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I am regretting every single decision that led me to this point. Not that that’s new, ‘intense regret of bad decisions’ is a frequent part of my life.
I’m starting to think that might be a problem.
At the start of this - before the whole ‘having to make sure 50 intoxicated adults- and sober-but-equally-as-hard-to-keep-track-off friends, family and children don’t accidentally injure themselves or each other’ it wasn’t so bad.
(The actual ‘start’ of this was great, because I was on the station doing absolutely nothing and having a great time. Then Dr. Mensah asked if I would like to attend the upcoming planetary holiday, and I asked if it was anything like the last (referring to the large amounts of media.) and she said yes, (referring to loud and intoxicated humans being stupid.) (I’m saying that as if humans are ever not stupid, I’m starting to doubt that).
When finding out that’s what she meant- (after looking it up in the feed, and overcoming the feelings of betrayal and regret (metaphorical. In reality it was more like mild annoyance.)) -I declined her invitation and went about my day.
The situation in whole could still be considered ‘great’. Until she told one of her offspring who just happened to be on station.
Have you ever made a decision so unpopular that a child tells all their siblings and then three of said siblings help him attempt to change your mind? Because children have no concept of fighting fair.
It’s also a lot harder to backburner someone when they’re capable of showing up at your quarters as soon as you stop responding.
What I was trying to say was: I did not last long.
Then, on top of that, when I told my humans they laughed at me. Laughed.
(Mensah went on to very sincerely (ugh) tell me that while my inability to say no to the kids is endearing (double ugh. I almost left the room right then and there) I don’t actually have to attend if I don’t want to, and she’ll talk to them and make sure they don’t bother me.)
(Can you use parentheses inside other parentheses? I should look that up. ART would know. I wish I was on ART. Also, I started that huge main parentheses and now I don’t know where it's going or how to end it.)
(Yeah nevermind, I don’t care and it’s not like anyone else is going to read this.)
Anyway. What I wanted to say was: I should have taken her up on the offer, but he (Tanesh, the person responsible for this mess) looked so happy, and promised it’d only be the family and a couple of friends and not many people at all.
It was a lie.
Not initially. The day started out fine - I was sitting in the main living area watching media (there is a very comfortable couch that’s currently the one thing on this planet I’m not annoyed at) while the humans were asleep.
I was going to go back to ‘my' room before they woke up but then, as you may have guessed, that did not happen.
Instead I was swept up in breakfast and preparations and naturally I tried to leave as soon as possible. I’d just thought I’d succeded when Tanesh asked if I wanted to come with him and Tamala to pick flowers and between that and Farai’s ‘please say yes I am dying over here’ look I well, I said yes.
It wasn’t so bad really. As far as human children go they weren’t too annoying, and there are worse things than deciding which combination flora was the prettiest (please note that there are also better things. A lot of better things. Like not doing that, for example).
For such small humans they could carry a lot of flora, as in, an outrageous ‘why would you ever want this much’ amount. That apparently wasn’t enough, and it was ‘of the utmost importance’ I helped with the carrying so they could pick more.
(Who the fuck made the flora sharp?)
When we got back to the farm, they started decorating everything, and I mean everything. Tables and fences and every human they came into contact with. I don’t think there was a single human around who didn’t have at least a couple of flowers in their hair or clothes or hands.
Then, having depleted their source of un-flora-d humans they turned to me. Yes, that’s as bad as it sounds.
You know in animated media when characters see something they really want and it does the spark-ly thing with the eyes? Yeah, imagine that, except it’s one of the badly made ones where the character, despite being generally well meaning looks more ‘menacing’ than anything else.
Like that, except not at all, because these are real people and I’m not sure where I was going with this but I could not escape. Well, I could have, if I tried. Human children are not very fast, or good at climbing, or- is there anything they are good at?
It doesn’t matter, the point is: I had flowers in my hair.
That’s when the so far pretty not-as-bad-as-I’d-feared day turned into why-the-fuck-did-I-agree-to-this? (Somehow, it had nothing to do with the flowers.) Because that’s when the reasonable number of only-Mensah-family-and-friends turned into this.
Mensah doesn’t have a lot of neighbours, only two other farms within walking distance. I did not think that would be a problem.
I should have realised it would be. It’s in the name, ‘walking distance’.
Preservation humans are way too inviting and way too friendly and before I knew it the humans had tripled in number. And they were having a great time.
Somewhere in the process they stopped eating (‘stopped’ might not be the right word. They'd been walking around and talking and eating and doing who knows what for the last [very long time]) and started consuming whatever intoxicants were nearest to them. (No, not everyone was having them, but by the way they were acting they might as well have been.)
Then the dancing started, or games, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter because then Tamala and 3 of Mensah’s other children asked if I could come with them for a walk because the game or dance or whatever was ‘childish’ and they didn’t want to participate. I did not point out that while many of the participants were children, the majority was not. I don’t think they would have appreciated it, and besides, I agreed.
I don’t like walking for the sake of walking. Especially not while making sure 4 children who’ve consumed way too much ‘food that give humans unreasonable amounts of energy’.
Before I said ‘no, go with someone else’, I accidentally looked back at the (still mostly adult) humans and oh, yeah, they’d just started a fire.
(The fire was pre-planned, and as safe as a way-too-large fire could be (not very), but if Mensah was raising sensible humans who didn't want to be unnecessarily close to danger I sure wasn’t going to discourage it.)
I said yes.
I sent a note to Mensah- (who, as resident reasonable person, was still at the tables quietly chatting with a couple other humans) -explaining that her offspring hadn’t been kidnapped and where we were going (very important according to said offspring) (re: sensible humans) and so we went.
Not far: just a few metres behind the treeline before venturing back- and around the central buildings.
The other side of the farm was dark and almost silent (I should have stayed there the entire time, why didn’t I do that?) and the kids were blissfully silent. Or, they were, until Annyah looked back through the buildings and saw their fellow humans jumping into the small lake. (With their regular non-bathing clothes on. Why?). And then they told the others who ran off to join.
I sighed, making my way back around the building (slower and with significantly less enthusiasm) when Dr. Mensah, (whose conversation-partners had since moved to sit on the ground a few metres away with some other people), waved for me to join her. I did and she smiled.
“They weren’t too terrible I hope,” she said, making it sound like a question.
I shrugged, because they weren’t and she nodded with appreciative-ness (is that a word? In any case, you get the picture), and said: “thank you.”.
I don’t understand why, and she must sense it somehow because she continues, “for indulging them I mean,” she touches the flowers in her hair in that ‘I am gesturing at myself while I’m clearly talking about you’ way. Yes, I still have the flowers. No, I don’t know why either.
“They really like you, and I know there must be a lot of things you’d rather do, so thank you.” she looks all happy at me, and I look away. I was already looking away, but now I’m looking away even more. I think she notices because she changes the topic, telling me a story from earlier in the evening.