The Assignment

by Susanna Solomon

“Sorry You Did Not Reveal Yourself to be Human”

(From a recorded message)

Monday

Krok put his headset down. He wasn’t human anyway. So how could he call to report a problem with his internet access? Lie? Not his style. Tell the truth? Um, not going to happen, not today.

On Zoltron, he didn’t have that problem. There, everyone had internet surgically implanted in their heads, the older ones anyway, but for the younger set, scientists had figured out how to alter DNA so they didn’t have to have any surgery at all.

Krok scratched his scar behind his ear. After twenty years, it still bothered him in damp weather. And now, in Northern Marin County, in Novato, they’d predicted another winter storm. It was going to ache even more.

He sighed. Looked out his picture window onto the street. Children played dodge ball in the cul-de-sac. He’d been earthbound six months, six months too long in his book. He was the unluckiest man in the universe. He missed the treeless landscape of Zoltron, and if it weren’t for his wife Matilda, and his damn assignment, he’d be heading home by now. Simple, they’d said, easy peasy. Easy my ass. Go to earth, learn how to understand women, report back. You have a year, they had said. Piece of cake. Ha!

How the hell was he supposed to do that? From what he’d read on the Internet, earth men had been trying to understand women for years. November was fast approaching and so was his performance review. It made him sweat behind the ears.

Resting his face in his hands he missed Zoltron’s green sky, the open land, and women at home who kept themselves to themselves and didn’t ask for much. Which was the problem, he knew. Just not enough of them. With the population dwindling, the mighty government had intervened.

He stood by his picture window, watching as his little wife Matilda drove up their driveway in her gray Nissan Sentra. He shook his head. On Zoltron people were thoughtful, and men, yes, mostly men, whispered as they waited in train stations and grocery stores, and respected each other. While most women had long hair, worked and raised their families, and were quiet, Matilda, his Matilda was different. Brassy, she thought nothing of telling everyone her opinion, right or wrong.

“I’m off to yoga, Krok!” Her tinny voice cut through his head. In the living room doorway, next to the wood paneling, she looked human, mostly, with her little belly, too long torso, and spiky brown hair. She fit right in with the other moms at the local yoga center. But him, never. He didn’t fit in anywhere.

Every Monday and Friday Matilda and her girlfriends gathered together, waiting for the studio to open, holding their yoga mats looking cheerful under a sunny blue sky. He had thought of trying to fulfill his assignment with them, but the thought of Matilda laughing while he was holding yoga positions made his skin turn blue.

That wasn’t his biggest problem. His third arm wouldn’t stay tucked inside his regulation red and white plaid camp shirt. Not when he was exercising!

“Bring home some milk, please,” he said.

“You told me that already!” she yelled, turned on her heels and disappeared. But no, he hadn’t. And so it went, she was hard of hearing and it was his fault.

The house was peaceful when she wasn’t home.

Earth had women. Lots of women. He loved them, the way they moved, the way they talked, chirping like birds, collecting in cafes, always gossiping. It had taken him awhile to understand what they talked about, but getting close enough to pet, that was frowned upon. Were they all as soft as advertised?

Touching was NOT allowed. He sighed.

Out his window a woman in an oversized dress was chattering on her cell phone while being pulled into the next block by her St. Bernard. Krok wasn’t even big enough to help her. At five feet four, that dog would drag him into the next town. The scientists had made him too small.

The assignment loomed large in his mind. ‘It’ll be easy, they had told him. Easy, peasy. Women are predictable.’ Ha! Since he’d been on earth he’d been more confused than ever.

He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee.

A year ago, almost, he could remember the day when life was good and he was on Zoltron. He’d been driving home from his work as a financial analyst and was pulled over by two thugs with government decals on their car doors.

“Krok?” the first of the gray-suited men asked. The second, dressed in a matching gray suit and red bow tie, marched over. “No need, Nate, I got this.”

Krok’s hands trembled on the wheel.

“Crank the window down.”

Leaning into the driver side door, Krok could smell garlic on the man’s breath. Didn’t he think of using breath mints? His bow tie bobbed with every word.

The official flipped open a small notebook.

“Krok, Mister Krok?”

Krok nodded.

“It says here, Milos, that you are due …”

“Do you mind identifying yourself, sir?” Krok asked, stalling. His neighbor Felix had received the same request a week ago. Having a newborn with a crooked eye had kept him out of the service. But Krok had no excuse. No kids at all. Matilda didn’t sleep with him, she slept with their dog.

“Very good,” the man with the tie said. “Petite, John Petite, World Domination Society, 2^nd tier, the Taxol building. And this man, he’s Nate, Nate Wolf. Nate is color blind and wears orange tennis shoes. Is that enough information, Mister Krok?”

Krok nodded, his mouth dry.

John Petite placed one of his orange shoes on Krok’s car and re-tied his laces.

“You’ve been summoned by the Prestige Society, The High Command. Pack a few things. You are going to earth,” Nate said.

“Whatever for?” Krok asked.

“To study women,” Petite said. He scratched his non-existent beard. “And don’t worry; we’ll do a language transfer. It doesn’t take more than a minute.”

Nate, with a lean face and too many years in government, cracked his knuckles, leaned inside Krok’s window. Krok tried not to gag from the garlic breath.

“Nate, behave yourself!” John Petite said.

Nate, showing bits of food between his teeth, stood back up and grinned.

“Krok got it, you did, didn’t you, Mr. Krok?” Nate asked.

“Got it in one,” Krok mumbled, sweating profusely.

The gray-suited men drove away.

Krok shrunk behind the wheel, waited a few minutes and headed home. Matilda would be surprised.

At the time, going to earth had seemed like a good idea. He’d been bored at home, bored with the daily grind, his work chasing numbers, the phone that rang in his head 24/7. People wanting him for everything, can you balance this account, Krok? Help me with the dishes, Krok, the laundry, the reports. Falsify these numbers, please! Heck no! He didn’t have any kids to hold him there, he hated his job, and as far as his wife went, Matilda had already broken his heart by running off with that slimeball Roger Clark, their neighbor with the thick blond hair, for a weekend tryst, and then telling Krok all about it. Divorce was not allowed on Zoltron.

At the first red light, Krok drummed his fingers on the wheel. He didn’t have much of a choice. The thought of traveling gave him the jitters, but the high command’s orders were to be followed; otherwise you’d find yourself on another planet. A cold planet and no ticket home. Matilda had to come, they said. Keep him from dallying. It hadn’t been him who had dallied! But no matter. They were to go to Novato, an hour north of San Francisco, as bland a suburb as they come.

“I’ll help you study women,” Matilda had cried the day Krok told her on Zoltron. “I’m a woman too,” she crowed. “Got something wrong with your eyes, bud?” She twirled in her yellow poodle skirt. “I’m as beautiful as umm, Taylor Swift!”

“Not quite, dear,” he said. He had resisted the urge to hit her. The further away she was from him, the better.

“They have soap operas on earth, I’ve been told.”

“I’ve seen them all,” Matilda said.

“Trees,” Krok had said.

“Oh, those, I’ve heard of those,” Matilda had said. “Can we go today? Can we bring Roger?”

“No, no and no,” he had tried not to shout. “They won’t let us,” he said, after seeing her pretty little face fall. “Two tickets to ride, that’s it.” He made that part up. That was the last day he decided he would never ask her what she thought. Matilda was not, could not, ever, be trusted.

In Novato Matilda had been thrilled but not at first. On Zoltron she had loved the bleak concrete tower they lived in. She’d had lots of friends, who spent their days watching too much TV and fretting about the lives of the soap opera stars lives they followed. Now she was free as a canary, and after the first week was already flirting with the green grocer who lived in Petaluma.

Ever since they’d been on earth, she’d gone every afternoon, after yoga, to the forest behind their house. She wouldn’t be back until twilight, generally finding her way home in the dark with her infrared vision.

That gave Krok the afternoons off. His study time. He went to the mall often, where women chatted obsessively about clothes, carried shopping bags and filled the air with noise, like birds. He’d followed them a good distance, on the sidewalk, where they’d suddenly notice him, turn around and yell at him.

He’d gone to museums and stared at paintings of naked women which pleased him very much until the guards would ask him to leave. He hadn’t been any different from most of the men who went to museums. He wore blue jeans, plaid shirts, baggy of course, and a watch cap. But still. He was making no progress. He had to meet them.

The idea made the palm of his third hand wet with worry. He couldn’t just go up to a stranger and say, hey pretty lady, I’m an alien sent from planet Zoltron. My name’s Krok. I’m here to study you. Can you explain women to me? He’d be sent to jail for being a weirdo. And from what he knew, Matilda would have a big laugh about that. If it wasn’t for her latest with their butcher Frank Stevenson, it would be someone else. ‘Til death tears us apart’ indeed. He was beginning to hate her.

Apparently women on earth are very slow, his managers had said. They had been wrong. What the hell did those white-haired dweebs know? They had vowed to celibacy, lived underground and ventured out only after sunset. He stared into his now cold coffee and fell asleep in front of the TV, having a nightmare about what would happen to him if he failed his assignment.

Wednesday

Two days later while sipping a brown coffee drink in a Starbucks he was watching the world go by, trying to read the Marin Independent Journal newspaper, and saw a woman sitting alone. A few minutes ago there had been a bevy of yoga ladies at the adjacent table, but they’d left a few minutes before, leaving one. This one with owl glasses! In her thirties, perky body, skinny arms, and legs to forever. Slight edge of gray in her blond hair. Maybe she was self-conscious about her thick glasses.

By herself! Krok couldn’t believe his luck. Maybe she’d think he was an alien—that made him laugh.

She was pretty. Blond hair cascading down her back. Nursing a latte or something. Sweat beading on her forehead. Krok was enchanted. He looked more carefully. No third arm. No scar behind her ear. A real honest-to-God human. He had to stop himself from getting too excited.

“Pardon me, I was just wondering,” Krok said.

She raised her eyes at him, lifted her coffee cup, leaving a smudge of milk on her upper lip. One eye looked at him; the other looked out the door. Cute, though, she was so cute.

“That yoga, seems a lot of fun,” Krok said, feeling like an idiot. She’d get up for sure, think he was imposing. He hid his third arm under the marble topped table.

“I’ve just started,” the women said. “It’s hard. Some of these other women, they stretch like spaghetti. I’m like a stick in there.” She sighed. “I’ll never be as good as them.” A wrinkle appeared between her eyes. Krok brightened. Women on Zoltron never had wrinkles.

She was beautiful! Bright blue eyes, a bit of a sad demeanor. Would she be the one who could tell him all their secrets?

“I’ve always wanted to belong,” she picked at her red cashmere sweater. “But the other girls, they just know stuff.”

Stuff? Krok didn’t know the word stuff. Was it everything or nothing? A piece of fruit? A book? The one minute language transfer left a lot to be desired.

“That’s got to be hard, honey.” That’s what Matilda had said to say but that did not go over well with the blond sitting next to him. She visibly bristled.

“I’ve been raised in the south,” Krok said suddenly. “We call everyone honey.”

“Which state?” she asked.

“Arkansas.”

“You don’t sound Southern,” she said, making that crinkly look between her eyes he adored.

“It was beat out of me in the military,” Krok lied. The military in Zoltron was no joke, martial warfare and he had the scars to prove it. He wasn’t going to tell this woman any of that.

“Oh,” she said suddenly. “Which branch?”

“Submarine warfare,” Krok blurted out. If he kept going down this road he was going to be caught, or something worse.

“Long time ago in a land far away,” he said.

That seemed to satisfy her.

“What is it about yoga, you do like?” Krok asked.

“The cool down period, just before the end of class. It’s peaceful. We lie quiet for about five minutes. No posing. No corrections. It’s like a dream.”

“Oh baby, you are a dream,” Krok mumbled.

“What was that?” she asked.

“This coffee drink is a scream,” he said, making something up.

Her face clouded.

“You live around here?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t think he was being presumptuous.

“Me? No, I’m just waiting for a bus.”

“I see,” Krok said. “People in this neighborhood, they’re pretty nice? I just moved here, with my wife, and we don’t know anybody yet.”

This seemed to calm the blond down. “I’m Hannah,” she said, extending a hand.

Krok’s third arm was reaching for her. He slammed it down with his upper left and held out his right. “Kevin,” he croaked. “Kevin Ulster.”

“Good to meet you, Kevin,” she said. “You seem kind of jumpy.”

“Too much coffee.” Krok thought she was right. He was jittery. He wanted to jump her. Pet her arm! Her shoulder! Her wrist! He tucked his third hand tight to his belly. It had been so long. He sighed.

“You may laugh at this, Hannah, but I’m a student at the community college here.” Her funny eye didn’t seem to track right. Which one was he supposed to look at?

“You’re never too old to go to college, Kevin.”

Krok sighed. “Thank you. At thirty-five, I do feel old sometimes.” On Zoltron he was nearing 100. “We’re taking a sociology class.”

“Studying ancient people?” she asked.

“Not really, our own,” he said. “It’s a funny assignment, I’m wondering if you can help me.”

She blinked hard. “What do you mean by funny?”

Telling her that he was studying women was too blatant. “Studying gender. It’s a strange but interesting course. The opposite sex. What makes women tick?” he asked, feeling really dumb.

“What makes men tick?”

On Zoltron, that was easy. On earth, uh, he thought a sec. “Sports, women, fighting, women, the usual. Beer.”

“That’s about right,” she answered with a smile.

“And for women?”

“That question’s easy,” Hannah said.

“And the answer?”

“It’s no secret, Kevin, it’s one word.”

“One?”

“Love.” She laughed. “Maybe two. We like love. We like romance. Can’t get enough of it. Men around here act like apes, slam, bam, thank you ma’am.”

Krok had not heard that before, but he wasn’t going to ask.

“Therefore we both like and hate men. End of story.”

“That would make dating life difficult.”

“Yeah.” Her funny eye wandered all over the café. “It’s just … there are so few kind and thoughtful men.”

Krok’s third arm started to twitch. He tucked it hard against his body.

“You all right?” she asked.

Oh my God, oh my God, such dulcet tones, not at all like Matilda’s shrill voice. He choked, “Yeah, I’m fine.” Right here, right now, the woman of his dreams.

“You seem like a nice guy, Kevin,” she said. “Comfortable.”

“Konkours?” Krok searched for a word he only knew in Zoltronese. Why in the world did he say that? He had to be more vigilant. Konkours meant hairy. Had he lost his mind around a pretty girl? Born stupid like Matilda always said?

“You’re kind of cute,” she said, her owl-like glasses reflecting the fluorescent lights above.

“But that’s so simple,” Krok said, collecting himself. “About women, I mean.”

“A kind word, some thoughtfulness, a sweet smile.”

Krok felt dizzy.

“Oh Hannah, you are the answer to my dreams.”

“Are you like those other guys? Trying to sweeten me up for a roll in the hay?” She stood up. “My bus comes in five minutes. I gotta go.” She reached for her bag.

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything. I am so sorry.” He wanted to get closer to her. Or run out of the café. Either way would work.

“You apologized!” she said, sitting back down.

Krok looked worried.

“It’s cool. In America, men don’t apologize. Now, tell me about yourself. I’ll catch the next bus.”

“What I meant was, I mean, in my class, I’m hoping to get an A. You gave me the best information in the world. An answer to my prayers.” Assignment in class, assignment on Zoltron, what’s the difference?

“My pleasure,” she said, fluffing her hair.

“I try to be kind. Like I said, I’m not from hereabouts. Where I come from, in Atlanta, we honor women.” She liked him!

“I thought you said Arkansas.”

Krok had a line of sweat behind both ears. “I misspoke. Little Rock, Arkansas.” Shit, he wished he could remember his own lies.

“I try to be kind,” Krok said.

“That’s what I mean; you seem like a nice guy, Kevin. Are all guys from Arkansas as nice as you?”

Oh Brother. He was really starting to sweat.

“I hope not. I would have competition for you,” he said. “I’m not the competing kind.”

“Glad to know,” she said, scooting closer to him.

Krok was tongue-tied. Where was the green sky? Matilda’s dirty looks? The treeless landscape of Zoltron? The more time he spent with Hannah, the less he wanted to be anywhere else.

“You’re kind of sweet, Kevin.”

Krok blushed, from the tips of his hairy toes to the back of his ears.

“And lonely.” She scooched closer to him. Felt his third arm.

Patted it. Looked him in the eye. “Cute, just like I said.”

Everything ballooned in Kevin’s body.

His third arm. She’d patted his third arm! His mouth went to cotton.

“You’re different, Krok, just like me.” She winked.

Her perfume made him swoon.

“But… but… people, they.”

“I don’t care what people say. They laugh at me too, Kevin.”

She touched his third hand, that was on his lap. “We are more alike than you realize. You have, what, a, what’s this?” She held up his third hand.

“Smaller than my other hands,” he said, his voice croaking.

“Anyone not perfect is perfect in my eyes,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve noticed my wandering eye. I can still see out of it, you know. We are peas in a pod, Kevin, my dear, both special in this weird world of ours.”

Kevin fainted.

He woke up with his head in her lap and a worried-looking proprietor about to call 9-1-1.

“He’ll be fine, Henry, don’t worry,” Hannah said to the man. “It’s okay.”

Kevin thought it was okay too. She was as soft as advertised.

“Come with me and relax, Kevin, you’ve had a shock.”

He had no resistance left, just enough smarts to hide his arm as they left the café. He spent the whole afternoon with Hannah. Doing things men and women do, but it did please her intently, the magic he could make with his third hand.

The next day he headed home to check on Matilda. She’d left a note: “Gone Fishing.” He knew what that meant. The butcher, Frank Stevenson, or someone else. It didn’t matter. He threw a few things in a duffle bag, his sweater with the three arms, at last, seeing daylight, his toothbrush and hope.

Six months later, summer

He was happily mowing Hannah’s weed-filled lawn with a gas-powered mower that went whish whish clunk clunk whrr, a sound he kind of liked, minding his own business when a black car sped up the narrow canyon road in Sonoma County where Hannah lived and pulled up in front of her white farmhouse.

Two thugs dressed in black suits slammed open the doors.

Krok was going to run but they caught him before he could even turn off the mower.

“What the hell? You want the mower? Am I making too much noise?”

“Turn that thing off!” One of the guys yelled.

Their words all tumbled together to Krok. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Did the neighbors complain? They don’t complain about the people down the street! The Harrisons! They party all night!”

“We’re not here about the mower, Krok.”

“My name’s not Krok. I’m Kevin, Kevin Ulster,” Krok said.

“And we’re not here about the party either, Mister Krok.”

Hannah came running out of the house shouting. “What’s the matter with you guys? Leave my husband alone!”

“You’re making a mistake, gentlemen,” Krok said.

Krok was wired up. Hannah sounded so convincing. His third arm twitched. Then he remembered.

It was the two government thugs from Zoltron! That asshole Nate with his orange shoes and John Petite with the red bow tie. Both in black suits. Krok’s ears ached. Whoever let them out of the office dressed like that? Whoever let them off planet Zoltron? Could they take Matilda back with them?

“Matilda’s at home, I can give you her address,” he said, pulling out pencil and paper.

“Collateral damage,” the man with the red tie said. “We are not here for her, we are here for you.”

A shiver ran through Krok’s shoulders.

“Just a standard suburban husband,” Krok said, pushing the motor’s on switch. Rrrr, rrrr, filled the air.

“You didn’t report in!” John Petite said, reaching over and turning it off.

“The neighborhood association doesn’t like uneven cut lawns. They make a big stink. You want me to get in trouble? It’s green. What more do you want?”

“You are overdue,” said Nate.

“But I completed my assignment.”

“Get off my property,” Hannah said. “Or I’ll call the cops.”

Good girl, thought Krok.

“We are the cops,” John Petite said, his hair stiff in the wind.

“I know the chief of police. We play bridge with him Sundays. You’re not him,” Hannah said.

“Mister Krok, come with us,” John Petite said. “No fuss, no muss.”

He had grown a puny beard since Krok has seen him last. It did not look good on him.

“I’m a true American now,” Krok said, pulling out his gun.

Their eyes widened.

“Now, get the hell out of here!” They scurried back into their car.

“You’ve learned a few things,” Hannah said, wiping dirt off her hands, looking at her husband. “And such a sweet face too.”

“That’s what they all say,” he grinned.

The thugs sped away.

Krok looped his arm through Hannah’s. “And I had thought that coming to earth had been a mistake. Not hardly. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

END

About the author Susanna Solomon

Susanna won MillValleyLit’s very first writing award in 2012 with “It’s Your Lucky Day” and soon became a contributing writer.

Her success with short story writing was a complete surprise, and came on the heels of over twenty-five years of struggling with writing novels and memoirs. Frustrated with her full length writing progress, Susanna found success in writing short stories for the joy of it and concentrated on reading stories at open mic readings. Many of her stories, inspired by the Sheriff’s Calls section of Marin County the Point Reyes Light, are humorous, some are sad and some are just plain quirky. She asks, “How can I run out of material with the intriguing people of West Marin as my inspiration?”

She’s now published three books of short stories and been an invited presenter at Quiet Lightning, Why There Are Words, Aqus Café in Petaluma, Writing Without Walls, Lip Service West in Berkeley, Pints ‘N Prose, and other venues. See https://www.susannasolomon.com/index.html

This story was originally published in her Garden of Misfits. For more of her wonderful and creative short stories see “It’s Your Lucky Day” here and another here.