society

Aliens (short story)

Prose

One day, Amelia woke up in the company of aliens from another planet.

She had no memories of her life before she started living with aliens.

Their language sounded like English aurally, but they couldn’t communicate since they were creatures from different worlds.

Even though they lived in the same spaceship, they lived in a completely different state of existence than Amelia.

They were all the same kind of alien. Amelia was the only human on the spaceship.

Did they perhaps think she was one of them?

She decided to blend in.

She learned to eat alien food.

She played with alien toys.

But secretly, she longed to be rescued by her own kind. She often gazed outside of her bedroom porthole, hoping for a glimpse of Earth. But she didn’t even know what she would do if she saw it.

Convince her alien captors to return her to her planet?

What if she blows her cover and they turn violent?

Should she chance it?

She knew she couldn’t stay, but even after living among the aliens, she couldn’t trust them. She decided to escape on her own.

She made her preparations, and when the chance presented itself, she took it.

She slipped away when the aliens were sleeping, and tucked herself and her bag comfortably into an escape hatch. She powered it up, took aim, and ZOOMED toward freedom!

At first, there was nothing but inky blackness. The vacuum of space was lonely, oppressive, and dangerous. It was a different feeling from when she lived with the aliens.

She pushed aside her feelings of fear, and kept her eyes moving back and forth, searching the darkness. Finally, she saw it!

A glittering blue ball with swirling milky clouds. Her home planet.

When she landed, she was embraced by members of her own kind. Fellow humans. Amelia wept with gratitude. She wasn’t sure this day would ever come.

It took some adjusting, but with the love, care, and patience of other earthlings, Amelia learned to live as a human again.

Sometimes she thought about the aliens, but she never wanted to live with them again.

Amelia lived out the rest of her days as a human on Earth with peace in her heart. Her memory lives on in those she impacted along the way.

Letter to Another Survivor (essay)

Prose

On October 6, 2018, I wrote a thank-you email to Christine Blasey Ford for her congressional testimony. I shared intimate, vulnerable details of my life because I thought she could understand as another survivor. I share it with you all in the hopes that you can have greater empathy for us as survivors and victims.

—

Dear Professor Blasey Ford,

As a concerned American and fellow survivor of sexual violence, I followed Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process through the news with a good deal of interest. I thought your testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was brave and inspiring. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to thank you. Even though he was ultimately confirmed, your efforts meant the world to me and to survivors across the country.

His confirmation to the Supreme Court is particularly painful for me, given that I attended law school in pursuit of my belief in government institutions to create and maintain justice. Perhaps I was too naive. Perhaps not. But I know that the Senate did not give you justice with their vote today. The FBI did not do you justice with its limited and cursory investigation. And the White House did not seek justice for you with its partisan trickery and manipulations.

Disappointment is not new for me. Yet I continue to weep when such news reaches me. My father sexually abused me throughout my childhood, starting from when I was just two or three years old. When I attempted suicide during my second year of law school and sought help from Harvard (we were entitled to 10 free mental health sessions per year as students), I was told that since I was off-campus for an externship program (for which I was receiving school credit), they would not provide any resources to me. 

On my own, I exerted great efforts to transform my life and to treat myself with care and kindness, including changing my inner dialogue with myself (no tolerance for diminishing self-talk, reasoning through my beliefs, delving deeper into philosophy to structure a more positive worldview) and developing healthy habits (curbing alcohol consumption, limiting processed food intake, incorporating exercise, using stretching/mindfulness/essential oils to reduce stress, embracing arts/crafts, picking up the violin again). During this time, my dissociation was extremely difficult to manage, and I endured periods of numbness when I felt incapable of connecting to any emotion. For the first time in my life, I felt genuinely concerned that I could lose touch entirely with reality, and had nightmares reflecting that anxiety. During my third year of law school, I went into the health center to be assessed for ADHD. I got a neuropsych test that confirmed my suspicion of inattentive-type ADHD, but not before the prescriber, Dr. David Abramson, attempted to block me from getting help. 

During my last semester, I started dating Dr. Jon Einarsson (ob/gyn surgeon at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, professor at Harvard Medical School). He came to visit me December 2-3, 2017, when he transmitted chlamydia and garderella vaginalis to me. After examining our text communications and writing down all of our experiences together, I determined that he is a psychopath, and that the STI transmissions were premeditated, deliberate, and malicious.

In the aftermath of that sexual battery, I have been diagnosed with PTSD and fibromyalgia. I had to take a leave from work– a pastime that was a source of great fulfillment in my life. All of this to say that I know what it feels like to be abandoned; to appeal to power only to have your cries for help fall on deaf ears. I just want you to know that you are not alone, that you’ve never been alone. I and countless others stand with you.

Wishing you strength and love,

Ally