Katie shifted in her seat a little as her eyes moved from one face to the next in the circle. They were all looking back at her. Well, there was the new, semi-catatonic looking guy who kept tracing the scratch marks on one arm with a finger. He never looked up from his arm. Ever. So his eyes were not on her. She was tempted to focus on the top of his head while she talked, but she forced herself to move her gaze back to the on-looking eyes. “They fired me today,” the words jumped out of her mouth, “Said they couldn’t ‘conduct business’ with me working there.” Katie made air quotes with her fingers as she spit the words out. “I am NOT trying to get attention! I know what I seen and while I certainly regret tellin’ anyone now … I AM telling the truth!” Katie was getting more worked up with each word that passed thru her hot pink lips. Nate, who was sitting next to her laid his arm lazily on the back of her chair and gave her far shoulder a gently squeeze. “We believe you Katie, you are safe here,” he said softly to the distraught girl. “F@*# safe!” Katie yelled back at him, “I can’t live here Nate! This group can’t be my entire life! I need a job. I need to be able to walk down the street without hearing laughing behind me. I want my damn life back Nate!” Katie was getting hysterical now. Her eyes were red and puffy, she had clearly been crying long before she got to group tonight, and her lips were chapped and peeling from dehydration. It was clear Katie had not spent any real time in the sun for quite some time.

Nate wiped a tear from her pale and blotchy cheek with his weathered and tanned hand. He didn’t bother to reply, there were no words of value to be given. He didn’t need to tell her that it was alright for her to unload on him like she was doing; she knew he understood, and had even been there himself a few times. He didn’t need to tell her that he knew this group was a temporary part of her life. It was understood she would only need them until she figured out how to move on from her current, painful, reality. He wouldn’t waste his breath telling her that people would move on and forget to ridicule her once a juicier story became available. Katie had watched many new and juicy stories get added to the community grapevine, but there was always plenty of room to talk about Crazy-Katie and her UFO sighting. The people in this group did not patronize each other or tiptoe around each other’s feelings. It was a small group, very small, but everyone shared one common reality. Each of their lives had been permanently changed when they each had their own encounter with a UFO. Each had been ostracized by family and friends, each had been ridiculed, rejected and abused on some level. But none were as widely known as Katie. Katie had managed to land her story on the tabloid cover and her world showed no sign of improving. An unamused woman in her mid-thirties rolled her eyes, “then quit giving them new material,” the woman snapped. “Personally I think you enjoy the attention.” Katie turned toward the woman, fury in her eyes, “They have invaded every part of my life!” Katie spat, “This ‘new material’ you speak of is me living my life,” The woman looked at her squarely, “No. It's you MAKING IT your life! If you want them to go away, if you want it to end, quit trying to convince them! Check into rehab for a couple of weeks; claim it was all a ‘bad time’ in your life, and ask for the public's forgiveness and they’ll be back to throwing you parades in the trailer park, princess.” The lady turned in her metal folding chair to put her back toward Katie. Her arms were folded defensively across her chest and she stared intently at nothing in particular; because the drab empty walls of the small room offered nothing in particular to occupy a stare.

Katie was shaking now, “REHAB!?” She yelled in disbelief, “Are you serious? You know what I saw! You know I am not on drugs! Did you check into rehab after YOUR sighting?” The woman looked over her shoulder at Katie and calmly said, “No. But I don’t think blaming my “sighting” on drugs is going to help me get my children back now is it?” The woman raised her eyebrows questioningly for a moment and when no response came she slowly turned back to the empty wall. A young bohemian looking man spoke up, “I think, what Candace is trying to say is that, at some point, what we know is true is not as important as what we can prove; especially if your priority is being able to live in peace.” Katie looked at the bohemian with disgust, “Are you seriously suggesting that we play dumb and pretend we don’t know what we know. Don’t you feel any responsibility to protect those too ignorant to understand the dangers out there?” Nate spoke up, “Now wait a minute Katie, you know we don’t agree on this point. We have not actually observed any violence or any sort of evidence that proves malice. We have only seen their aircraft hovering and potentially observing us.” Nate’s eyes pleaded with Katie to be reasonable. Katie’s eyebrows shot up and she started talking slow and pointed as if she was speaking to a small child, “The fact that there are aliens watching us, observing us, and NOT coming out to announce themselves sort of implies that they are plotting against us. It is not friendly behavior, not after all this time.” Katie spun around the room searching each face frantically, “There IS NO other explanation for the spacecraft to keep showing up like this, over decades! And you’ve read the stories from others. Others have not been as lucky as us. Others have been kidnapped and probed! Can you go home and hand out Puddin’ Pops to your children, turn on the latest episode of ‘Cheers’ and pretend you don’t know at any moment we could be invaded and attacked!? Can you honestly do that?” The Bohemian looked at her, a bored expression of superiority on his face, “Yes. Yes I can. I do not feel responsible to save those who do not wish to be saved. We can only warn people so many times Katie.” Katie stood looking at the young man in shock. She seemed to be deciding whether to wash her hands of him or leap across the room and strangle him with her bare hands. “Your selfishness is notable,” she hissed. “But one thing you seem to be forgetting,” Katie continued with contempt in her voice, “Our fate is tied to their fate idiot! If we can’t make them believe our evidence of extraterrestrial life, then we will not have the money, resources or backing to create a defense plan! Seriously sometimes I think you are as stupid as the disbelievers!”

Nate took a deep breath and seemed to brace himself, “Katie, we do not know anyone personally that has been attacked. They are all stories that we cannot prove. Don’t you find it odd that no one in this room, despite each of us having at least one encounter with the aircraft, has ever been abducted or probed or even SEEN a life form?” Katie turned to Nate again, “Wow, we can’t PROVE their stories are true? Like we can’t PROVE that OUR stories are true!? You HONESTLY sound like them! We know their stories are true BECAUSE we know our stories are true Nate! Aliens are out there. They are watching. They have given us no reason to believe they are friendly or mean well, so we must at least plan for the reality that they are not. We cannot plan without people and resources on our side. Our time should be spent figuring out how to capture evidence to prove to the people that aliens exist.” After a moment of quiet, Nate spoke again, “what are you suggesting?” Katie’s lips turned up at the corners in the tiniest of smiles, she felt victorious just to have them finally listening, “I have a friend who has a camcorder and he said I could borrow it,” she started. Candace piped up, “What’s that?” Katie turned to Candace who had turned back to the group again, “It’s like a movie camera but smaller and it records videos onto VHS tape so you can play them in your VCR. We can use it to capture the device on video and play it on the 5 O’clock news!” The Bohemian spoke up, “I’ve seen those camcorders. Aren’t they sort of large and heavy? Are we just going to tote it all over town waiting for the Aliens to show up again? That ought to stop the townsfolk from gossiping!” he finished sarcastically. Katie’s face went red again, “Being a smartass isn’t helpful. At least I am trying to come up with a solution. Help, or get out!” Katie extended an arm, pointing to the door. The Bohemian jumped up, “Who the hell are you to tell me to get out? This isn’t YOUR group to run! Maybe YOU should GET OUT!” Now Nate jumped up and got in between them, “Nobody is throwing anybody out of group. Everyone calm down. We have actually run a little long tonight so why don’t we wrap it up and process tonight’s discussion. Maybe we can have some productive suggestions by the next meeting. Katie grabbed her coat and purse off the back of the chair and strode angrily out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The rest of the group members slowly gathered their things, some of them forming smaller groups to conduct private conversations, before leaving.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As the last of the group slowly filed out of the small back meeting room of the church, shoulders were slumped with the weight and fatigue of having unloaded one’s soul. Their eyes all seemed to be trained on their vehicles across the parking lot. Some expressions said, “I cannot get to the safety of my vehicle fast enough” while other’s seemed to plead for an excuse to NOT go to the vehicle that would drive them back to the solitude of their lonely lives. Their mutual pain and distraction made it possible for the small saucer shaped vehicle, hovering above their heads at the door, to zip into the room at the back of the quiet church, un-noticed, before the door clicked closed. The vehicle zipped over to the window and appeared to be looking out, watching all of the sad figures make their way to their cars. The aircraft hovered at the window and watched while one at a time the group members pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared into the night. When the last taillights blinked out of sight, the small hovering vehicle flew over to a picture hanging on the wall opposite the windows and began to vibrate in place giving off a low humming vibration that slowly turned into a high-pitched whine. As the whine got louder, it looked as if the picture might shake loose from the wall, but before that could happen, a small cloud-like substance formed in front of the picture and began to swirl. The cloud appeared to be made up of fairy dust or a billion tiny stars because it glittered and sparkled spectacularly. Slowly, the picture became distorted behind the swirling, glowing cloud that grew in front of it. When the cloud was nearly 2 feet in diameter, and starting to form a cone back towards the picture, the small aircraft zipped into the cloud and disappeared. In the blink of an eye the tiny airship zipped back out of the cloud again and into the same small room at the back of the church. But the room was no longer an empty and dismal meeting space for social shunned citizens. Now the room was a warm and cozy sitting room. It was richly decorated with warm tapestries and inviting furniture. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace at the far end of the room. A tall, distinguished gentleman sat in an over-sized chair at one side of the fire. He was sipping on a delicate tea cup when the tiny flying vessel zipped into the room. It flew straight into his waiting hand and he set it gently on his side table next to a newspaper dated April 20, 2018. The man turned the device to face a giant white screen on the wall and pushed a button. The screen was immediately filled with an image of the featureless meeting room. Nate stood in the center of the room, in a circle of folding chairs shaking hands with people as they filed in and took their seats. The gentleman sat forward a little, anticipation obvious in his body language. He was so absorbed in watching the people file into the meeting room on the screen, he jumped a little when a youthful looking woman walked into the room unannounced and picked up the device.

She pushed the same button the gentleman had pushed only moments before and the image snapped off the screen. “Honestly father, I don’t know why you waste your time on this nonsense,” the woman shook her head in obvious disapproval “surely you can find a better use for your time than flying drones in and out of that ridiculous wormhole to record the dismal lives of people you’ll never know?” The gentleman blushed slightly and shrugged, “It is my guilty pleasure. Cut an old man some slack, it’s not as if I am hurting anyone.” He gave his daughter a helpless smile, and she sighed before smiling back, “Well, your guilty pleasure will have to wait, we have company” She took her father’s elbow and helped him rise from the chair. As she assisted him from the room, the gentleman couldn’t help but look back longingly at the drone sitting patiently on his side table. His eyes flitted from the drone to the painting on the wall. A small smile played at his lips and he turned his attention back to his daughter guiding him from the room.