CHAPTER 21
ELLIE
Commercializing (and sensationalizing) archaeological findings and objects is detrimental to the study of anthropology, and only fucking frauds would engage in such lowly behavior.
I wake up so warm and a little sweaty, and maybe happier than I’ve been in my entire life.
Zarek’s body is strong and soft beneath me, wrapping me up in his body heat as his chest gently rises and falls in sleep.
I keep my eyes pressed shut, wanting to soak in this feeling, to be here forever, to never have to pop this wonderful bubble we’ve created on this ridiculous train to the French Alps.
But fuck, I need to pee.
I try not to wake Zarek, but it’s impossible not to jostle him as I slip his arm from its place around my waist. His face scrunches, and he reaches out to me, still half asleep.
Part of me wants to ignore biology and wrap myself up back in his arms. But I grab my glasses and tip toe, naked from the waist down with my ass barely covered by my pajama shirt, and head to the bathroom.
Apparently this is the room I’ve decided to do my existential dread spiral in again, because as I stare at myself in the mirror, I wonder how the fuck I got myself into this situation, and how the fuck I’m going to get myself out of it.
I can feel my heart hammering in every inch of my body, and I know it’s not just the incredible sex or the fun adventure.
It’s this absolute certainty, living in my veins and bones and maybe even the nucleus of my cells, that I shouldn’t be letting go of him.
That we need more time together. That this could be something, maybe the something for me, and I can’t let it slip through my fingers back to another planet.
And yet, I have no choice in the matter.
So I have to take deep breaths and splash my face with water before I pee, brush my teeth, run a comb through my hair, put my glasses back on, and fucking breathe. So I can face him again.
Zarek has fallen back asleep by the time I calm down enough to return, and I stand in the doorway, just soaking him in for a minute.
Painting another picture in my mind. Remembering his face when he’s soft and unaware, not teasing me or teaching me something new or telling me some ridiculous joke.
Just relaxed. I find myself, rather unreasonably, wishing that I could have a thousand more mornings like this, where I get to observe without being observed.
Eventually, I crawl back on top of him, wrapping myself up in his warmth once more. He grunts a few times, blinking slowly as I wrap my arms around his middle and thread our legs together. He huffs a laugh into my hairline as I snuggle into him.
“Good morning, Elliot,” he murmurs, draping his arm around my shoulder. I don’t even need a blanket with him.
“Don’t call me that,” I retort, no bite in my words. He could frankly call me whatever he wants.
“Okay, Ellie,” he acquiesces, a smile in his tone. “What would you like to do today?”
Just as I’m about to tell him that I want to do exactly this, lying in bed and watching the sun outside the window and soaking every inch of each other in (and maybe also more sex), the chime of an announcement comes over the speakers.
I listen passively, dragging my fingers over the indents in Zarek’s skin, absorbing the announcer’s enthusiasm over the offerings of Lyon. Roman ruins, secret passageways, funiculars, bakeries, and…
“There’s a pop-up museum,” I translate, talking over the announcer as she continues her description. “Pretty close to the train station. About…”
Zarek presses his lips to my forehead as I listen harder, making sure I translated this right.
“I think it’s about aliens and archaeology.”
He freezes against me, and I turn my chin up to stare at the small bit of his face that I can see at this angle. After a few beats of silence, he meets my eyes.
“Well, we obviously must go.”
An hour later, we’re dressed (Zarek looking very much like Derek) and decent, disembarking the train and following the tourist-trap signs pointing toward our destination.
At the entrance, which is a plastic folding table outside of a fucking tent, I pay an extraordinary amount for our tickets, and we step through the flap. The climate in Lyon is pretty mild in the summer, by American standards, but it’s absolutely sweltering inside this tarp structure.
“Strange,” Zarek murmurs, glancing around the room. “In the American west, pop-ups are usually held in more sturdy structures. Existing buildings, usually. The just used an empty space—”
“Yeah, that’s usually how it works,” I say, cutting him off, because I’m kind of in disbelief that they are legitimately calling this a museum. “This is unique.”
The tent is admittedly large, and there are lots of strange twists and turns leading to what must be exhibits. We start at the large painting near the entry, which has a sign in a plastic stanchion next to it. Classy.
“Why are all the signs in English?” Zarek asks, looking around as I study the painting, which depicts green blob-like aliens descending on a jungle scene filled with dinosaurs.
“Because the French would not be caught dead here,” I mutter, narrowing my eyes at the stanchion. “They cannot be serious. There is no evidence of alien life found among dinosaur bones. Right?”
The question seems ridiculous, but since I’ve got an expert here, I might as well confirm.
“No, we would never leave evidence,” Zarek confirms, and I let the reality that Zarek’s alien ancestors definitely observed the paleolithic age roll through my brain.
“Well, anyway, this is paleontology, not anthropology,” I huff, making my way toward the next exhibit.
If I have to give this joke of a museum any sort of praise, they certainly do have a plethora of exhibits. If you can consider strange paintings and fake alien bones and other artifacts that could not be considered evidence of sanity, much less aliens, as exhibits.
I start out pretty annoyed, because how can anyone conceivably market this as an anthropology museum? But soon, Zarek is doing what he does best, which is making everything slightly more fun and a lot more ridiculous.
At the carving of the Great Pyramids, which has been artfully topped with a flying saucer, hanging with chicken wire, Zarek explains the excellent feats of math and engineering that led to the construction of these world wonders.
I chime in with the social anthropology lens, because every brand new anthropologist learns a little about early Egypt.
The display on the Moai Statues at Rapa Nui explains that the faces carved in stone were actually modeled off aliens who visited the society and inspired the culture’s gods, which is so laughably ridiculous that Zarek and I are left giggling and offended on behalf of the people of Easter Island.
Finally, near the exit of the tent, we’re faced with one of the only exhibits that really piques my interest. Inside a plexiglass case there is a set of bones laying on a table. They are obviously recreations, but the pattern they’re laid in is so familiar I recognize them immediately.
“Oh, the Homo habilis bones,” I say, peering through the top of the case to stare at the too-white carvings. They’re not perfect, not even particularly good copies, but at least they’re recognizable, although there’s not a plaque or strange paper sign anywhere to identify them.
“Yes, the first humans to make contact with aliens!”
Of course the accent is American.
I turn over my shoulder to see an older man, hair salt and pepper speckled and a large gray mustache covering his mouth. He’s smiling at us in an unnerving sort of way that makes me want to back up slowly, without breaking eye contact.
“Excuse me?” Zarek says, and I consider elbowing him or stepping on his foot, like yesterday. He should know by now not to engage with the unhinged Americans.
“Yes, Homo habilis was the first early human ancestor to engage with extraterrestrials,” the docent—and I’m using docent liberally here—explains. I’m sort of stunned into silence, but Zarek doesn’t seem to be facing the same issue.
“That’s not—I mean, how do you know this?” he asks, probably narrowly avoiding saying that the woman standing in front of him is actually the first human to engage with extraterrestrials. First one to fuck them, too, my brain helpfully supplies.
“We can see by the tools they used,” the older man explains enthusiastically, waving toward another case a few feet away.
This one is filled with flinted stone, hollowed shells, and peg-like structures, all examples of early stone tools.
This is maybe the first accurate display in the entire museum.
“See, aliens passed down their knowledge about tool-and weapon-making to these ancient humans, who otherwise would never have been able to develop the technology themselves. They even gave them the name handy men.”
The level of misunderstanding of science this man is displaying is actually a shock to my system. I feel like I’m on one of those early 2000’s prank television shows. Ashton Kutcher is around the corner, I just know it.
“Homo habilis literally means handy man,” I say, my explanation lilting up at the end like I’m asking a question, when really I’m in a state of total and complete disbelief.
“Exactly!” the docent exclaims, seemingly thrilled that we’re in agreement, which we are not. He’s not wearing a nametag, which is disappointing, because I’d like to report him personally to some sort of scientific board.
“Why would early humans have not been able to develop tools?” Zarek asks, sounding frustrated and not at all like the curious and fun alien I’ve come to enjoy.
The docent opens his mouth to respond, and I cut him off, the spirit of one million anthropologists—past, present, and future—fueling my ire.
“They developed tools to survive, to thrive, to expand their nutritional and resource access. It’s one of the most fundamental aspects of human evolution.
The survival of the fittest, the need to adapt to feed your people and find safety and security.
It’s…” I laugh, because this is so ridiculous.
“This is one of the first things you learn about evolutionary anthropology.”
“Or,” the docent replies, undeterred by my logical and advanced degrees in the subject.
“Or was there an outside force directing the winners and losers of evolution? Aliens may have witnessed the development of primates and early humans and decided to gift them with the knowledge they needed to become the apex predator.”
Zarek and I blinked at the man as he held his arms out, like he himself was gifting us with some sort of insider knowledge, some great secret.
“But…even if that was true…why would the aliens do that?”
Zarek’s question is as ridiculous as this situation, but I let it slide, because…well, now I’m curious.
“Ah, so now you’ve arrived at the crux of it all,” the guy says. I feel as though I might be at the pitch point for a cult.
He leads us to one final exhibit (before the gift shop, of course), where a futuristic Earth scene has been created with what looks like knock-off Lego bricks. There are flying cars, chrome buildings, and of course, three floating saucers with large, green aliens sitting on top of them.
“One day, the aliens will come back and seek repayment for their investment,” he explains rather gravely, gesturing toward the floating overlords.
One of them is missing its brick eye. “They will rule our planet and our species, because they were the ones to make us what we are today. Maybe today, maybe in thousands of years, but they will be back.”
It takes fifteen fucking minutes of trying to slowly back away from this man, who follows us into the gift shop and tries to sell us at least three books on the hypothesis of alien overlords returning to Earth, before we are finally free from the fucking tent of nightmares.
Zarek and I stumble out into the sunlight, the breeze cooling our overheated and sweaty skin, looking at each other in absolutely disbelief.
And we break out in fits of laughter we can’t speak through the entire way back to the train.