The Disappointing Earth

On an alien spaceship, Ambrosia’s parents took yellow pills that made them grow and shed glossy black pelts and fell in love. By the time the experiments were done, Ambrosia’s mother was pregnant. And within a month of their return, Ambrosia’s parents were married. They used the abduction compensation payment to fund their honeymoon. The alien scientists even sent a silver mirror engraved on the edges with images of flowers as a wedding present. We feel so honored to have helped bring more love into the universe, read the accompanying card. Ambrosia retold this story over and over. She told it when people asked her to tell them something special about her. Reminded herself that, in a way, she had already been there, whenever aliens chose someone else instead of her.

When she was eight, Ambrosia was walking hand in hand with her best friend, Penny. A ship appeared overhead. Ambrosia felt the energy of the tractor beam. Its heat on her hands. Her hair stood on end. But it was Penny who went into space. The multiple abductions of her parents. Her Grandma Wilkins at Christmas. She went out in the kitchen to check the ham and poof, gone for four days. Teachers. All the gorgeous people on the news: zoomed up from minor league baseball games and Ferris wheels tops and first dates. Gross boys at school, the ones who dared each other to eat dirt and mixed up lunch food concoctions. Once, in a terrifying moment Ambrosia and Penny loved to reminisce about, the bus driver who was driving their soccer team to a tournament was taken. They had been on the highway, going seventy, when the elderly man was surrounded in a cloud of silver light. There was a flash and the seat was empty. The bus swerved toward the shoulder, and only because Coach Cox had fast reflexes did they avoid crashing.

At sixteen Ambrosia and Penny were eating ice cream cones and walking home together from soccer practice.

“Let’s watch Desires when we get to my house,” Penny said. She was obsessed with the vampire cowboy lead. She had taped pictures of him over her bed and, before sleep and upon waking, would say to them, “First Thing. Last Thing. Forever.” It was a secret Ambrosia had promised never to reveal, even though it made her laugh.

“Is that a … ?” Ambrosia pointed. She squinted and was sure. There was the wavy outline of a cloaked spaceship hovering above the stop sign across the street. Strawberry ice cream dripped down her wrist.

Penny’s eyes said, Be cool.

Ambrosia’s said back, Fine. But she had a vision of being interviewed by the nightly news team. Robert Chang would notice how funny and smart and pretty she was while being interview by Action News’ Liza Flick, and he’d ask her to homecoming. And if not him, a cool, artistic boy from the high school across town. She would have cool friends. Ones who had been abducted and drove the nice cars their parents bought them after their first abduction.

They sauntered toward the hidden ship as if they didn’t desperately need showers and their hands weren’t sticky. Each step brought them closer to the ship’s vibrations. They acted as if every other day aliens were abducting them in hopes of better understanding the human race. We are some of the most complicated members of our very strange species, their body language said.

The ship flickered into view. It was matte black and shaped like an ant’s head.

The mangy neighborhood dog was digging up the Andersons’ yard. Its tail wagged with deep happiness as it killed grass and exposed mud.

“That asshole dog is back,” Ambrosia said. It loved to push its snout in her crotch and make a soft woofing noise whenever she was on her period. It was the only animal she longed to punch in the face.

A tractor beam flickered on from the bottom of the ship. It hovered briefly over their heads and then moved over to dog. The girls watched as...