Give Me Words, Paint Me Colours

“Tell me words that describe your universe,” she begs, “give me images for what I can't see.”

“How? Your eyes only detect thirty-eight colours; I count them in thousands.”

She shakes her head and bends to kiss my hands. She knows I don’t have them, but she’s happy with the illusion. It’s another truth she searches for.

“Let me share your reality.”

Not a chance, I think, but I can’t force myself to say it. “I’ll try, human.”

For the sake of our impossible love, for that morning when your world remained silent, for the memory of a destroyed planet.

From Guest Contributor Russell Hemmell

Russell is an alien from Mintaka snuggled into a (consenting) human host. Recent fiction on Gone Lawn, Not One of Us, Typehouse Literary Journal, and elsewhere.