TheBanyanTree: MAKING IT OVER

[Sharon Mack]

(Written for another workshop)

Prompt for week of January 11th (Vingette featuring nonhuman
character)


MAKING IT OVER

Expropriate looked at the article.  Expropriate had learned to speak,
read and write World Earth languages at the appropriations university on
her home planet, Myhr.  She had only been 122 years old then (in earth
years anyway). The article was about a makeover contest.  She wanted a
makeover.  She wanted to look like the earth females.  On her planet
there was no real designation of sexes.  Everyone pretty much had the
same features until you were old enough to go to the university.  It was
here that it was determined whether or not you would receive the pouch
and inner workings of a Carrier or the inserting apparatus of a Maker. 
She had been designated a carrier and in so doing they had changed her
color a bit, made her being softer and changed her scent.  There were
only four colors to choose from.  She had chosen pink, thinking that
went along with the female colors of her next station, planet World
Earth.  Her job would be to study the earth sexes.  It was her
specialty.

So here she was, in a tiny place called Sykesville, a very small town
in the state of Maryland in the country called United States of the
Americas.  She had hoped her station would be in a more exotic part of
the World Earth planet, but no such luck.  She was a 'younger' and
had to take the less wanted areas.  The best spots went to the
'olders.'  She accepted her station and once she had settled in
she realized it was rather a sweet little town and the earth folks were
kind and helpful. She knew they thought her homely and plain and that
was why she wanted the makeover.  She wondered if the earth shell she
had been given over her Myhr entity would hold up.

"Ready for a new look but not sure what's best for you?" the
paper read.  She certainly was.  The entities on Myhr had no idea what
an Earth female should look like and now that Expropriate knew she
wanted to do something about it.

"NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN," the article boasted.  That
was good.  The Earth dollars given her before leaving Myhr were not many
so she had to be very careful with her expenditures, and the job at the
local seafood house did not pay much for her dishwashing skills.

"Send a photograph taken within the past two months, along with an
essay on why you deserve...."  Deserve?  That was a funny word. 
Expropriate scratched her head.  "Does anyone 'deserve' a
makeover?  How does one come to the place of deserving such a thing?" 
She'd have to think about that one.  The photograph was the easy part.
 She had hundreds she had taken of herself and the life she was leading
for her research.  She made a note to pick out the worst one of herself.
 Maybe that would make her deserving.

"Essays may not exceed 250 word."  That should be easy enough. She
would get started right away.

Sitting down at the cumbersome earth computer she sighed.  She had to
get this right or she would never look like an earth woman.  Wouldn't
it be great to return to Myhr and be able to advance their sciences with
the REAL look?  It would be so much better for Myhr's future
operations here, too, and certainly an upgrade to an older would be the
expected reward of such a coup, then Expropriate could see more of the
Galaxy, not just the planet, World Earth. She was dreaming big now!

Expropriate sat and sat.  Her inner mechanisms whirred and whizzed. 
She even put her hands to the keyboard twice, but nothing was
forthcoming.  That word 'deserving' kept going over and through her
inside sections.  'Deserving' just would not compute.  

As she sat, she could see the earth ladies through her visionary track
system, the real ones she'd encountered who had scars or bad or sad
lives or those who had little or no Earth dollars to help themselves or
their families?  She had nothing like that to make her deserving.  All
of her motives were to better her already good situation both on planet
World Earth and on Myhr. She just wanted to enhance an already excellent
situation.  She was wanting to do what the Earth folks called
'show-off.'  One-up-manship on her fellow Myhridians, that's
what she wanted.  Suddenly she felt a crushing inside her mechanisms and
liquid from deep within her inner workings worked their way upward
through her system to her eyegates.  She suddenly realized she was going
to cry.  So this was what it was like to 'feel.'  She held the
moment, not releasing it for a very long time.  She wanted to remember
it.  She stored it carefully in her memory banks in a safe place where
she could easily find it.

She moved away from the computer and picked up the article.  Giving it
one last look she tossed it into the trashcan.  She'd had her
makeover.  She'd had it at university on Myhr and she was constantly
learning new World Earth things and these were helping to make her over,
too.  She would leave the contest for those that really needed it.  She
thought about the word she had just composed, 'needed.'  It related
to 'deserving'.  It was just one more piece of her ever-ongoing
makeover.


Written by:  Sharon A. Mack