THE ALIEN LANDS

One afternoon, all six of them were sitting in a circle in the middle of the Maze. It was a baking hot-summer day. The temperate was close to one hundred and ten degrees which was unusual weather for Georgia. They were all thinking about the Fifth-Year production they knew they were going to have to eventually come up with for the class project. They had been working on their breathing exercises. Billy was leading the effort because he thought that if he maintains control emotionally he could go further in his new career then he could have ever anticipated.

They started drinking early, over lunch. Homemade pizza a la Billy who only had a few weeks to stay with them before he started his new job at Disney. Billy loved making his home-made pizza. Friday’s was the one day of the week that everyone looked forward to. They were all having a fellowship day. They were watching movies using Damien’s I-PAD, they helped each other out by giving tips on how to be ready for the upcoming new semester. Cordelia and Sandy were the only ones who felt like they could not carry a tune.

Finally, everyone got all the way though it and decided to lid down on the freshly cut grass admiring the sky and the large house off in the distance. Cordelia felt the sudden urge to use the bathroom so she ran off to a secluded place to handle her business and when she came back, Sandy was talking about someone name Dennis Finny.

“Don’t tell me you knew him,” Raleigh said.

“I didn’t. But remember I roamed with that bitch Daisy Chambers during our First-Year. I was talking to his cousin last week when I was home, he’s living near my parents in L.A.”

He was here then. Told me the entire story.”

“Really.” Raleigh said.

“Look, I leave in three weeks for my new life.” Billy said. “Tell us the story.”

“Look, I know you’re going into Development at Disney and I wish you nothing but success there. You can’t tell anyone I told you this. Hell don’t even develop a movie about this incident.”

“I’m not going to develop a movie about this. I promise.” Billy reassured her.

“Besides,” Damien said as he bit into his pizza, “Montana wasn’t a bird-of-prey. She’s like one of those women that you don’t fuck with ever. Is it true the rumor that she borrowed two hundred dollars from you and she never paid you back?” Damien was lying on his back, enjoying the cloudless sky. He was in his final year at the school and contemplating what to do after graduation.

“I don’t mean to be a buzz kill guys but who is Dennis Finny?” Christina asked.

“Dennis Finny,” Sandy said enjoying the nice, warm sky, doing what she loved doing best, dishing out gossip about the first person who took a trip down what the students call washout lane, “Dennis Finny was the first person to drop out of Arcadia Academy in two-hundred years.”

Her words floated up to the surface like bubbles floating up for air and vanishing in ripples of small stream rushing away from the center of the disturbance. No one knew why they decided to lay down on the grass today.

“Dennis came to Arcadia about ten years ago. I think and I’m not certain about this but I think he was from South Carolina. I just remember when I first heard him speak, I remember laughing my ass off about his accent. But to hear him say so, his family, The Finny family was one of the richest, well-connect families in the state of South Carolina. He had been acting since he was seven years old and although the Finny family made their money though their fast food chain Sand Grills, they had enough contacts that they convinced Ashman to let Dennis audition. Dennis reminded me of one of those hookers you see strolling up and down the streets of New York.”

“Wait a second,” Raleigh said, “how do you know he was like a hooker. I never go that vibe about him.”

“Wait,” Cordelia said looking at Raleigh, “You knew him?”

“I am a Fifth-Year student. I remember him.

“Hey!” Sandy punched Billy on his right arm. “Who the hell is telling this story here?”

Then Christina also punched Billy on his left arm. “Quiet, some of us really do want to hear this story.”

“I only know this story because Dennis’s cousin dished the dirt out on him. Anyway, this is my story to tell and if I say he was a hooker on fifth avenue than he is and deal with it.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cordelia said teasing, “the queen has spoken.”

“Danny Finny was one of those guys that nobody ever noticed, who are friends with similar boys of the same ilk. Nobody liked or disliked them. They were rich privileged fucks who thought because of their DNA they could run Arcadia Academy anyway you wanted. The rules did not apply to them. They thought they were born to break the rules.”

Sandy took another bite of her burger.

“Danny to my surprise was a good student. He kept busy, participated in all the plays, even wrote a production for the Third-Year project class and then he did the one thing no one saw at coming at this school. He fell in love with one of his professors.”

“Come on,” Christina said, “Seriously, he fell in love with one of the Professors?”

“Like there isn’t one professor at this school you don’t have a secret crush on. Everyone does it. Don’t sit here and lie to me on the grass. We all have a teacher school crush at one time or another. Hell, Mr. Sandburg who teaches Fundamentals of Directing was someone I had a crush on for a good while. I don’t know what I liked more, his front side or his back side.” Sandy started laughing, “But seriously school crushes usually go away after a few months when reality sits in and they discover the professor is married or isn’t interested in them. But not our Dennis. He was deeply, passionately, delusional in love. The World Beyond the Walls love.” That was an intentional jab at Cordelia who stuck her tongue out at her. “Billy would stand outside his window at night. He and I must confess was a damn good artist drew pictures of him and then cried at them.”

“Man, was the guy on some serious acid?” Billy asked.

“I don’t know if he did drugs or not, but I do know he became moody, he was fighting depression. He went through more moods then Kanaye did on his good day. He started wearing straight up brown clothes. Even on the uniforms. It was funny, we thought he was trying to do a real-life version of Broke Back Mountain,” everyone laughed.” Then Sandy added, “he spent a lot of time at the Wolf stein.”

They all groaned. Wolf Stein, not to be confused with the popular video game that came out in the nineties was a fountain located in Maze; it’s official name was Wolf de Stein, named after one of their most famous actors and then later one of these professors. It was the chosen spot of choice for societies rejects, leather crowd and gutsy folks.

“Now, he had a secret, a capitol big fucking S tattooed on his chest and ironically, it made him more attractive to people, they all wanted to know what his secret was. And sure enough, before long, a girl came along, an unfortunate girl, fell in love with him.”

She dived into her large order of tater tots.

“He didn’t love this girl back, Dennis was saving all of his loving for Professor Sexy stud, but she made him feel pretty damn good, since no one had ever loved him before and come to think of it, I don’t think he had ever been in love with anyone before. I mean from what I remember, she strung him along like the Princess from the Mario brothers game flirting with Mario and getting ready to get her some plumbing loving. If you get my drift. She did that with the hope that the real love interest would become crazy jealous.”

“Now, let’s introduce the third variable in our little cake mix drama here. By all rights, Professor Sexy Stud was the name of the professor he had a thing for. That’s what I’m going to call him because I’m not ready to reveal his identity yet.”

“Come on, don’t keep us waiting, Sandy.” Damien said protesting.

“You will enjoy the surprise when I get to it. Trust me on this. The professor should have been easily resistant to his charms. We all thought that he was a straight shooter maybe even banging one of the younger teachers and then forgotten all about it. Honestly guys, Dennis wasn’t even that handsome. Maybe men when they get to his age have some kind of crisis, maybe he thought, do I have a thing for younger guys maybe it would remind me of my misspent and party life style I had in my youth. I even heard rumors that he was married. Had this fine Latin honey for a wife. That’s the rumor anyway.”

She took a sip of her drink.

“We will never know what happened or how far their relationship went, except it went further than Professor Sexy stud intended for it to go and eventually the man came to his senses, or got what he wanted from Dennis and called it off.”

She took another sip of her soda and then bit into her burger some more.

“Needless to say, Dennis became even more obsessed with all things leather and I dare say maybe a little kink as time went on while the girl who had a thing for Dennis began making these crazy ass comic book like drawings depicting Dennis like he was some kind of superhero. She would give Dennis gifts and always try to lift his spirits.”

Sandy took the last bite of her burger and then another sip of her drink.

“Maybe you guys knew this, I don’t know, but I certainly didn’t but Wolf Stein used to be different from the other fountains. Maybe that’s why the brooding and the outcast started hanging out there. You wouldn’t notice what was wrong with it at first, but after a while when you consider it, you could see yourself what you would look like ten years down the road and most of the time you either like what you see or you hate what you see. Maybe therefore that fountain was so popular. There were rumors going around that that was the oracles favorite fountain. No one to this day knows how he pulled this off, but he somehow made it possible for people to see their futures when they look into the fountain.”

Now, Sandy started working on her ice cream slush.

“You have to wonder though guys, was the Oracle that connected to the water that it didn’t matter who the person was that he could see what was coming down the road for them. If the person looking into the fountain was going to be happy or not? It makes you want to do a lot. I wonder if there was some kind of divine purpose when they were designing the Maze.”

Damien and Christina snorted.

“Look, I’m just saying that’s what the rumors are about them, don’t kill the messenger,” Sandy took another bite of her ice cream slush, “the thing is, Dennis started spending a lot of time at Stine, just eating his food and hanging out, and I guess trying to make sense of the affair he was having with Professor Rory. He spent so much time that there that he started to recognize one of the faces in the fountain. Somebody like him, who was spending a lot of time at the other fountain, the one in the reflection. For sake of this story let’s call him Walter. After a while, Dennis and Walter started to notice each other. They would acknowledge each other, a little wave, you know just to be friendly. Probably Walter was a little bit educated, too. I get the feeling they connected with each other.”

Sandy finished her ice cream shake.

“No one knows how they figured out how to do this, but they managed to communicate with each other. I don’t know the full details on how, don’t ask. I will say that you all have highly focused imaginations, use them.”

Damien and Raleigh exchanged looked. Then they all looked over to Cordelia and Christina who were also puzzled.

“I don’t know how things worked where Walter was from, maybe technology there allows her to communicate through the fountain into our world, no one knows. Or maybe and I thought about this theory years later one day is that I personally think Walter was fucking with Dennis and getting a laugh out of it, maybe Walter got tired of hearing Dennis bitch like a Drama Queen hell bent on making sure that his life was just as bad as Dennis’s. But, one day, when they were talking by the fountain, Walter suggested to Dennis that he should change his appearance and if he does that, he might be surprised at the result.”

A chill flooded over the group, where they lay under the baking hot sun. Cordelia knew that acting was the key to unlocking everything they wanted. In the world of acting theory there was a dead zone in the human heart: something about the connection we all have. The heart is the key and connects directly with your face and who you are as a person. The heart helps identify what is in your soul. When Cordelia had first arrived at Arcadia Academy, she wondered why everyone just didn’t run to the make-up department and demanded that they be transformed into good-looking men and women. She looked at everyone as if they had secrets and lies hidden inside of their body ---- like Sandy and her over dominating personality, or Damien with his self-defeating attitude --- and wondered why no one volunteered to come and give them an extreme makeover.

“Poor Dennis,” Sandy said. “Walter had signed a way for him to find the key to his happiness, he actually believed in the pattern of his soul that he had found the secret weapon that everyone else missed. It was exotic and the price he would pay was high, but it really looked like in Dennis’s mind that this might actually work and get him everything he wanted. After a few weeks of talking with Walter, getting the ground ready for his master plan, he put his plan into action one night.”

Now, everyone was dreading the next part of her story.

“How do you think Dennis felt when he looked in the mirror and saw what he had done to himself?” You could almost detect a hint of sympathy in Sandy’s determined voice. “I can’t imagine, I really can’t imagine doing that, for anyone.”

It was now late enough in the afternoon that the shadows from the forest had stretched out from the Western edge of the Maze to cover them and cool off the lawn they were all resting on.

“I am surprised that they still talked to each other, because Walter got word to Dennis that he was in trouble, bad to the point where Walter intruded into our world. Walter would not let him go to the faculty --- McShane was the Director and McShane being the hard ass that he was, would have so kicked Dennis out of the Academy.”

“Wait a second,” Billy said as he interrupted her, “Are you saying the so-called Professor let him stay, even after Dennis did what he did?”

“Dennis had used technology to force someone to fall in love with him that wasn’t in love. Think of it as brainwashing. Professor Sex Stud noticed that he was being drawn somewhere. One day, when he wasn’t teaching, he found himself near the dorms, he walked up there and found Dennis waiting for him.

“I can only think about Dennis state of mind at that point. In a way, for him, he was going to get the one thing in life that he had been wanting. This was his golden moment, his chance to make love to the one guy he had always wanted to make love to. It was his chance and Walter was there in the background manipulating things for him.”

“However, I don’t know, I think Dennis had enough time at this point to figure out what he wanted out of life. I’m guessing the dime had finally dropped. Dennis knew by using technology to manipulate another human being was a terrible risk because manipulating another human with technology is a crime and he was risking a lot just by doing that.”

“Either way, Dennis made two mistakes that night. He used alien technology to manipulate another person and two, he really didn’t know what he was doing. He was tired, scared, and way over his head as well as the line. I don’t know if the stress of the situation weighed on his heart. It would have weighed on mine. I know what it is like to want something so badly that you will move heaven and hell in order to get what you want. He went into a heat of passion with Professor Sexy Stud. Both men lost control at that moment.”

That was what Ashman was talking about that night in the infirmary, Cordelia thought. About losing control. Someone actually damaged themselves for love.

“Well, Dennis freaked out. I mean he really freaked out. Professor Rory got kicked out of his room, he broke down sobbing uncontrollably. By that point, the entire school was awake. I can only imagine how Dennis felt, in the way the whole thing was his fault. He used alien technology to change something important about himself. Professor Sexy Stud tried to explain how life works. Dennis wasn’t hearing it.”

“I have to confess though; Professor Sexy Stud was cool about it. He kept everyone out of the room. He managed to repair the part of his body that was broken. That couldn’t have been easy. Whatever the hell Professor Rory did to Dennis, he must have known the Colonial technology better than anyone, but they used the technology to change him. Now, I hear he’s adjusting to life okay but he’s not the same as he was when he first arrived.”

“And that’s the story. I can’t imagine what kind of story that Director Ashman told his parents. I hear they talked to the Colonial leaders about trying to reverse it, but nothing has worked.”

There was silence as everyone looked to Cordelia.

“Don’t look at me, I don’t know anything about this.”

The sun was quickly starting to race down signaling the end of the day was fast approaching.

“This has been an interesting story and all,” Christina said almost ready to jump out of her body, but what happened to the Professor?”

“You still haven’t figured it out?” Sandy couldn’t believe it. She was ready to explode with joy. “They gave him a choice: resign in disgrace not to have the support of the academy or transfer to Antarctica. Arcadia South. Guess which one he took.”

“Son of a fucking bitch.” Damien said. “McShane? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“That explains a hell of a lot,” Cordelia said.

“Doesn’t it though?” Sandy added, “I knew it the day we arrived but because of your people’s technology I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“What happened to Dennis Finny?” Billy asked. “Did he just leave school?” Billy was genuinely curious like the rest of them. “Did his heart and soul get repaired? Did he go to a normal school?”

“Well, from my understanding, they set him up with a nice executive job in Los Angeles. He’s some kind of big Wall Street big wig. In secret though, Arcadia owns part of that firm because Dennis wouldn’t know his ass from a slug in the wall. Basically, Dennis sits in an office, surfs all day, play online games. I think part of him doesn’t know or has forgotten what happened here at Arcadia.”

After that, Sandy stopped talking. Cordelia let herself drift among the increasing clouds. She was drinking wine for the first time in her life and was enjoying it. She wasn’t the only one enjoying herself because Billy stood up after a few moments, lost his balance and fell flat on his ass. The group started laughing at him. Then they applauded.

But he stood up again, steadied himself, did a nice loud ass stinking fart and then did a backflip. He couldn’t believe himself. He was beaming with joy.

“I did it,” he said, “I fucking did a back flip and no one was recording it so I could post it on twitter. I hate my fucking life.”

“I tell you guys, I’m going to miss all of you next year. I’ll be at my office at Disney Studios thinking about all of you wishing I was still with you.”

“We’re going to miss you too.” Damien said dryly. “I can’t imagine how life is going to be like without you to entertain us anymore.”

“Guys, I’m going to be here three more weeks and then it’s off to the real world. I got to go and show this off to the others. You guys behave yourself.”

“Going into development was the right move for him,” Sandy said.

Everyone agreed with Sandy and let out a little chuckle.

Christina wasn’t herself. Cordelia knew something was wrong as she told Raleigh she would catch up with him later. She wanted to go and find out what was wrong with her friend.

“Hey,” Cordelia said, “you got out there rather quick.”

“Why did she have to tell us that story?” Christina started crying, “Why is Sandy always like that?’

Cordelia suddenly felt terrible because she enjoyed the story. It was a horrible story true but deep down she really liked it.

“Look, I’m sure it’s not true. You know Sandy, she’s the queen of gossiping,” Cordelia rubbed Christina’s back, “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything from it.”

“Don’t play me for a fool Cordelia.” Christina pulled back, trying to control her tears with the back of her hands. “I always thought my brother was killed here on Earth, but knowing what we know now, your people being here. I’m questioning everything I know.”

“What are you trying to say?” Cordelia asked. “You don’t think your brother was the guy in the story, do you?”

She nodded. “I think he was. In fact, I have a gut feeling that’s what happened to my brother. No one in the family will ever talk about what happened. Franklin was gay and he was so careful to hide it from everyone in our family because of their homophobic racist views. He only told me because I was the only one in the family that he could trust.”

“Can I offer something in encouragement Christina?”

“Sure,” she responded.

“Maybe Sandy doesn’t realize this but she might not know it’s your cousin she’s talking about.

“That’s what she wants everyone to think.” Christina said trying her hardest to contain her boiling red hot anger. “She is a controlling cunt who gets on my last fucking nerves.”

Controlling was a big word at Arcadia that year. Cordelia was going to keep defending Sandy when something else invaded her thoughts.

“That’s has to be why you were not invited here,” Cordelia said softly. “It has to be. Because of what happened to your cousin.”

Christina nodded, her crying intensifying, she chewing away at the shields slowly coming down around her heart. Her life no longer a mystery, no longer a secret.

“They didn’t want anything like that happening to me. As if I would ever lose control the way Albert did. God, is everyone in this god damn world stupid but the two of us?”

They stopped at the edge of the Maze, the sun completed down the horizon now, darkness rapidly approaching. They almost acted like vampires, happy that darkness was coming out to allow them to play.

“At least now I know the truth,” she said, “But why did she tell that story C? Did she know it would hurt me?”

Cordelia shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was get in a fight between Christina and Sandy. She wishes she could explain it away. She wanted everything not to hurt so much.

“Never forget,” Cordelia finally said, “you have talent, you know how to use that talent and no one can take that away from you. Not you, not me, and especially not Sandy.”

“Thanks Cordelia. I could always count on you.”

“I am always going to be your friend. Never forget that.”

“I won’t and thank you so much.”

They left the Maze and climbed the stairs where they went their separate ways. Raleigh met Cordelia and they watched as Christina went off to her bedroom. Cordelia and Raleigh disappeared into their rooms to be left to their rooms. Cordelia silently prayed for her friend’s sanity.