it in another language but I assumed that it meant to start evacuating because everyone started bustling toward small holes. I told the children to follow them and I wished them luck. I wished very hard to wake up.

I spotted the generator and jumped behind it so that they wouldn’t see me when they checked to make sure that no one was still in the lair. As I had predicted, they shone a light down and luckily I am not spotted. It had been about one and a half minutes when I was about halfway through shutting off the generator when it shuts off anyway. They must have unplugged it because there was a big whirring sound and the back up generator came on there was thirty more seconds until the implosion. It’s up to me now so I have to work fast. A few pieces of dirt were flying from the ceiling. Think think think! What comes first the lever or the button?! I’ll just go with button then lever and if it’s wrong I’m doomed! Slightly bigger chunks are plummeting from the ceiling. I slammed the button into the generator then pulled at the with all my might because it seemed to be stuck. Oops! The lever handle fell of! I rummaged through my bag until I found the long stick that I dug into the generator and pushed forward so that the stub that had been the lever would slide back. Suddenly the generator turned off. I guessed right. It was the button then the lever. Dirt stopped falling and the generator stopped buzzing. A rock came out of nowhere and hit me in the calf. It is my right calf. Pain seared up from where the snake bit me. Then I realize. I had been spotted! I whipped my wrench out of my bag and whirled around to where the rock came from trying not to limp. I spotted a dark creature with more rocks in it’s hands. It is shouting something in the odd language. I dug my hand into my pocket and found the sharp rock. I ran over to the hole, Trying not to limp. The creature threw another rock but missed. I jumped up and dug the rock into the creature. I heard a blood curdling scream then lots of heavy footsteps as I blanked out what was happening around me and ran. No one else had spotted me.

Collectors started to flood into the lair. I ran as fast as I could to get away from the collectors.

I was supposed to record the next announcement that the leader made to make sure that they weren’t going to try again. I recorded it from a hole on Criptions side with a little tape recorder then hurried back to the family’s house. They had just finished filling up the hole that the collectors had made in their kitchen. They sat down at the table and translated the announcement into our language by plugging it into a rusty old looking machine. It said this:

“ Something has gone wrong and the generator seems to be broken. We must not try again because it will risk our precious equipment!”

We all cheered and clapped. Just then I realized how much my wounds hurt. There was a big red stain on my pants. I went upstairs and took a long, hot shower. When I got downstairs, my parents came over to me and told me how proud they were of me.

That night we had a special dinner to celebrate. It was steak with mashed potatoes for dinner and hot fudge sundaes for dessert.

I will live with the family for the rest of my life and occasionally visit my aunt and possibly other relatives frequently.

Epilogue

We built a playground in the center of Cription with some help of the collectors who have befriended us. I now live with my husband right near the playground and we have one child named Matthew after someone who helped save my life.

One day when I was in my late 30’s, I was digging a hole with my child in the soft sand. I was sitting on the ground next to the hole and my son was throwing dirt next to me. He took a hand full and accidentally tossed it onto my lap. Something sharp hit my thigh and I cried out in pain. I sifted through the sand until I found a long, sharp rock that was red on the end. I picked off some of the dried blood and tucked the rock