Ogum Migori had been living on Earth for seven years, but he’d never really belonged. Although he was the equivalent of twenty-eight earth years in age, he had been forced to take on the guise of a school child in order to fit in, due to his limited height of four foot nine. As a result he was intellectually superior to all of those around him; even his human teachers weren’t as clever as he was.

He’d spent much of that time studying human beings. It was amazing how ignorant they were to the fact that he himself wasn’t human. In spite of being so short, and having a spherical head more than twice the size of the average human, nobody had so much as batted and eyelid. His colouring – a subtle shade of mauve – never caused any concern for any of the social workers that frequently visited the school he went to, probably for fear of insulting some ethnic minority they had no knowledge of, nor did the suspicious absence of any parents in his life, in spite of it being believed that he was fourteen years old.

Ogum sat in the playground at his school. It was the middle of winter so he was wrapped up warm in a thick coat and woolly hat. He’d been contemplating upon writing his report for the past five years, from his time living on the streets to his current experiences at school. He wished he could have spent more time as an adult, but he didn’t want to spend any time pretending to be a dwarf when he knew what a rough time they had. He had five minutes left before his craft automatically picked him up, and then he’d have all the time imaginable to write his report.

As he looked around the playground one last time, he heard a humming overhead. He looked up, but could see nothing – the craft was shielded from view with the use of a cloaking device not unlike that used in the fictional television series, Star Trek. He’d had some laughs watching that one, though strangely some of the futuristic technologies utilised in the show were actual realities on his home world.

Home.

He smiled as he thought about life back on his home world. The girlfriend he’d left behind who promised to stay faithful to him; his best friend who promised not to let his parents sell his collection of sequential art booklets – what humans called comic books. And his parents, of course, who promised to keep the payments on his domicile up to date in preparation for his return home.

Everything was going to be wonderful.

As he looked up into the empty sky, he felt a humming sensation coursing through his body as he dematerialised and was transported onto the invisible craft. He quietly clambered into a stasis pod on board the unmanned vessel and lay down, allowing the automatic systems close the doors around him as he prepared for his long journey home.

It only felt like a matter of seconds before the pod reopened and released him. He stood up and headed for the doors to the vessel, activating he cargo bay door sequence and stepping out of the vessel. A large number of his peers were stood around the vessel, applauding as he stepped into the light. He couldn’t help noticing their odd expressions when they saw him, standing upright. His people tended to slouch and slump over when they walked, but he’d practiced standing upright for so long while mascarading as a human that he was finding it hard to break the habit.

“Welcome home, Migori,” a taller than average mauve man forced a smile through a thick violet moustache, “we look forward to hearing your report.”

“Thank you sir,” Ogum smiled weakly, having forgotten how strange it would be to be surrounded by his own kind again, “I shall get to work on finalising it immediately.”

“No rush, soldier,” the moustachioed man, whose name was Khi Fefrum, assured him, trying not to stare at Ogum’s odd appearance, “you go see your family first.”

Ogum saluted, an action which caused much talk amongst his peers, before heading through the crowd to the main building that his vessel had landed by. He headed to his office and collected some of his things. On his desk there was a photo of him and his girlfriend, Dhufra Zhou, their arms wrapped around each other as the mugged for the camera. He smiled.

He couldn’t wait to see her.

Collecting a few personal possessions together into a bag, including his house and car keys, he headed down to long term parking to pick up his car. After a long wait for the parking attendant to collect it, he drove back to his domicile in the city.

The building was dark when he approached, but then it was early evening and many people were probably not home from work yet. He climbed the stairs to his apartment and slipped the key into the lock.

It didn’t work.

Puzzled, Ogum checked the key ring to make sure it was the correct key. Realising it was, he tried again.

Still no luck.

Eventually he pounded on the door, hoping his mum or his dad might have come round to welcome him home. After a short wait, the door opened. Ogum stared at the stranger in the doorway.

“Who are you?” Ogum asked.

The stranger looked him up and down, “This is my home, I should be asking you the questions,” the stranger said, “What do you want? And why are you standing like that?”

“There must be some mistake,” Ogum smiled nervously, “this is my apartment.”

“I don’t see how it can be your apartment, you upright weirdo,” the stranger argued, “I’ve been living her for more than three years. Now push off.”

Ogum stepped backwards as the door was rudely closed in his face. He frowned, then made the decision to go to his parents house to find out what was going on.

He arrived at his parents’ home less than twenty minutes later, knocking on the front door. His mother answered, and when she saw him her eyes widened with something that looked to Ogum a lot like guilt.

“Ogum,” she said, “you’re... you’re home.”

“Yes, I’m home,” Ogum confirmed, “but the strangest thing happened. I couldn’t get into my apartment.”

Ogum’s father joined his mother in the doorway, “That’s because it isn’t your apartment anymore,” he confirmed, “we couldn’t afford the repayments once you’d gone. After a year or two we just had to cancel the lease.”

“But what about my things?” Ogum asked, “All of my belongings were in there.”

“Dhufra collected them,” his father said, “she said she’d look after them until you returned.”

“Then maybe I should go and talk to her,” Ogum said angrily, “seeing as I clearly can’t rely on either of you.”

As Ogum marched down the driveway, his mother called out, “There’s something you should know...”

“He’ll figure it out for himself,” his father said, and Ogum, having not heard his mother, climbed into his car and headed to his girlfriend Dhufra’s house.

“Do you think he’s okay?” his mother asked his father, “He was standing so stiffly, and those clothes he was wearing, like some kind of cultists.”

“I hope so,” his father replied, “you know how people so dislike change. We’re not used to such differences in our people.”

Parking outside Dhufra’s house, Ogum walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. The place looked pleasantly familiar, and he smiled as he thought about all the good times he and Dhufra had enjoyed together under that roof. Maybe losing his apartment was for the best; he’d always wanted to move in with Dhufra, but she’d been hesitant about the whole thing. As he thought about his past, he knocked on the door again, still waiting for a response.

Dhufra opened the door, hunched over in a dressing gown and very little else, “Ogum!” she said, looking startled up at him, “What are you doing here?”

“Wel,, that’s a fine welcome,” Ogum smirked, “my parents said you’d taken care of my possessions, so I thought I’d come over and say hi.”

He leaned in to kiss Dhufra, but she moved away as he did so. He stopped, looking at her expression, then looked over her shoulder. There, walking on his hands and feet out of the bedroom with not a stitch on, was his best friend Giabro Auxis.

“What’s going on here?” Ogum asked, “what’s Giabro doing here?”

“Well, you were gone for so long,” Dhufra tried to explain, “and we didn’t know when you were coming back--”

“Yes, you did,” Ogum argued, “today! I was due back today! It was always planned that I would be returning today!”

“Calm down, buddy,” Giabro said, swaggering to the front door and putting his arm around Dhufra, “women have needs, you know. And five years is a long time.”

“But you promised you’d wait for me,” Ogum sniffed, “you promised.”

“I’m sorry, Ogum,” Dhufra apologised, “truly, I am.”

“What about my stuff?” Ogum asked, “Can I at least get my things back?”

“Sorry, bud,” Giabro shrugged, “we had to get rid of it all when I moved in. I hope you understand.”

“Understand?” Ogum growled, “Of course I don’t understand. What can you possibly see in him?”

Dhufra slumped noticeably, “Well, have you seen the way you’re carrying yourself?” she asked, “All upright like that with your shoulder thrown back. What woman would ever find that kind of posture attractive?”

“It’s how the humans stand,” Ogum explained, “I had to get used to it while I was there.”

“And what about that thing on your head?” Giabro added, “What is that anyway? Who wears knitted material on their heads?”

“It’s a hat,” Ogum explained, “it keeps your head warm.”

“What kind of self respecting person has a cold head?” Dhufra chuckled.

“And that coat?” Diabro asked, “Why’s it so... so... puffy? Coat’s should be form fitting, not puffy.”

“Just forget it,” Ogum sobbed, “just... just leave me alone.”

“Not a problem,” Diabro smirked, closing the door on his former best friend.

Ogum stood on the doorstep, wiping his puffy sleeve over his nose and eyes. Maybe they were right; maybe too much time had passed. Maybe he’d changed too much.

Saddened, he climbed back into his car and drove to a local bar.

He walked up to the bar tender and asked for a whisky.

“Whisky?” the bar tender looked confused, “You ain’t from round here, are you partner?”

“I am,” Ogum sighed, “I’ve just been away for a while.”

“Well, maybe you should get with the program and start acting more like a local,” the bar tender advised, “we don’t like people acting all weird and foreign around these parts.”

Ogum couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Since his time on Earth he’d experienced all sorts of xenophobic reactions to different nationalities, both on the news and in real life. Humans treating other humans differently because of cultural differences in spite of being members of the same race – the human race. Now, on his home world, he was starting to see that people weren’t all that different. His fellow aliens – he still thought of his own kind as aliens after so much time spent with humans – had never been faced with cultural differences. Every one of his kind was the same colour, roughly the same height, and had the same general appearance. There were no mutations, no nationalities, no reason to hate their own kind.

But now Ogum had returned, and with him had come human traits that his own kind didn’t understand. Simply his different clothing had been enough for his best friends to turn on him, and his different way of standing had led to him being shunned by the bar tender. Ogum decided to leave the bar and head to his parents. Maybe he could stay in his old room until he got on his feet again.

As he walked to his car, Ogum heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see three hunched over youths, brandishing weapons, approaching him.

“What do you want?” Ogum asked, terrified, “Here, take my car keys. You can have the car!”

“We don’t want your car,” the first youth chuckled.

“We don’t like it when people act different round here,” the second youth said as he approached Ogum, swinging an iron bar above his head, “we want you to leave.”

“Leave?” Ogum repeated, “What, leave town?”

“Leave the planet,” the second youth sneered, “we don’t want your kind round here.”

“But I can’t just leave the planet,” Ogum wept, “there aren’t any scheduled flights off planet that I could possibly take.”

“Then you better leave the old fashioned way,” the third youth said as the second youth connected the iron bar with Ogum’s head. Ogum fell sideways, his woolly hat falling to the street, coated in blood. His vision blurred as his head wound dripped into his eyes, and the iron bar connected with his jaw. He tried to pick himself up from the ground, but all three youths started kicking him, hitting, knocking him back down before he could even get up. As he felt consciousness drifting away, his very life’s blood flowing out of him on the streets he’d once called home, a final thought swum around in his head.

How can they do this to their own kind? He was just like them, but those slight differences since he’d been on Earth meant only one thing here.

His death.

Originally Posted 12/1/2016

Result - Didn't Place