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Science Fiction Novel “Connor’s Light – Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind” reading probe
Dear reader, here is the first chapter of the science fiction novel about Connor Lewis, who’s the weird one who attempts to connect with ET. It’s the shortest chapter of the book, let’s call it a gentle intro. No battling robots or crazy green aliens here. Nevertheless, I hope you like the read. Please make your comments. Praisings and critics welcome!! ;) Here we go:
Chapter I • Peaceful
Connor sits on a tree stump and squints into the sun.
He was last here three days ago, had just quickly tossed shovel and spade under the large spruce beside the hut and then, with hurried steps, made his way home in the rain. It wasn’t all that far from the house to here, his favorite spot, the garden. But he liked cold downpours as little as he liked his annual visit to the dentist. He quickly left the field behind him, but he only managed the stretch across the bare ground with a lot of cursing and effort. His boots constantly got stuck in the mud, sucked in firmly. Just a few meters from the house, he had to take them off altogether and pull them out of the treacherous ooze using both his hands.
“Goddam muck!”
In a foul mood, he then slip-slopped up to the house porch in sodden, filthy socks.
Connor gives an involuntary shiver at this memory: the drenched shirt, mud encrusted jeans, and, to top it all off, sodden feet – too much for him on that evening. Even now, with the ever present sun, he thinks he can still feel the cold shirt, the way it sticks to his back, chilly and damp.
“Gross…”
Since he arrived here a few years ago, in this raw, unspoiled wilderness, it had bothered him less and less that nature does not provide the usual amenities of a modern city apartment. No, nature is at least as capricious as he is in this regard. Sometimes he had to make do with the little natural produce that he found here, sometimes everything proliferated in superabundance. He knows by now how to deal with this and is less outraged if the crops he has so carefully cultivated have provided a tasty midnight snack for the native wildlife yet again. Since his arrival, he has established an extensive cultivation, there’s plenty of land available. Sure, there are a few fences, but they aren’t really helpful. Even now, the deer still manage to make inroads into the inner garden.
The previous week, the motion sensors had torn him from his sleep and, despite the cold and dark, he had dashed down to the field, armed only with a flashlight and his bathrobe. Only to find that the herd of herbivores had already high-tailed it thanks to his noisy attack – with one exception. One of the cloven-hoofed animals, clearly young, was running panic-stricken up and down the fences, looking for a natural escape route. It evidently wasn’t able, in its stressful situation, to recognize the short cut over the comparatively low picket fence as its salvation.
Connor opened the garden gate and, so as not to distress the animal even more, went slowly across to the opposite side of the plantation. In the meantime, the hoofed animal had become a little less frantic and was watching this biped. Warily and uncertainly, it skittered first this way, then the other again, and finally – jumped over the fence after all.
“Huh, why all that fuss, then?! Dumb klutz!”
Grumbling, Connor traipsed back to the house in the shoes he had quickly slipped on his feet.
“Have to protect my green stuff better. I’ll think up something for my babies first thing in the morning. That’ll take us from passive surveillance to active defense. Devils! I shouldn’t have to take these nighttime trips…”
It takes a while longer for him to calm down. The obligatory look at the sky helped here. Out here it’s starry, bright, full of overwhelming light contrasts. No street lights, no skybeamers from clubs and amusement parks, no smog like in Port Allegany back then. Although even that was probably nothing compared to L.A. or some other urban colossus.
“Old cowboy… – That really was worth it. Away from the city, away from the hustle, the crazies, the workaholics. You can take care of all your crap without me!”
Connor loped into his abode, let the door slam emphatically shut behind him. As if to underscore his last thought. A gulp from a mug of tea, quickly tousle his hair, and the deer as well as the starry sky made way for a rustic snore.
This little incident occurred a few days ago now, but the fence is still only protected with motion sensors.
“But I’m here now,” yawns Connor, squints quickly into the midday sun again and gets to his day’s work. Tonight, the motion sensors ought not – if they’re set off – to wake him up any more, but set off a cascade of battery-powered motors, whose rattle mechanism could even drive off a Sasquatch.
He grins.
“Ok, so it is a bit mean, that crashing and rattling. Not a bit natural and a scandal, really, that an animal lover should put such violent contraptions into the landscape. But, hey, Rudolf, this is MY land claim, dammit! There’s no way I’m gonna go without pickled corn or candied berries on my dessert this winter. I still need a while to wean myself off all that luxury stuff. And in the meantime you’ll just munch on your breakfast out over there, thank you very much!”
When evening creeps in, the construction is finished. Connor, relaxed and satisfied with his work, can devote himself to the view of the firmament. At the moment, only the brightest stars can penetrate the veil of dusk. But only half an hour later, a multitude of diamonds are resplendent over Connor’s small, secluded world. He leans his head back and broods.
“To be honest, right now, I would like to share this view with somebody important to me. Who knows, perhaps Kim’ll drop in again before fall for a long weekend. And I haven’t seen my daughter for several weeks now.”
It has got chilly, dark, and very quiet. The little hut lies in the embrace of the night, surrounded by a far distant horizon, an unending, silently shimmering expanse overarching above.
Connor sits outside on his tree stump a little while longer and blinks into the starry sky.
