Anastasia Canary and Her Paranormal Lovers

In an mmmbop they’re gone
In an mmmbop they’re not there
—Hanson, “MMMBop”

My name is Anastasia Canary, and if you have a problem with that, you’re going to need to stop reading now. It doesn’t change in this story.

Maybe it will one day. I don’t like it either.

They took me to their ship two weeks after my niece’s third birthday. I’m not sure if it’s still a UFO when it doesn’t go anywhere. Maybe it’s just an O, like their mouths. I’d never seen an alien up close, but it looked a lot like I imagined it would. Gray, lifeless, like a walking corpse puppeted by a feral child. The one I guess was in charge—as much as I’m guessing he’s a he—took me to an exam room, or so he said—telepathically, I think. Honestly, it’s hard to say if his mouth was moving.

When he had me strapped down to a chair, he said, “Anastasia Canary, do not be afraid. We need to prepare you for the Green Awakening.” I asked how he expected to do all that, but I got a syringe to the ribs instead. The bruise lasted until late the next afternoon. I suppose I should have asked what the Green Awakening is, maybe that would have stalled him, but you don’t really know how you’re going to react in a situation like that.

I didn’t scream though. I’m alright with needles.

The next night, I dreamed they came back. I assume it was a dream because everything was more vivid than my previous encounter. I could see clearly their salamander skin, and I no longer thought of walking cadaver children. I thought of Jell-O, all their organs suspended like pieces of wobbling fruit.

I began to crave calamari when the tallest one asked, “You want to know of the Green Awakening?”

I thought yes, and he continued. “We have always lived on your planet, just as you have always lived on ours. The Green Awakening will ensure our survival.”

I woke up after that, thinking of riddles and how I hate them.

I tried to tell my brother about the visitation and the dreams. Predictably, he didn’t believe me.

“Ani, what have you been eating before bed? It had better not be pickles again. You know pickles before bed give you nightmares.”

My brother is a health nut. And I mean, sure, I care about my body too, but only insofar as I want other people seeing it in a way that appeals to them. My brother’s on this whole other level. He just thinks he’ll live longer. Well, I’ve got news for him: the Canary women always outlive the men. Always.

I did eat the pickles though, so maybe he had a point.

I tried my mother next.

“Nastya, I’m so glad you called,” my mother said instead of “hello.” She uses the Russian diminutive with me because she named me after the famous Anastasia and thinks it’s appropriate. Considering the most exotic country I can trace any of my roots back to is France, I cringe every time I hear her try to put a Slavic accent onto it. Some people worshipped Princess Diana; my mother adored the Grand Duchess.

She continued before I could say anything, “I’ve been practicing my tarot readings with my instructor. He says I’m coming along very well.”

“That’s great, Mom,” I said and remembered why I should have come to her before my brother in the first place.

“No, no, you don’t understand. I just did a present-and-future reading for you.”

“What’s that?”

“You pick one card to show where the subject of the reading is at currently and one for what the future holds.”

“Okay.”

“You got the inverted star!” she practically screamed down the phone.

“Is that bad?” I asked, wondering how a star could even be upside down.

“Yes, it’s terrible. You’re miserable, discouraged, and insecure. You have to work on that as soon as you can.”

“Well, do I?”

“Do what?”

“Do I get out of my funk? What’s the future card?”

“The Three of Wands.”

“What’s that one mean?”

“I don’t know. We’ve only studied the major arcana.”

I decided not to tell her about the aliens. She had enough to worry about.

They came back the night I called my mother. But this time was different. I didn’t feel inhibited or at the mercy of creatures more powerful than myself. They let me freely roam the ship. To be honest, I could have been in a storage facility on one of the seedier sides of town. They didn’t seem to be big on windows. Cages lined the walls and the air smelled like April. The only thing that betrayed their surroundings was a steady hum I had come to associate with their vehicle. I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. On previous encounters, they’d practically drugged me and returned me with my clothes improperly buttoned. On this trip, I’d yet to be medicated, probed, or implanted—as far as I could tell—so this adventure through the inner workings of alien technology fascinated me.

It also helped that my guide had found a way to look human. Not just any human either; my host appeared to me as the Norse god of thunder, Thor, or at least how he’d been portrayed on-screen. Tall, muscular, unreal. Unobtainable.

“We searched your mind and found that this is a pleasing image to you. A father perhaps?”

Well, they certainly didn’t understand the first thing about earthly pleasure.

“No, a movie star,” I said. Thor stared at me for a while, possibly attempting to understand what I’d said, possibly just pleasing me more. Maybe both. “Why are you showing me all of this?” I asked after we’d ventured a little farther into the ship. The cages were all empty, and honestly, once you’ve seen one empty cage, you’ve kind of seen them all.

“You are special, Anastasia Canary. Only you can help us prepare for the Green Awakening.”

I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. This time I had my wits about me. This time I could ask questions.

“What is the Green Awakening?”

“We have lived on your planet—”

“Yeah, yeah, just as we’ve lived on yours. I heard you the first time. If that’s true, then why doesn’t everyone know about you? Why isn’t there any evidence?”

“There is evidence, if you know where to look.”

I had to admit he had me there. I usually had a hard time finding my keys.

“Okay,” I said, not wanting to admit that I’d never have time to look. “What’s the Green Awakening mean? What’s it got to do with me?”

“We have shared the planet before, and we need to share it again. Your kind is killing our home.”

“I already recycle.”

The next thing Thor said would have sounded great over dinner at a fancy restaurant or maybe even while he rubbed my feet as we watched reality TV, but hovering above the planet surrounded by cages, I felt a little queasy. “We need you to be the Mother.”

My vision dimmed, and I realized I was going to pass out. My last thought before I hit the floor was that I couldn’t believe they went to all that trouble and didn’t even give him his hammer, Mjolnir.

I woke up in a dumpster behind a Dunkin’ Donuts in just my bra and a pair of slacks wondering if I even had what it takes to be a mother.

When I was a little girl, I thought I’d have four children. Growing up, it was only my brother and me, and we didn’t have that much in common. I figured with four, someone would have to like someone, and there wouldn’t be a middle child, not really. The two in the middle could be there for each other. You need to start early for that kind of family, and the thing about high school sweethearts is that you have to actually date and I really liked cannabis and instant gratification more than chocolates and hand-holding. At sixteen I was dead certain I didn’t want children. I had a whole world to see.

Then I graduated and went to community college. I wanted to run a funeral parlor, and they had a mortuary science program. I did not see the world, but I did see a lot more dead bodies than the average teen. There was a problem though: I found I liked doing hair more than makeup, and for reasons that to this day I don’t understand, families want you to go heavy on the foundation of their dearly departed but doing up Grandma’s hair up like she’s fresh from the salon sends them into hysterics.

So at nineteen I signed up for cosmetology school.

And I kicked its ass.

Working my way up the ranks of a local beauty parlor, I—at twenty-four no less—managed to buy the place from the owner, who was planning on retiring. I will never replicate the feeling that first day I cut hair in a place that I owned, but when I shut off the lights and locked the door, I remember thinking, It’d be nice to have someone to pass this on to.

The hormonal clock began its final countdown toward midnight after that. Soon, I would succumb to baby fever. The new problem was that the longest relationship I’d had to that point was just over a month, and there weren’t any prospects on the horizon. And that’s how it went for six years. I’d pick men I was physically attracted to, but my type was hunk and hunks aren’t really looking to make babies, which had always been okay with me before. Monogamy and Anastasia Canary went together about as well as highlights and medical research cadaver 721.

On my thirtieth birthday, I decided I had had enough. I would find fulfillment in myself (and my niece that my brother thankfully helped create).

But lying in bed, pushing forty and having seen the inside of an alien spacecraft, I decided I was ready again. Who wouldn’t want to be the mother to the savior of the planet? I looked up at the ceiling and shouted to the rotating fan, “Alright, I’ll do it!” while remembering that technically the next savior to be born wouldn’t be the good one.

Either way, I hoped it’d be a girl.

I knew they’d be listening. 

That night, I woke up back on the ship, but this time in a new room. It was paneled with wood and looked vaguely familiar, like something I’d seen on a seventies sitcom. A bookcase even lined one wall with what I assumed was Dr. Spock’s complete canon. The only other object in the room was a green couch made of some sort of pleather. I worried about sticking to it before I noticed I was wearing a gown. Red. Sheer but comfortable. The kind of thing I wouldn’t normally wear.

Thor came into the room twirling his hammer, creating little sparks. They must have been eavesdropping in my head on my last visit.

“Please, sit,” he said, extending an arm to demonstrate where he wanted me to go like it weren’t the most obvious thing in the world.

I decided to plop myself down cross-legged against the front of the couch because I liked this alien the best so far and this felt flirtatious.

He considered me before saying, “We heard that you’re willing to help. We wish to thank you.”

“An egg usually goes for twenty grand on the low end.”

“The process will take five days,” he said, ignoring me. “During that time, we can make you believe you are participating in your own kind’s mating behaviors. Choose your lovers, and we will do the rest.”

First, I chose Thor, and if the alien giving me these instructions felt scandalized by the decision, he didn’t show it. For the last four, I picked all three brothers from a nineties boy band I’ve followed to this day and one of the few ex-boyfriends I’ve had who broke up with me. (Not before coming out of the closet.)

When I finished my list, I asked, “When can we start?”

He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Now, if it pleases you.”

And he did.

The next four nights followed mostly the same. That is to say, I enjoyed myself immensely—better than a needle to the ribs, though I still came home with some bruises. Most of them of my own accord this time.

The morning after the fifth night, I woke in my own bed feeling weightless, free, happy. I glowed. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew I had made the right decision. I went to the store and snagged prenatal vitamins and a couple cartons of pregnancy tests. I then dumped all the liquor out of my house so I wouldn’t be tempted. I had finally found a way to beat monogamy and feed my longing for a family. I had a whole crew of doting fantasies floating out there somewhere among the stars.

The problem was—they weren’t coming back.

After a week, I began to worry. And then a visitation of the kind I was dreading. One that was more regular than my space friends. One that signified that maybe my five nights of ecstasy hadn’t worked at all. In a state of denial, I immediately went about taking one of the many pregnancy tests. While I hoped I wasn’t in some chest-bursting alien situation, I still couldn’t be exactly sure this wasn’t a normal part of the process.

The wait felt like forever.

And then I waited all that time for just one line.

They must have known it hadn’t worked and just left me. I threw the stick that had betrayed me out of the window I’d cracked to smoke while it decided my fate.

My mother called me later that evening. I answered the phone while fishing a pickle out of its jar.

“Good news, Nastya, you’re going to be okay.”

“Well, thank god for that, but would you mind clarifying?”

“We finally got to the minor arcana. The Three of Wands means that you are about to embark on a journey of creation.” A lump caught in my throat, and I’m not sure if she heard it or not, but she finished with, “I’m so proud of you.” I said, “You too,” though I didn’t know what that meant and hung up before I got too emotional. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what had happened, and besides, she was already a grandma.

While brushing my teeth to rid my mouth of its briny taste, I felt drawn toward the window. The moon was full, and the side yard glowed in a light so natural it could have been described as unreal. I rubbed my eyes at first to make sure I was seeing what I thought I saw.

There where I’d thrown my pregnancy test stood a flower of a kind I’d never seen before. Its blossom spread open to show soft petals covered in a velvet crush of pollen. A gentle breeze lifted some of the fine powder off the delicate folds, and I could have sworn they kept their color as they shimmered into the night.

Yellow.

Like a canary.

©2024 David Saltos Lee

David Saltos Lee is just a small-town, Midwestern guy who writes little stories for fun and runs a nonprofit for serious. Check out his other works @dmdunnwriter on X/Twitter, or just drop by to say hi.