I Want to Believe

On Saturday night, I noted a very odd bruise on my right elbow. Now, that sounds stupid and not at all alarming, but I was alarmed. The bruise was round and donut-shaped and very black. It encircled my elbow perfectly and I was quite surprised when I discovered it in the shower. I hadn't whacked my elbow on anything. Not anything I could remember, anyway. And if you end up with a large, black bruise on your elbow, you should remember whacking it.

I was forced to Google. It could have been the first symptom of a crippling disease; you don't know. The only consistent explanation: Apparently, my bruise is evidence that I've been abducted my aliens.

I find this entirely plausible.

I mean, not really. But why not? That's as good an explanation as I can come up with for the way this summer disappeared out from under me or the way that my brain feels odd lately, like someone took it out and then put it back in slightly off-kilter. I've been blaming just run-of-the-mill laziness, but alien abduction is a much better theory. It means when I bottom out of graduate school, I can live in a trailer on the edge of the world with my dog and a fence made of aluminum cans and chat online with My People. (You know, the other abductees.) I've always wanted People.


(And, by the way, when I was looking for the photo up top, I actually rejected one because I looked at it and thought, "Oh, what crap. That's not a real photograph." I've so been colonized.)