Alien Heritage

Visiting my brother some weeks ago in Cape Town was an enlightening experience.  He had a lifestyle of a pop star, with a schedule full of parties up to a year ago.  All this changed when the stork came visiting and the young addition to the family had just more than a year to infiltrate their schedule and home.  Despite his tender age, he took no prisoners.  He is the schedule, and their home resembles a scene from a hurricane aftermath.  Most important however was that he has loving parents, and is allowed to grow and learn with guidance.  They are doing a great job!

Being responsible for two of my own, and not having surrendered my recollections of past events to Alzheimer's yet, I can report that my brother is only following an established trend of loosing control of his life.  This will escalate as soon as his boy learns to speak.

My memory drifts to a specific event where my own son's talkative nature got me into a very tight corner.  In his defence, I did set the trap myself.  We were driving back from holiday on the West Coast to our home in Middelburg some 9 years ago, a boarding 14 hour drive.  Having two protesters, my 6 year old son and his 4 year old sister, made the journey no more fun.  They have seen the Jetsons complete a journey like this within seconds, they thought it fair that we would be home within 30 minutes.  Time, distance, and a need to drive within speed limits are concepts that develop in ages past their achievements.  With this understanding lacking, a continuous fight about the most senseless arguments were their only logical diversion to pass the time.

Fortunately they fell asleep just after we refuelled in Colesberg and I could thunder home.  My wife was keeping a trained eye on the speed indicator to ensure the cost of the trip is not inflated unnecessary, but she succumbed to boredom just before Bloemfontein, and fell asleep.  There I was, a Lone Ranger, with a cargo of my happy family, the only reminder of their presence by a random snore.

Just after Kroonstad, I felt a familiar breath in my neck.  My son was sitting upright, but it did not seem like he was aware of that fact yet, still caught in his own battle of regaining full consciousness.  After about 5 minutes of yawning and looking around, pondering the correct announcement of his return to life, he said his first words, "Where did all the dinosaurs go?"

Usually I left them to speak first.  Many times they would appear to wake up like this, but after realising we are not home yet, just fall back into their sleep.  Sleeping at least made these long journeys more bearable for them.  His entry conversational topic was also not strange as he was dinosaur expert by then.

I was glad to hear a voice as boredom was starting to register with me too, and as sole pilot of this expedition back home, that was something I could ill afford.  "They all died", came my sombre reply.  Our conversation was taking place in slow motion where at least a minute passes between exchanges.

“That sucks, and the eggs, did they also….”, the word was to final for him to utter.

“Maybe you want to speak to Grandma about dinosaurs”, I calmed the mood.

“Why her?  What does she know about them?”, he enquired.

“She lived with them; I think she still has a recipe for a dino egg.”  I offered.

He pondered my response for about five minutes, searching his young mind for historic time frames.  His eyes registered the gravity of the words as they lit up.  “Then she must be millions of years old”, he finally dared.

The temptation was strong to confirm my mother-in-law’s age, but I enjoyed the direction this was going, so 

I offered, “I never said she lived with them on this earth, did I?”

This was a completely unexpected twist, and he considered it.  Finally he stated the obvious dilemma, “Then she is an alien, and Mom, she is an alien.  Me and Sis too, we are aliens.”

“Calm down that is not completely true”, then I offered a crude explanation of genetic dilution.  “If Grandma is an alien, and Grandpa not, that would make your mom half an alien.  As I am certainly not an alien, the same dilution will make you a quarter alien and three-quarters human.  Do you get this?”

“Yes, this is very good, I cannot wait to tell my friends at school”, he said relieved.

“That is not a good idea”, I offered.

“Why not?”, he asked slowly.

“Do you not think that the government will cut open Grandma for tests?  And then there is your mother”, I said.

“What about Mom?”, came his enquiry.

“Half alien, you remember, maybe they want to cut her open too.  I am not too stressed about you and Sis, I think you are OK, but I take no chances.  You have to keep this secret.”, I responded.

He confirmed, “OK, I will tell no-one, only my sister”.

“No”, I protested, “do not tell her, I’ll tell her as soon as she can understand the importance of the secret”.

He confirmed agreement with a simple, “OK”, fuelled by his superior understanding due to alien heritage.

I was glad about this discussion as it took more than an hour, and we were now entering Johannesburg.  Traffic there made me forget about the distance still to go, and the other people in the car started waking up.  The mood in the car turned violent again with protection of every millimetre of space by each occupant, and a bombardment of wishes that the coast is closer to home.

Finally we arrived home, 1734 kilometres completed.  In the next weeks my prior conversation drifted away into the fog of daily schedules, to become a hidden trap.

Three weeks later mother-in-law came visiting in Middelburg.  Arrival greetings were lively and quick as arrival coincided with dinner.  I noticed my son keeping a distance of his grandma, but made nothing off it as kids at that age are still figuring out their position in society.  Then he came up to her, and circled her about 3 times, properly checking out the frail lady.  Then, without warning he looked up at her and announced, “My dad says that you are an alien”.

There were firm stares in my direction from my mother-in-law, and to complete the stereo effect, from my wife too.  “What a nice cosy corner did I get myself in” I though to myself as my son came running to me, away from the aliens, to the safety of human hands.

Wednesday 5 June, 2013