Adamonde. Benjamin Vance

Adamonde looked deeply into Jonathan’s mind and asked, “Whheree isss Ootawhh?”

      ***

      The only important things in Jonathan’s life stood before him in one package. There were some mementoes he chose to archive and they did so within an hour. All important clothes and equipment was packed in another two hours and they were gone in the loaded SUV within four hours after Linda left. Jonathan left his gas oven on and a kerosene lantern burning in the downstairs bedroom. His home exploded in a fireball of flame about 11:20 p.m. He and Adamonde were safe and well on the highway to Utah.

      When faced with a genuine life-or-death quandary most people will eventually make the right decision unless fate intervenes, but if the right path isn’t chosen, who’ll be left to relate the saga? Luckily, several years earlier Jonathan did some planning work with the lead architect for a major addition to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was well remembered by a good man and he encouraged Jonathan and his new “fiancée” to stop by and see him when they reached Salt Lake.

      As Jonathan recalled, there were many beautiful places to stop and visit on the way to Salt Lake. When he ran the beautiful places through his mind, Adamonde questioned him. She chimed and chirped and smiled at him when he remembered Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon. Although Jonathan thought the Canyon was well out of the way, he gave in to Adamonde and promised to visit Zion National Park as long as she wore clothes, gloves and socks. She assured him she would wear clothing.

      Adamonde started to sing and chime as soon as they entered the beautiful chasms on highway nine. She kept singing in Jonathan’s mind, looking in all directions with both eyes and saying “Hooome, hhitttss lhiike hooome! When they saw the checkerboard cliffs she wanted to get out immediately and climb. Since it was a weekday there weren’t many people around, and he found a great niche to pull off and hide the SUV to let Adamonde “climb”.

      She was nude in seconds and speeding up a bald cliff-like incline like she had wheels and wings. He quickly missed her in his mind and after a while started to panic a bit, just as he caught sight of her little naked form at the top of a giant ponderosa a short way up the narrow, protected canyon. She was screaming at a Golden Eagle she’d attracted. He could barely hear her and could not hear the eagle, but saw it land near … and saw Adamonde pet it and then look his way. He imagined she was smiling.

      At once he felt a concentrated tingling in his brain and she entered his mind with wonderfully jumbled thoughts of, “eagle this and eagle that and I love you and let’s live here and I love climbing and … watch me now”.

      With that last thought she dropped from the tree; watching him, apparently only touching branches as she sped Earthward to her obvious death. He yelled in fear, clinched his fists and held his breath watching her plummet.

      Toward the bottom and in what seemed like slow motion to Jonathan’s overdrive brain, she slowed and gently touched ground after looping over the last limb. She came at him like a bullet then, skidded to a stop about ten feet away, skipped, pirouetted with her arms above her head and jumped him with a wet kiss and the smell of wet cinnamon and pine sap. Soon they were in the throes of making love in a bed of pine needles, in the protective shadow of some huge monolith in Zion National Park. There happened to be two young hikers---surprised onlookers---on the ridge high above who witnessed the entire spectacle, had the same urges and mimicked it right there and then, on their own bed of straw.

      9.

      Logan Cowdery met Jonathan during a lengthy stay in which Jonathan became the only dependable draftsman Logan had. Logan depended on Jonathan so much that when Jonathan left Utah, Logan promised him if he ever needed anything he had only to call. Such are most shallow promises, but Logan did arrive at the small, beautiful log cabin where Jonathan stayed previously, what seemed like a hundred years earlier. He arrived the same night Jonathan called, because he knew him well enough to recognize the urgency in his voice. Jonathan warned him amply, but when he called Adamonde from the bedroom, he thought Logan would swoon.

      Adamonde said, “Ihhmmee Aahhdde … hemonntt” and summoned her most elegant smile.

      Logan started shaking like he was cold and sat down, but told Jonathan he always did so when confronted by naked alien females. It took Adamonde’s hand to steel him some. Tears came to his eyes when she revealed how she arrived, why she was sent, how worried she was and how much she loved Jonathan. They waited calmly for his slowly returning composure.

      He looked at them both with tear filled eyes, still averting from Adamonde and blowing his nose. Jonathan said, “Logan, this is almost too much to ask of you right now, but I want you to look at her and become familiar with her. You can’t think properly while continually averting your eyes. She won’t bite … well she could, but she is the kindest alien on our planet.” Adamonde giggled and moved to stand directly in front of Logan. Jonathan continued, “She is pregnant thanks to her and me and she has four breasts, all starting to grow now, twelve fingers and toes, poisonous barbs in her heels; she came from a planet about as far away as one can get from ours and she says God created beings on only three planets.” With that last revelation, Logan’s head whipped toward Jonathan; his mouth slightly open in astonishment.

      Jonathan said, “Look at her damn it; if you don’t I’m going to ask her to give you a lap dance!”

      Logan finally got a silly grin on his face, turned to study Adamonde and she tinkled and chimed. When she crossed her eyes at him, he burst out laughing with a bit of residual snot caught in a Kleenex just in time. When he finally got control of his frustration, embarrassment sinuses and fear, he said, “Adamonde you are truly beautiful. Jonathan is a lucky man. I’m sweating like a pig and don’t know why … well heck yes I do, it’s sexual frustration, and I apologize. I carry it like a banner since my wife left me.”

      Jonathan leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry man; of course I didn’t know though ... how long ago?”

      “Oh, about a year and a half, 550 days, more or less; she didn’t like my religion.”

      “Yeah, I remember her going on about it, way back. What took her so long?”

      “Well, there was that and the fact that we had no kids.” Adamonde chimed and thundered.

      Logan asked, “What the hell was that sound?” Adamonde didn’t respond, but Logan put his hand to his head and said, “Oh, I get it. Thanks Adamonde. Jonathan, can you clue me in about why you’re here and why you have her … or why she has you?”

      It took several calm hours of thinking and talking, chiming and chirping and yellow “Teeeveee” typing, and taking breaks to eat and drink, but in the end Logan finally realized that scientifically and theologically, he was in the middle of one of the most important occurrences in recorded history. The implications were unfathomable … even at that early juncture.

      He asked Jonathan and Adamonde for two days to talk to trusted Church and Political figures who he thought might help protect and vouchsafe Adamonde and Jonathan a reasonable place to hide and live. He said he’d need to assure himself of her complete authenticity as well and asked for a demonstration of her spikes. She agreed, demonstrated and knew it would scare the hell out of Logan. It did, but she was holding his hand when she ejected, and it reassured him. Jonathan was glad she scared Logan. He also reminded Logan that Adamonde could read minds at focal distances.

      ***

      The Mormon Church gladly established a small facility deep in the bowels of the Wasatch Mountains of Central Utah, close to where it kept genealogical files. It was one of the safest places one could be on our planet and was outfitted with all the symbols of home. Adamonde didn’t like it, but managed to understand her babies would be safe within the temporary confines of their new “home”. Ten days after they moved in, Linda Donaldson arrived with three MDs. Jonathan, but mostly Adamonde had asked for her.

      Linda looked scared and lost until she saw Adamonde and Jonathan. She started crying and apologizing, and Adamonde did the most profound thing. In the midst of Linda’s yammering, Adamonde gently took Linda’s hand and placed it on her tummy. Linda