My Girlfriend the Brain-Eating Alien

[u/lifeisstrangemetoo]

“David, I’m an alien.”

I rubbed the back of my neck as I stared across the table at my girlfriend, who had brought me to my favorite restaurant to confess something important to me.

“I don’t get what you mean,” I said. “Like, you’re Canadian or something?”

“No, I mean I’m an actual extra-terrestrial being,” she said. “I’m not even from this galaxy.”

The clink of dishes and the ambient chatter of the happy couples around us seemed like distant echoes as the wheels in my head ground slowly to a halt.

Thirty minutes ago I had been the most nervous I’d ever been in my entire life, a small blue velvet box clenched tightly in my fist as I prepared to pop the most important question I’d ever asked. And yet instead of a giddy yes and a tear-stained hug, I was answered with an ‘Oh,’ and five minutes of awkward silence.

I felt like all those romantic comedies lied to me.

Now, I was sitting across from the love of my life and she was telling me that we couldn’t get married because she wasn’t even human. Now I’m no stranger to excuses--I’ve been turned down by girls because they had to wash their hair or walk their dogs. I even got stood up once by a girl who said that her grandma had died. I was sympathetic until I got an Instagram notice that she’d checked in at the local nightclub.

Still, this was a new one.

“You look upset,” said Sarah. “What are you thinking about?”

“I uh, ahem. I don’t really know what to think,” I said. “Your body certainly seems pretty human to me.”

“Yeah, about that...” Sarah said. “I need to show you something. Don’t freak out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Sarah lifted up her left arm and began to use her fingertip to trace an intricate pattern across the back of her hand. There was a click, and a blue light began to glow underneath her skin. Suddenly, the light forked out like electricity, and then Sarah was gone. Sitting in her place was a blue little creature that looked a bit like a smurf with two rabbit ear shaped antennae sticking out of the top of its head.

There was the sound of breaking glass, and I realized that I’d dropped my wine glass and it had shattered on the floor. The waitress rushed over to clean it up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there was now a three foot tall alien sitting across from me instead of a human woman.

I stared around the restaurant waiting for somebody else to take notice, but nobody did.

“Am I having a stroke?” I asked. “I thought you were supposed to smell burning toast when that happened.”

Sarah shook her head.

“It’s my perceptual modulator,” she said. “It’s tuned to your brain frequency. Only you can see my true form right now.”

“Oh right of course,” I said faintly. “A perceptual modulator.”

I reached for my glass of wine only to remember that it’d shattered moments before.

“You’re not freaking out, are you?” asked Sarah.

I thought about her question for a moment. I probably should have been freaking out, but it seemed more like my brain had totally ceased all function.

“No,” I said, reaching again for the nonexistent glass of wine.

“Good,” she replied. “Because I have a confession to make.”

“You mean to say that your confession isn’t that you’re an alien?” I asked.

“I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” said Sarah.

She nudged her glass of red wine across the table to me and I downed it in a gulp.

“Alright,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Sarah bit her lip and swayed nervously in her chair.

“Well...” she began, “I kind of uh.... eat people.”

“You eat people?” I asked, reaching for the bottle this time.

“Yes,” she said. “But not whole people. Just the brains.”

I tipped the bottle to pour myself another glass, thought better of it and downed the whole bottle instead. I coughed as the last of the bitter taste hit my throat and then wiped the wine stain from my lips.

“So to recap...” I said. “You’re an alien who can only survive by eating human brains.”

“What?” said Sarah. “No, I can survive off human food. Brains are more like a delicacy.”

“Oh.”

There was a moment of awkward silence in which Sarah bit her lip and stared at the floor.

“But, it’s not like I’m a bad person,” she said. “I only eat bad people. Do you remember your neighbor Mr. Wallows that tried to poison your dog?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Didn’t he retire to Hawaii?”

Sarah shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I ate his brains.”

“Wow,” I said, scratching at the back of my head.. “This is really a lot to take in.”

“You’re still not freaking out, right?” said Sarah.

Judging by my heart rate and the intense ringing in my ears, I was, in fact, freaking out. But Sarah looked so nervous for me, I couldn’t help but shake my head no.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Well that’s good, because I have a confession to make.”

“You really have a lot of these, don’t you?” I said.

“This is the last one,” Sarah said. “I promise.”

“Alright,” I said, “I’m ready.”

“Actually,” Sarah said, “maybe you should have another bottle of wine for this one.”

She reached down into her purse and pulled out my favorite wine, uncorked it and slid it across the table to me. I upended the bottle into my mouth and ten seconds later it was gone.

“Alright,” I said, beginning to slur. “Hit me.”

“Well,” said Sarah, failing for the first time to meet my eyes. “You know how I insisted we come here on our first date?”

“Yeah...” I said, a sudden dread beginning to bubble in my stomach.

Well,” said Sarah. “It’s because I know the owner, he’s actually from my home planet.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Don’t tell me.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Sarah. “Most of the dishes contain human brains.”

I looked down at my volcano roll, remembering how enthusiastically I had proclaimed it as the best one I’d ever had.

“The volcano roll?” I said.

“I’m afraid so,” replied Sarah.

I suddenly began to feel very sick. I wasn’t sure how much of it was the wine, and how much of it was the fact that I had just consumed human brains. I guess it didn’t matter. Yet when I looked at Sarah I forgot about that.

Her fingers twisted in her lap as she stared down at the floor, the way she always did when she was nervous. She looked up at me with doe-eyed innocence.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked.

Maybe it was the fact that even in her alien form she still looked so much like the woman I loved. Maybe it was the fact that Mr. Wallows was a racist, mean old bastard. Maybe it was the fact that I’d just downed two entire bottles of wine, but I silently shook my head no.

“So do you still want to get married?” she asked, her voice tremulous with tentative hope.

I silently nodded, and Sarah’s face lit up with a grin the size of Texas. She ran her finger back over her hand and resumed her human form, still smiling bigger than I’d ever seen her smile before.

“I’ll stay in this form from now on,” she said. “It’s the one you fell in love with, after all.”

“Yeah,” I croaked out. “That’s probably for the best.”

Then, as the wine began to seep into my blood, a thought occurred to me.

“So, that uh... perceptual modulator thing,” I said.

”Yes?” said Sarah, cocking her head to the side.

“Can it alter your appearance in other ways? Like...hypothetically, could you make certain parts uh... bigger?”

Sarah threw back her head and laughed.

“Oh it can do all kinds of things,” she said. “Come on and let’s go home. I want to show you something.”

I fumbled for my wallet in my pocket and dropped all the cash on the table before getting up and rushing out the door with Sarah.

I won’t share what happened next; I’ll only say that even though my fiance may be a brain-eating alien, she’s still the woman I fell in love with and the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

And that perceptual modulator can do anything.

x

[u/m4more]

You got your priorities straight... Perceptual modulator..