Emma’s Baby Cousin is an Extraterrestrial by Philip Matcovsky

Emma’s baby cousin, Becky, is an extraterrestrial on earth. Emma has known this since Becky’s birth and intends to prove it today, since the cousins’ pizza dinner this month is being held at Becky’s home. 

     Cousin Frank explains how thirteen-year-old Becky is actually Emma’s second cousin twice removed, not her baby cousin, as Emma refers to her. Emma listens, eyeballs up, speechless, although her messy red hair and colorful clothes are not as quiet. She returns eye to eye with Frank, while spying on her baby cousin in her peripheral vision.

     Becky’s a wonder to look at. Although Emma is the only one to mention it, Becky’s head is shaped like a lightbulb. Maybe long hair would make her appear more earthly, more human, because her big chestnut eyes and pixie haircut do not. 

     Cousin Frank changes the subject of the conversation to his boyfriend Rob, who refuses to eat burgers at cousin Bernie’s restaurant, aptly named Bernie’s Beer & Burger Bar. Emma says, “We don’t start with a new slate, Frank. We carry the attributes of our past lives into this life. It’s likely Rob’s past-life experience included fish as a primary food source. He’s carried that over, so now there’s no desire to eat burgers or chicken fingers, only fish . Makes sense? And he’s allowed to get a salad at cousin Bernie’s, don’t bother him about it.”

     Frank, at sixty-five, is slightly younger than Emma. With his rock star-like mane of white hair he is house cleaner to many of the cousin’s homes, as Emma is the family tarot card reader and intuitive. Although cousin Frank is a terrible house cleaner, he is easy to talk to.

     Emma continues, “It reminds me of baby-cousin Becky. She’s lived many life-forms on various planets before being reincarnated as human. Half human, I should say. Her head is misshapen out of transitioning from one life-form to another; she’s still part alien. Look at her head.” They both turn to look at her directly. “She’s a beautiful soul, marvelous to look at, if you see what I see. The truth is beautiful, the oneness of everything, you know?”

     Becky slips downstairs to the basement, which is only used for storage. Why would she go down there? Emma needs to know; Becky's behavior has always interested her. There was the time she dry-humped the apple tree in cousin Annie’s yard; and when she said grace at Thanksgiving, blessing the roasted turkey so it lived a peaceful life before its head was cut off; and how she always seemed to be searching for something in the sky, not bird watching or admiring the clouds, but looking for a spacecraft to communicate with.

     Emma excuses herself from cousin Frank and approaches the basement stairwell. She steps gently, soundlessly, down four wooden steps until she sees her baby-cousin surveying the concrete floor. Becky’s head moves slowly side to side until she finds what she’s searching for. She bends down to pick up two dead crickets. She examines them before gently placing them in her mouth. 

     Emma wants to yell — spit them out! Her stomach moves up into her throat. She may vomit. 

     As Becky comes back upstairs, Emma’s light tone is both innocent and guilty, “What are you doin’ down there?”

     “Hi Emma. I’m helping the planet and her little creatures.”

     “By eating them?”

     “I’m not eating them. I’m giving them nutrition from my saliva.” Becky sticks out her tongue. Sure enough the crickets are moving, coated in spit. “Come outside with me,” Becky says.

     She pulls Emma by the hand, past cousins Lucy, Harold, Jenny, Mia and Dutch in the living room, to the sliding glass door. They step into the small fenced-in backyard and walk to the back fence. “These little ones in my mouth were about to die. They were paralyzed from hunger, barely alive.” In one motion, Becky spits the crickets into her hand and lightly closes her fist on them. She squats in the brush against the fence. When she opens her hand, the wet bugs leap high in the air before disappearing in the thicket. Becky rises with a smile.

     Emma looks her baby cousin in the eyes, “Are you an alien from another planet?”

     “Shut up Emma. You’re weird too.”

     “You’re not denying it. I see you look up in the sky, and it seems like you’re looking for spaceships or something.”

     “I think I’m connected to other planets, to everything in the universe,” Becky says. “Sometimes I think I channel messages from other dimensions. Maybe it’s just my intuition I’m hearing, I don’t know. I think I’m different than most people. I read a lot about this kind of thing. What about you? You’re good at reading tarot cards, and you have a lot of clients. Do you think you channel information through the cards from somewhere else in the universe?”

     There’s a moment before Emma responds. “I think I’m reading my clients, not necessarily channeling information from somewhere else.”

     “That’s awesome, that you open up so much you can read someone’s future. I feel open too. I can feel the energy of the earth and the moon. I think we’re alike that way, Emma.”

     Emma is rendered speechless for the second time that day. Becky may be right about them being similar, although putting the crickets in her mouth was super, super weird. Finally she says, “I think you’re right about us being alike, Becky. I think we are.”