Pleaidian

Pleiaidian

I've seen the same guy in my dreams three nights now. He is tall with long blonde hair, secured in place with two thin braids. He has crystalline azure blue eyes that look at me with a protective intensity. He wears a marine blue uniform with a silver star over his left breast. His collar and cuffs are silver; his hands are strong and square. Technical Sergeant Jet Alpha Pleiadia from Starship Alpha Pleiadia.
My alarm and my dream wash over me with a vivid urgency, the way my old panic attacks used to. He said he would meet me in real life. Is that true? Will that actually happen? Like, how many people meet Gods from their dreams?
"Are you ready?" Sorja, my African-English housemate asks, standing in my doorway.
"Just about," I say, zipping up my black puffer jacket. I'm wearing black jeans and black lace up boots. My black hair billows messily around my shoulders.
Sorja and I met at a party six years ago.
Sorja, dressed in jeans, a zip-up puffer jacket, and neon green sneakers, is 5"5, skinny, and has short braids which are tied back with a torn bit of bandana. She is a natural beauty. She doesn't wear makeup often; only for festivals. She came over to Australia from London six years ago and thankfully hasn't left. I'd hate to be without her.
We're going to an alien convention at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. It starts in half an hour. It's a fifteen-minute tram ride from our Carlton flat, in cool overcast weather.
"It better be warmer inside." Sorja says, her bottom jaw chattering in the cold; her hands buried deep in her pockets. Matt is our housemate. He has a thing for me, but I'm just not feeling it.
He has light brown oily hair, a fringe that always shades his hazel eyes and usually wears unbuttoned, long-sleeved, tartan flannelette shirts over various geeky tshirts with jeans. An over-the-shoulder, olive-green, canvas satchel covered in space pins follows him everywhere. He has come straight outta highschool, I know.
The queue to get in isn't as long as I thought it would be. We pay for our tickets and go through. There are around fifty stalls hosted by scientists, professors, teachers and uni students. Matt finds us and greets us with a squishy grey alien hand glove on.
"Where'd you get that?" Sorja asks him, her eyes alight.
"From the stall over there." He says, pointing to a stall with a melamine white counter and melamine white pigeon holes with grey alien hands stuffed into them.
We push through the crowd and Sorja and I shove our newly acquired alien hands on. They're grey, made of silicone and they are oddly satisfying.
"I bet this company make sex toys too," Sorja says, stroking her alien hand like it's something phallic. She purrs.
"It kinda does feel that way, doesn't it?" I laugh. We shuffle over to a blue brick walled café that claims to sell Galactic Coffee and we order three. It's just a standard latte with blue food dye. Basic but cool, we guess.
"Oh hey dude," Matt says, to a friend who has just found him. "You know the girls..." he adds, after shaking his friend's hand with the alien hand.
"I do. Sorja. Ophelia," Guy says, kissing us both on the cheek. Guy is our age, studied physics at UCLA and has a gorgeous American accent. He lives in Southbank and works in a lab in an underground building in an undisclosed location, somewhere in Melbourne. He hasn't said what he works on exactly, but we three have a pretty good idea.
Guy is tall, has black hair and lime green eyes. He is wearing black suit pants, a pale blue work shirt, a navy cardigan and a starship belt buckle.
"Hello," we chime, and he laughs after noticing we all bought alien hands to wear. He rubs his fingers over my encased fingers and oohs. "Kinda sticky," he smiles. "I'm gonna get myself a Galactic Coffee," he announces and we lose him to the Galactic Coffee queue. We stand around and people-watch while we wait.
"He has felt the real thing, I bet you a million dollars," Matt says, sighing and slurping his ultra hot blue latte.
"His nondisclosure agreement means we will never know." Sorja adds playfully.
The spiritualists are out in full force too, when a woman with dreadlocks and an amethyst rock on her sternum in string, hands each of us flyers on mindfulness, whether we want them or not. Sorja, Matt and I are UFO geeks – we don't believe in spiritual stuff. I really don't see what it has to do with aliens, but, okay. We say thank you and take a look at the green flyers.
"Wanna take a quick look?" Sorja asks, sitting down. We sit in the chairs two metres away from us in the back row and wait for the flyer-person to spout her beliefs. Guy sits down beside me with blue foam on his lip. "What did I miss?"
"She's about to start," I say. The woman with the dreadlocks introduces herself as Maze, has a sip of her Galactic Coffee which was sitting on a tall wooden Ikea stool, and then puts the cup back down. She swings one side of her long cardigan over her body, and welcomes us all with a wave of her arms which she brings toward herself. She says she is welcoming our energy.
"If you believe in aliens put your hand up", she starts, and our hands ascend toward the artificially, fluorescent-illuminated ceiling.
"Good. If you don't believe in aliens put your hand up," she continues, and three women to our right slowly raise their hands in the air. They're dressed in corporate blouses, ties, pencil skirts, and black court shoes. They must be on their lunch break. That, and they're way out of their comfort zone here.
"It's okay if you don't. After coming here today, you will," Maze explains.
"I am a spiritualist; a medium and a psychic. I have seen and spoken to souls since I could speak. My mother and my grandmother are mediums too. They taught me that the soul world and the alien world are superimposed, one on top of eachother, like a photograph. To believe in souls is to believe in aliens. To believe in aliens is to understand there is a soul world. Another dimension, if you will. Today, what I am going to do is show you all what happens when one is mindful enough to be contacted by a higher being. You can close your eyes too and do it with me, although if you are not strong in your gifts yet, you will not hear them or feel them in your mind. Everyone close your eyes. And now close your mental doors. Visualise closing doors in your mind. You all know there are good and evil races of aliens. Be careful who you let in. Think of only the happy ones. The friendly ones. Do not think of the ugly ones. The evil ones. We do not think of those. Have a conversation with the good ones. The friendly ones. They love you. The universe is love. The little ones acknowledge you acknowledging them. They're happy because you believe in them. Open your eyes. See them in your third eye. It might be the little ones. It might be the elders. It might even be someone from the Galactic Federation. Inhale. Exhale. I have been contacted. Has anyone else been contacted?" Maze asks. Nobody has. Technical Sergeant Jet Alpha Pleiadia was in my imagination, but that's just my imagination, and it's only because he has popped up in my dreams so much recently. He disappeared when I opened my eyes.
"One of you has. I am being told one of you has. This same being is speaking with me."
The twenty or so people in Maze's audience look around at each other, mumble, whisper, and speculate. The three corporate ladies get up and leave. Sorja and I look at each other, and then I look at Guy. We are confused.
"Who is Ophelia?" Maze asks.
"I am," I say. How the fuck does she know my name?
"Thank you everyone. That concludes our session for now. I will be here again at three o'clock," she announces, sauntering toward me. We four raise our line of sight and stare up at her from our plastic white chairs.
"Ophelia?" She asks, giving off Professor Trelawney vibes as she approaches. Do I have a giant dog in my coffee or something? I wonder. She smiles.
"You were contacted. Technical Sergeant Jet Alpha Pleiadia." She says matter of factly.
"Err, was I?" I ask stupidly.