And then, somehow, I stumble onto a station of people talking. It doesn’t seem to be a show, and it’s not a news station, just two people talking, almost as if they’re on walkie talkies.
“What do you think?” a guy asks.
“I don’t know,” a woman answers. “I’m so confused. I thought I loved him, but…”
“You don’t,” he says with so much assertion that I have to roll my eyes.
Who is this guy, and why does he think he knows her better than she knows herself?
“You can’t marry him,” the guy continues.
“And why not? He has money. He treats me right. He—”
“He doesn’t treat you right,” he claims. “Yes, he’ll buy you the moon if he could, but he doesn’t have what I have.”
“And what do you have, Chad?” she asks in a harsh tone. “You don’t have a job. You don’t have a house.”
“I know I don’t have a lot to offer you, but I know I can make you happy.”
“Happiness won’t fill my belly. I need more than that.”
“I love you, Lucy,” he pleads, the raw emotion coming through clearly through the radio.
She doesn’t respond.
“You used to love me,” he murmurs.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Do you still?” he asks.
“No.”
“So that’s just it, then, is it?” Chad asks. “You’re in denial, and you’re going to stay with James despite his cheating on you.”
“He never cheated—”
“You’re delusional!” he retorts.
Okay, this is getting too intense for me. Chad’s being an overbearing sore loser. Lucy’s allowed to make up her mind, and Chad can go ahead and love her, but if she’s picked someone else, he needs to grow up and let her go.
I change the radio, and this time hit a real radio station.
“So, word on the street is that the WXYZ news station is trying to contact the Novans to see if Kurians would be willing to come to Earth for a dating show. Who wants to date an alien? What do you think, Sally? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Well, Chuck, I think it could go a long way to helping the Kurians. They need to find love so that there can be more baby Kurians. I think it’s wonderful that it’s necessary for the Kurians and Novans to find love for there to be a child.”
“It’s definitely interesting how that turned out to be. I think scientists said it’s due to hormones.”
“Yes. We had so many dating shows before the Grots, and we can have them again,” Sally says. “They generate great ratings, and having Kurians here on Earth will help with relations between them and us.”
I roll my eyes. An alien dating show? Seriously? And everyone talks about having to make better the relations between Earthlings, Kurians, and Novans, but I haven't heard too much of anything ever being terrible. I mean, yes, in the beginning, there had to be a lottery system for women to go to Kuria because there weren't enough women who volunteered to go to Kuria just to have sex with aliens.
Actually, I do think there was something once. A town that had a fair amount of prejudice toward a Kurian who lives there now. There are a few on Earth now. Not all of them are on Kuria, so I guess it makes sense for there to be even more to come over. It's nice for them to venture here instead of the women always having to be the ones who travel to the new planet.
I flip through. There’s a lot more static now, but eventually, I find a station with a song I never heard before. A sultry woman is singing.
“You never know the future. You have to dare to fly. Your wings might get broken, but they’ll heal. Dare to try. Dare to live. Dare to fly.”
My fingers itch to turn the dial. My life has always been about daring to live.
The next station that comes in clear is another song.
“When you’re hurting, when you’re scared, when you’re thinking no one’s there, do what you have to in order to survive. Hurt them back, make them scared, show that you’re not—”
What the hell? What kind of a song is that? Not one that I want to listen to.
I turn the dial and try to see if there’s anything good on, anything worth listening to, but there isn’t, and I shut off the radio.
Unbidden, a song I used to listen to all the time comes back to me, and I begin to hum it.
"Take chances and dream a dream so big it terrifies you. The only change you have at changing is if you push yourself. Push, push, push yourself. You can be so much more. You can feel so much more. You can achieve whatever you want if you just try, try, try. If you just try, try, try. If you try, you might fail, but if you never try, you'll never win. And that's all life is, winning and losing. Be a winner as much as you can, but when you lose, and you will lose, just keep on going. You can achieve whatever you want if you just try, try, try. If you just try, try, try."
I clear my throat and glance around. Strol isn't anywhere nearby, so he didn't overhear me sing it. I haven't sung in forever, and my voice cracked a bit. I used to sing all the time, before. That's how I view life now. Before and after, and after sucks. Yes, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want, but there's no one here anymore.
No one but Strol.
I don’t want to lose anyone else, but eventually, he’ll leave me too. I just will have to deal with that. Accept it for what it is. Life can only last for so long before we have to die, and then life goes on for everyone else. We’re just dead and forgotten.
I won’t forget, but I’m basically the only one who remembers. Once I’m dead, no one else will care about her.
A grief that can't
