Had she been fully informed of what living as a human would entail she wasn’t sure she would make the same choice twice. It had been 12 years since that decision she made just after her coming out ceremony, a ceremony which she now mourned. Mourned the loss of who she had been, a majestic Enleongator, 4 arms, 2 hearts, 3 kidneys, and a redundant stomach (in case of emergencies). She longed for simpler times, to go home and live back in familiar surroundings which made life easier. Life as a human was hard, so hard. She no longer had the support she’d taken for granted, sure she missed her family but most of all she missed the community that just worked. Worked at supporting each individual within it, in a way where each of them had the right to personal autonomy (Freedom of choice of how to live their life), and access to all the resources they might require to live the life they wanted. She missed her own reflection of blue shimmering skin, and curls made up of symbiotic snake-like creatures. They were to her like pets were to humans, she nourished them and they her, but also physically not just emotionally. Their existence meant she thought clearer, remembered more accurately and enjoyed life as it was meant to live, because her brain chemistry was at its optimum.

 

 

Here on earth things were vastly different. She’d been fascinated by humans since she first learned about them in school at an early age; she devoured new learnings, always fascinated to learn something new about the universe. It was about the same time she started longing to be with humans that boy Enlongators took an interest in her as a potential mate. Perhaps it was an avoidance tactic, but none of the Enlongators piqued her interest in the same way humans did. Her cultural heretics teacher once warned her that new pastures weren’t always greener. This perplexed her at the time because she knew that lots of pastures where purple and red, not just green. But slowly she was coming to realise the intent of the phrase. New things weren’t always better. Why on Enlongator didn’t people just say what they actually meant? She’d always been perplexed by sayings. Little did she realise that humans had even more sayings which were confusing and perplexing!

 

 

The journey to earth had been uneventful, 10 years of stasis made her feel surprisingly refreshed, not depleted as she’d imagined. The last month was awake though, to give them time to adjust to being awake again, and to be briefed on the situations they were likely to experience with the humans. If she’d be informed of the situations she’d be facing before the journey, she might not have made it at all.

 

 

She arrived on earth just as an orange skinned human was voted into power in America, he was leading people into hatred and vitriol of those who were different. Apparently this made little sense to many humans too, and those were the ones she found she had been able to make friends with.

 

 

12 years on, and at times she could barely remember the objective of being here. Her daily living was focused on trying to avoid becoming homeless or bankrupt, struggling desperately to keep her fragile human body healthy in case medical bills would be accrued.

 

 

But then, there were those joyful moments she’d experienced too. Were they enough to counterbalance all the horrendous things on this ghastly planet? Maybe, maybe…

 

 

There was the time she taught Benjy how to tie his own shoe laces, oh the joy and delight and pride he felt finally being able to do that was a beautiful thing to witness. He’d discovered that in spite of things being difficult, if he got the right support he could achieve even the unachievable! Quite the contrast to populist beliefs of humans, that you could do anything you set your mind to. No, not everyone can, not without a little careful support that is. Her mind boggled at how humans did not seem to understand how interconnected they all were. How each are responsible for the well being of others, and themselves. Not themselves first at the expense of others. It was a dark phase of humanity she existed in, it was supposed to be living but once the resources she’d been issued had run dry… well then living became much more like trying desperately to survive.

 

 

Then there was the time she met the most beautiful girl on the planet, beauty in her energy, personality, in the never ending supply of love and good wishes she had for others. That was a day etched deep in her fragile human memory, impossible to shift that one was. She’d become mesmerised by that girl, infatuated the humans might call it. When she was in her company she felt at home. When she was in her company she felt at peace, protected, safe.

 

It was fun navigating their early dates, she was nervous, unsure whether the girl would respond positively. Unsure whether the girl would like her, this human who she’d become. Sure, she had curls, but not the curls she once had, and sure she had good skin, but not the glimmering blue skin she once had. Would she be good enough? Wow what a human experience to have, she’d never felt like this before becoming human.

 

 

Thankfully Jane did reciprocate, and after their first walk and picnic it was clear to both that they’d found someone they could connect with deeply, intimately. Intimately as in “in-to-me-see” kind of way, they saw into each other's hearts and it made them smile with deep joy and a feeling of fulfilment she’d never before experienced.

 

 

They danced together, cried watching rom coms together, cooked together, and later, made their house a home together.

 

 

Until they didn’t any more.

 

 

Because Jane was taken from her brutally, suddenly irrevocably. One moment she was the joy and love of her life the next she lay dead on a mortician’s slab, waiting to be dissected.

 

 

There was no warning, nothing to prepare her for the horrendous loss. Nothing to soothe the pain, nothing to heal the wound she carried. She understood words like “heart broken” in ways she’d never before fathomed. Her heart felt dead, with a weight that made it hard to get out of bed each day. With a heart that made everything which had once been so joyous, so dull, heavy and difficult.

 

 

So, given what she knew now, being fully informed about the experiences of being human, would she choose the same again? Yes, because to not have known Jane was a worse kind of empty and meaningless-ness. Because having experienced love that deep gave her hope, that living as a human wasn’t all difficulty and strife. That living meant love was possible.