The Enarii Chronicles

It was a warm summer day, and Alex was visiting one of his favorite Earth cities, New York City. The breeze was just cool enough to be pleasant. He sat on a bench in Washington Square Park, sipping his cortado from Dean & DeLuca. After all these years, he still marveled at human inventiveness, and the many varieties of coffee they had created from a simple bean. He made a point to try a different one every time he visited. Alex had made dozens of trips to Earth to observe the humans, but this one felt different. As an Enarii, he had been tasked with passively observing the humans, and was given specific instructions not to interfere. After decades of observation, he was eternally hopeful he might eventually find some sign that the humans were ready for first contact, ready to share technology and explore the stars together. But the Enarii Council was still convinced humanity wasn’t ready. They’d been watching for about seventy-seven years, since Alex was a small child, and humans had only gotten worse in that time. He had heard rumors that the Council would abandon the project at one-hundred years, so time was ticking. Alex loved watching the humans go about their daily lives. He didn’t know what proof he was hoping to find in Washington Square Park, but he was definitely not expecting what he found. Across the way, he saw a pretty girl sitting on another bench. She looked about sixteen or seventeen years old, but he was often still bad at estimating human ages. She had long auburn hair with subtle highlights, held back and out of her freckled face with tiny plastic butterflies. Her eyes were blue and accentuated by the silver body glitter on her eyelids. She was wearing a black sundress with a sunflower print all over. She was average height, but taller in her chunky wedge sandals, and on the slim side. Her outfit was that of a typical teenager in the late 90s, but women’s fashion still boggled his mind. It wasn’t until he noticed she was staring back at him that he realized maybe he had been looking too long. Wait, is she looking at me? She can’t be! he thought. He reminded himself to blink, and sure enough, she was still staring straight back at him. It was getting awkward. The girl tilted her head slightly and looked at him expectantly. He tried to pretend he hadn’t been staring at her. How could she see him? The Enarii were usually invisible to humans, unless they chose to be visible, which was usually done in order to engage in some mundane human activity, like ordering coffee. He hoped his appearance and dress were sufficient to approximate a human teenager; he always liked to dress the part just in case. He was average height and build, at five-foot, ten inches, and 190 pounds, with short blonde hair and brown eyes. He wore what the Enarii considered a standard generic teenager outfit of blue jeans, a plain black t-shirt, and sneakers. She gave up waiting for him, rolled her eyes, and started walking his way. Panicking, he rose to meet her and said the first thing that came to mind. “Hola! Como estas?” She stopped a few feet from him, tilted her head again, and got an adorably puzzled look on her face. “Lo siento, hablo un poco español. ¿Hablas ingles?” she said, cautiously. He thought, Oh no! Right. I’m in New York City, the United States, where most people speak English. His last visit had been to Madrid, Spain. Wait, she can see me and understand me? And respond in Spanish?? “Yes, sorry! Um, hi. I’m Alex,” he stammered. His Enarii name was Alix’arion, but Alex worked well enough as a human derivative. “Hi, Alex! I’m Marcella. You looked lonely on that bench. What are you doing here?” “Uh,” he fumbled for a minute, trying to fathom why he wanted to tell her the whole truth. He decided not to, though, he didn’t lie, either. “I’m just watching the people.” Her eyebrow quirked slightly as though maybe he had phrased that oddly. “You mean people watching?” He laughed, nervously, and a little too loud, “Yes! People watching. I like cities because there are so many people everywhere.” “Yeah, me too. This is a great city to do it in, too. It’s only my second time here. I’m visiting my sister, and killing time while she’s off on an audition,” Marcella said. “Well, would you like to ‘kill time’ with me? We could ‘people watch’ together,” he said. The whole conversation went against his mission of passive observation, but he was intrigued. If she could see him, maybe she was meant to be a bridge between their species. Marcella smiled, and the smile quickly grew to a mischievous grin, “I’d love to!”