Red Hiccup and… Aliens?

Straight after the walk's fifteenth minute mark, the horizon eased up.

The horizon faded in differentiating sights.

The closest-closest closest outside the verge of the horizon's fuzziness was a pole, the second closest closest submerged in the HO-fuzz-ness was a rubber ducky stuck in the dirt, and the third closest was the playground Miteki stopped at every morning before taking the train to the metro line.

She picked the ducky off the ground, fiercely tearing it out of the earth with four clammed fingers.

She blew on it in desperate hopes of getting the residued dirt off.

As much as she huffed, as much as her reproduced puff was born useless, directed.

She entered the park, placing the bright yellow ducky in the putrid yellow sand.

Just for fun, with a clean finger she wrote: "Swan."

Lifting that finger off the ground, that newly dirtied finger dove into the sand.

The finger encircled by sand, plummeted the figure of a swan.

The swan's contours were a darker brown putrid sand, and its innards were a lighter yellow putrid sand toasted by the sun, dried to air and hot light, with no wet remnant trapped inside.

She uncrouched and flicked her finger.

The sand flew off, leaving parts of itself as sparkles to shine beneath the beaded-hazed, morning sun.

The swings beyond the pit of sand were the second closest things to her, and the pole and rubber ducky the 3rd and 4th, cut by the swan who would make their numbers higher if counted.

The swing's chains soured.

Her buttocks landed, soft against the uncomfortable brick sensation of the seat.

Swaying the swing with mindlessly poor technique, she thought about nothing in peculiar.

Coffee, blergh.

Tea, hmm, seems O.K.

Steamed milk and honey… favorite.

What about colors?

White… the blue of pale veins seen through pale skin… definitely favorites.

"In three seconds, the train should be 12 minutes away from the station."

"I'm three minutes away from the cranes… should I deviate from the routine and spend 6 minutes with them? Would they be territorial if I stay for longer than usual?"

Pfft. She waved away the thought. "No way."

She got off the swings.

The red-crowned cranes' hangout place was a communal treehouse that no one went to unless it was winter, the migratory season.

It'd been conquered by these cranes, crowned in red. The villagers were all afraid, bowed in red. Miteki Bless would click her tongue every time she walked by one of them, and unfortunately be privy to the barking, forked tongues of their vile souls.

'We need to eradicate those bastard nuisances, kill the babies and burn them alive!'

'Why are these protected creatures? They're demons. What do we do—charity work!?—for the mayor to be neglecting his duties?! Kill these feathered cretins or we'll murder your children!'

She had spoken up to a tall, adolescent boy once. He went back into his house, grabbed a knife and rushed at her.

It was so sudden, she thought it was a TV-prank for a second. "Oh, you. You city-folk love to play scary pranks on us, invading our villages for cheap content!"

The comment… It brought down multiple sharp swings against her.

He was stopped, luckily before an actual stab could happen.

A bloody version of noh, sans mask, the dancing replaced of stabbing and dodging—greatly in the makings.

She made sure to stomp on his head when he was pinned down and the only moveset accessible to him was his continuously gritted teeth.

That experience only told her: "yes, keep meddling."

"I approve," she told the experience.

The red-crowned cranes squawked.

They began to run towards Miteki Bless, their feet drums on the green floor.

Grass detached from the dirt and dirt flew.

A next step was the call of flapping wings.

Miteki Bless' eyes were victim to a magnificent sight.

The red-crowned cranes flew in 'V' formation, the same shape as their grand migrations to the heated earths.

To say it was a few cranes recognizing her was an understatement. It was more than two handfuls.

Those who had not approached her stayed behind to look after and manage the nests containing their newborns.

If Miteki Bless chose to approach them, then, that's when they'd squawk and approach to maul her as well.

A crane that flew beside her was slightly in the road. No desire to be any closer to her.

Without saying anything, she maliciously grabbed the crane by the neck and squeezed as hard as she could.

The crane flailed pitifully, thinking but near close to biting her hand off.

She noticed a brown mark near the border of the crane's red fur.

"You!" She yelled, letting go.

The crane barked at her, the others backing away in v formation, slowly paddling.

They all turned their heads in confusion or went to mind their business, heads dipped inside bushes for imaginary insects, expecting a fight.

The crane approached her, becoming faster the more she backed away.

"Lisi!! I told you, stop going on the road! You could die!"

Lisi, the crane, screeched at her.

She interpreted it as, "You're not my mom!"

"I've become your mom since the moment you became foodless."

"I've become your mom since the moment I got rocks thrown at me!"

"Bock." The sound of the crane's beak opening and closing intensely.

"Why!?" She hurled those words so ear piercingly, the flowers themselves bowed.

She bonked the crane "lightly" on the head.

Smack—bock!

"Bock." The sound of the crane's beak opening and closing, intensely trying to rip her hand off.

She dodged by slipping her hand behind her back, fingers dragging across her temples and earlobes.

It dropped the moment Bless realized her fingers were gripping the hair above her nape, arm heavy and shoulders pounced by gravity.

A swift expression of confusion and an embarrassed astonishment at her reflexes.

She looked down at her hand in disbelief, treating it as an alien baby injecting asteroid that had just landed in front of her.

A dead shooting star right beside her waist; her hand had never been that fast in extensive physical exams!

She directed her tombstone anger at Lisi instead, calculated despite what a few nearby beaks would say.

"You!" She waved her finger, treating it as a teacher's ruler.

She'd snap it if she could.

"I procured this food source for you!" The cranes who had been pretending to mind their business all perked up, attention out of the bushes.

"Squawk?" Firecrackers?

"This was a calculated retreat for you all, yanno! Blubbering bastard, you dare attack your mother! Hey, I don't care if you hurt me or kill me in ten years but now!? I got things to do, bastard duck! The issue isn't that I'm scared, against my body's protesting instincts… the issue is that you will all die once I'm gone, that I want to study neuroscience before I die, that I need to save people before I die, that I need to hug and kiss my mother's beautiful, prunus-field cheeks before I die, that youyouyouyouyou——you! You need to migrate before you kill me!"

She'd been waving her arms about like a chemistry teacher presenting wave functions on a whiteboard.

Only, with much less charisma and tenfold more energy. The energy flowed all through out her, too expensive for her joints and blood—if actions could be disheveled, her odd movements would take first place.

Her screaming during her eccentric dancing created a large crowd.

Villagers watched the park with 3D Cinema Glasses (poor eyesight under the rising sun and dawning fog).

Squirrels leaned out of their branches.

Snails picked up their paces.

Spiders in the treehouse started bundling their cobwebs up in order to move away, a personal haul.

Flowers kept bowing, shielding themselves from the sound waves.

If the cranes thought she was crazy, what did the onlooking humans think?

Lisi gushed air out of her nostrils.

"Some sort of angry sigh? So what!"

The crane shooed herself away, flapping wings, paddling feet deeper through the meadow, dissolving the effect of them being the only two living artisanal pieces in the world. Miteki Bless became unblissfully aware of the crowd her beloved self-expressionism had amassed.

No more blindness, the picture of 40 eyes peeering at her came at full blast.

A gust of wind licked her ear, along with the entirety of her face.

The musculature above her skull came to be cold.

"What are you all looking at? Especially you derogatory aliens? It hurts to look at you!"

A grandma whispered to her son, tipping on her toes to reach his kneeling posture, "Her facial muscles have more life when she speaks to animals than us."

He whispered back, "Grandma, don't look at her anymore, don't look."

The elder woman gave him a frowning side glance.

Her lopsided lips sucked themselves inside.

She clicked her tongue. An action that seemed to run in the family.

"Bah. Alright." It did not sound passive, it was silent condescension. It asked, are you seriously defending this barbaric brat?

He tsk'ed when she limped away, and when he was sure her hearing aid would not pick up his personal noise. Miteki--she'll curse us with a diseased face that doesn't move with the tones of our voice!

The v formation of the cranes broke when Lisi retreated into them.

Even while pretending to forage, they'd kept the formation curving strong.

A crane approached Miteki Bless once the small v faded.

They moved from the side, allowing Miteki Bless to contact her two eyes with the crane's one 'eyes'.

While Miteki and the swan-looking crane spoke through the deadly, secret feathered society ‘art of the eyes’ technique, a rotund man who was the embodiment of the phrase 'what's in motion, stays in motion' exponentiated by twos and fours yelled through his decayed teeth (who've seen, and perhaps chewed some certain things). "You dare to call us aliens when you've let out such a deranged performance for us all to see?"

"If you want to talk to the beasts, talk with an indoor voice! Don't talk at all!" He pointed at her.

It was obvious he thought he was doing something. But… Mr. Gero, a finger can't shoot out bullets.

"Bark. Bark instead, foolish little girl!"

"Hmph!" He did.

"Oh." Miteki exclaimed.

"Oh." She was quite excited.

"Oh." Miteki Bless in a rare moment of self-aware contemplated how she may have sounded.

Regardless of if the cranes understood her or not, which at this point it didn't matter, she clarified: "My babies, I wasn't talking about you."

Of course, she was calling the pitiable villagers "deragotary aliens."

The villagers had been putting pesticides in their crops everyday. It would go up the food chain, posing various dangers and health violations.

Plants—cranes.

Plants—rodents—cranes.

Miteki Bless would put it: "what are we all, a hundred witches stuck together, trying to poison our entire society?"

Too many words for what response would be: "Kill yourself, Miteki Bless."

These freaks could go as far as using torches to light her on fire!

…

This treehouse clearing was the singular place they could rest well without issue, eat well without issue, travel well without issue, dish out love and still have more space to live without.

Red-crowned cranes weren't known for love, though.

"… I think, this has been more time than I could spare being around here."

The crowd reclined, receded, reseeded their foods, hovered, snatched bugs, road on mopeds, swept the dirt path, executing every computing act you could think of under the fog.

"See, aliens." She'd identified the swan as Mobiko, using the deadly secret feathered society technique. Being around birds too much.

"Mobiko, steer clear of these humans. But remember what I've taught you all, it's not all humans… just Hanayaga village."

And with that, she left to school.

Metro, here, would Miteki Bless bless you with her presence.

Mr. Gero: "What about me?"

I repeat: Metro, here, would Miteki Bless bless you with her presence.

Bless you.