the woman’s laugh was so very infectious, they ended up laughing as well.
“And your name is—”
The woman continued to laugh.
“It’s almost like hiccups,” Spike said. “Maybe she’s getting too much oxygen?”
“But it’s too little oxygen that makes you lightheaded.”
“Well, maybe she’s an extraterrestrial. And what do we know about alien physiology?”
“Right. That’s gotta be it.”
Even so, Jane put the last chocolate-chip cookie into her mouth, then passed the empty pail to the woman. Or whatever. Who had no idea what to do with it. So Jane took the bright red pail, put it over her mouth, and breathed in and out. She gave it back to the woman. Who did what Jane had done. And stopped laughing.
Spike carefully eased back into the highway traffic.
Half a minute later, the woman took the pail away from her mouth. “Thank you,” she said. “I was at one with the universe. It was purple.”
“Okaay …” Jane replied, then tried again. “What’s your name?”
“Xrrmrvnbnvdl.”
Spike glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Okay, but your friends just call you ‘X’, right?”
X erupted into laughter again. She put the pail over her mouth again, quickly.
“Mmm. Chocolate fumes.”
Both Jane and Spike grinned. Jane handed X one of the many chocolate bars they’d also bought at the Walmart. She managed to eat it with the pail over her mouth. Jane was impressed.
“Where were you headed? Can we give you a ride home?”
X took the pail away from her mouth. “You can do that? In this vehicle?”
“Hey!” Jane said, then turned to Spike, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Spike shrugged.
X burst out laughing again. Jane reached into the back and put the pail completely over X’s head. It had been a jumbo-sized pail of cookies. X stopped laughing. And didn’t seem at all concerned about sitting there with a red pail over her head.
“Where do you live?”
“Grmphflg.”
“Sorry?”
“Grmphflg,” X repeated, more loudly. “In the Zbixschik star system.”
Jane and Spike exchanged looks.
“Did she say star system?” Spike was ready to believe.
“Sorry,” Jane said to X, “we don’t know where that is.”
“MapQuest it,” Spike said.
Jane stared at Spike.
“Hey, I know some geeks. It’s not inconceivable—”
So Jane opened her laptop and looked up Grmphflg on MapQuest. Making a guess at the spelling.
“Some of them have a very warped sense of humour,” Spike continued. “Get it? Warped?”
“Yeah. Ha-ha.”
After a moment, Jane announced, to Spike, “MapQuest doesn’t seem to have a ‘Beyond Earth’ option. Gee.” She turned to X in the back. “Can you tell us where Grmphflg is?”
“Well yeah,” X said. “I know where I live. But I don’t know where you live. I was out for a drive and got lost. So I stopped here to ask for directions.”
Jane and Spike looked at each other again.
“You stopped here. To ask for directions.”
X suddenly went—inanimate.
“Is she— Did we just kill an alien? With an empty pail of Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookies?”
They considered the ramifications of that for the Department of National Defence.
“I think she’s just fainted,” Jane said. Though her body looked more stalled than limp.
“Do you think that when she wakes up, she’ll say ‘Take me to your leader’?”
“God, I hope not. We wouldn’t, would we? It’d be too embarrassing.”
“Not as embarrassing as it would’ve been a couple years ago.”
“True.”
They were silent. Waiting for—well, they had no idea what they were waiting for. X’s metamorphosis, perhaps, into a neon green lizard with iridescent wings. Or an ottoman covered in corduroy.
“I hope she doesn’t ask about the meaning of life,” Jane said.
“Yeah, we don’t really have the answer to that one worked out yet, do we.”
“The answer? I don’t even have the question worked out. I understand ‘What’s the purpose of life?’ Even though I don’t think it has a purpose, because purpose implies intentional design. But what does ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ mean? Purpose and meaning are two different things. ‘What’s the meaning of “persnickety”?’ That makes sense. Words mean things. Even an action might mean something. And, as we recently confirmed, appearance might mean something. But how can life mean something? It’s not a signifier, not a symbol. It just is.”
“Maybe you should take the pail off—”
“Oh yeah.”
Jane reached back and lifted the pail off X’s head. With a great intake of air, X came to. Jane and Spike waited, with great anticipation, for her next words.
“Can we stop somewhere? I have to pee.”
“So let’s try this again.” Spike turned to X once they were back in the car. Jane was driving. “You’re from—”
“Grmphflg.”
“But you don’t—but we don’t know where that is.”
“If I knew where this was,” X said, “I could probably figure out how to get back.”
“This is Earth,” Jane said, playing along.
“Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“They wouldn’t call it Earth,” Spike said to Jane.
“Oh. Right.” Then she looked pointedly at Spike, clearly asking You’re
