Everyone knows this is another "Captured by Aliens" story

 

Sheila ... and the people who have been captured by aliens

 

By Thelma Mary Caroline

 

 

 

Sheila sat at the table, marvelling at the conversations around her.  Everyone had come in, in groups of two or three.  Blaise seemed to know everyone, though she only acknoledged one in each group.

 

"Hello, Larry.  Hi, Annie.  Yo, Louis!  I like your new haircut!"

 

Sheila tried really hard to listen to her conversations around the table.  Though nothing was particularly loud, it was hard to hear just one person.

 

"So you got my email?" a squat man asked.  With close-set green eyes and flyaway brown hair he seemed earnest.

 

Blaise rolled her eyes.  "I don't even remember by email address."

 

"Well, anyway, we've got it all figured out.  How to get back."

 

"Seriously?"

 

"Well, I try not to make it a habit to kid."

 

"God, I hate it here," Blaise said.  "I want to go home just as much as anyone.  How soon?"

 

"Hard to say," the green eyed man answered.  "I don't know all the intergalatic laws."

 

Intergalatic?  Maybe Blaise was right.  Maybe Sheila wouldn't believe any story Blaise told.  But surely -- surely Blaise had set this all up.  A bunch of her friends playing a huge joke.

 

Except that Blaise looked compleatly serious.

 

"Don't they have a website or something?  Intergalactic laws dot com?"

 

"Sorry."

 

"Didn't you google it or something?"

 

"But you'd think if we want to go back, then that's fine.  Right?"

 

The two looked over at the diminutive woman with stringy blue-black hair is in a mohawk.

 

"Shut up," the man said to her.  "Anyway, I don't know the laws, Blaise.  We'll just have to wait and see.  I sent an email to Trixie -- you remember her, right?"

 

"God, do I miss her."

 

Haichelle looked up at Blaise, her eyes narrowed.

 

"I didn't sleep with her."

 

"You didn't."

 

"Alright.  Once.  Twice.  Okay, three times, but it wasn't an arrangement."

 

Blaise's voice changed from playful to angry.  "Stop looking at me like that.  I mean it!  Don't make me take you outside!"

 

Haichelle looked away, her faced snarled and painful.  But no one at the table looked strange or uncomfortable.

 

"So anyway," Blaise continued.  "You emailed Trixie -- who I did not have an arrangement with -- and?"

 

"And she emailed me back.  Said that she's still in contact with them, they have this black market going on despite intergalactic investigation -- Blaise, did you tell your friend here anything that was going on?"

 

"What, Sheila?  No."

 

"Look at her.  She's got the most incredible look on her face."

 

Sheila just stared at the man.  "I have no idea what is going on.  Intergalactic laws?  What is that supposed to mean anyway?"

 

The man grinned widely at Blaise.  "At least she waits her turn to talk."

 

"She's not that kind of girl."

 

"Look, Sheila -- that's your name, right?  This is a crazy story.  I don't expect you to believe it.  We were captured by aliens.  Way back when, though a lot less time has passed here --"

 

"Twelve to one," Blaise said.

 

"Twelve days passed for every one day here.  We were on an alien planet, for a very long time.  Enslaved by aliens.  And we lived by their laws, the ones they impossed one us.  Then one day the Republic of the Worlds stops by, and finds out our aliens aren't following the Interglactic Laws regaurding slavery.  So quietly, they let us go."

"Talk about culture shock."

 

"I've got to go smoke," Sheila said.

 

"Mind if I go with you?" Blaise asked.  "They kind of freak out when I use my Caffine Sticks in here."

 

"I don't mind."

 

 

"A lot to take in, huh?"

 

"It's all true then?" the woman asked, taking a drag.  "That means you were there for six years.  And you want to go back?"

 

Blaise said, "Six years is a long time.  It's hard to readjust.  Everything's different.  I want things to go back to being the way they were.  Everyone does, I think."

 

"Everyone there?"

 

"Yeah."