Positivity from Mintaka

"Why are you crying?” A stranger’s voice startled me. I quickly wiped away my tears, not wanting to look weak. I turned around to look at the stranger, but I didn’t see anyone.

“I’m down here,” the voice said, and I looked down at the sea before me. I saw a large blue rat floating on its back, waving enthusiastically at me. Its hands were enormous, with webbing between its fingers. I also noticed tiny purple fins along its sides, which looked very funny compared to its big hands. I blinked in disbelief. Am I seeing things? Maybe I’m going crazy.

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a few breaths. It was probably a hallucination, and it would go away. I opened my eyes again, but the rat was still there. It tilted its head and looked baffled at me.

“What or who are you?” I asked, finally accepting the fact that I was talking to a weird, fishy rat.

“I’m Malkiel, and I was born on Mintaka,” he introduced himself proudly.

“Mintaka? It’s a star, isn’t it?” I asked, a little confused.

“Well, yes and no. I am from the planet Mintaka, not the star, obviously,” he explained briefly.

“Okay,” I said, even though I didn’t understand him at all. “But why are you here in Almería?” I asked, and he smiled broadly.

“So I am in Almería after all. My sense of direction is getting better,” he exclaimed happily. “I was sent here, to the Earth, with nine others after a big tragedy on Mintaka,” he paused dramatically, then took a deep breath.

“A big Minkarion showed up on our planet; he was probably lost, poor thing. Then he accidentally ate most of our population. He tried to grab something with his claws to stop himself, but he accidentally injured a lot of us instead. He even cried when he did it, or at least he made weird purring noises, which I think were crying. He didn’t want to do that, poor thing. He must have felt so guilty after that,” he started weeping as I looked at him, puzzled.

“It doesn’t sound like an accident to me. It kind of sounds like he did it on purpose to have a snack…” I said bluntly. I always do that. I’ve never been good at comforting others.

He looked horrified by my suggestion. Then he shook his head. “No, it’s not possible. No one wants to hurt others like that,” he refused it resolutely, and I just shrugged.

“Anyway, we had to flee from the Mintaka, but our spaceship was damaged when we entered Earth’s atmosphere. Then I remember waking up alone in Gibraltar. And since I heard rumors about blue rats being in Almería, which I think is a little bit offensive because we are not rats, we are Mintakans, I swam here. I got lost a few times, though, but now I’m finally here,” he ended his story excitedly.

“That is,” I paused for a moment. I couldn’t find the right word to describe what he just told me. Weird? Crazy? Totally insane? “Impressive,” I finally chose. “By the way, you swam from Gibraltar? It’s pretty far away,” I said, admiringly.

“Tell me about it. I completely took the wrong direction, appearing in Africa first. But I like swimming, so it wasn’t that bad,” he shrugged, smiling. I smiled too, because his positive energy is a little contagious.

“Oh, I completely forgot to ask your name. I forget everything. It is horrible.” He grabbed his head dramatically. “What is your name?”

“I’m Lucy. Nice to meet you.” I took off my shoes and stepped into the water, offering him my hand. He looked puzzled at my outstretched hand. “Mintakans don’t shake hands when they meet someone, I guess…” I noted, mostly to myself.

“Why would we do that? That’s weird, but I want to try it.” He started to laugh and swam closer to me. His fast swimming startled me a little because, in no time, he appeared next to me and surfaced his hand from the water. He took my hand and started shaking it.

“That’s fun,” he said, giggling. I started to laugh, too.

“How is it possible that you speak English? Do the Mintakans speak English too?” I asked him after he let go of my hand.

“No, our language is more difficult, but yours is quite easy. I learned it by listening to people. You speak a little differently. But I listened to you talking to yourself to figure out how your language works, and after a while, I finally got it.” He explained proudly. I blushed a little, trying to remember what I had been talking about. I should definitely stop talking to myself.

“Oh, that reminds me… You haven’t answered my question yet. Why were you crying?” he asked again. “And who is Caroline? You mentioned her before when you were talking to yourself,” he added.

“Caroline is…” I paused. “Caroline was my best friend,” I corrected myself. “She stole an idea from me for a major project at work and took all the credit. I tried to convince my boss that the idea was mine, but he told me I was just jealous of Caroline and fired me instead.” I shared part of my story.

“She probably didn’t want to do that. Maybe she forgot you’d told her the idea, and then the thought occurred to her,” Malkiel suggested. “She wouldn’t want to hurt you on purpose. Poor Caroline. She must feel so miserable now.”

“I’m not sure about that because then I found out she was sleeping with my fiancé,” I said, and Malkiel gasped in shock.

“So, I left my home and flew here to Spain to run away from my problems,” I finished my story.

“So we are the same. We had to leave our home because of a terrible accident,” he said sadly. I wanted to argue with him that people don’t cheat by accident, but he would definitely deny it, convinced that people don’t do bad things on purpose. So I just smiled at his theory and nodded.

“Sure, you are right,” I said, but he stopped paying attention to me because he was staring at something in the distance, swimming along the shoreline.

“It’s Maya,” he exclaimed enthusiastically and started to swim toward her. I ran after him along the shoreline, even though he was much faster than me.

I kept running, watching him happily swim and chirp with his friend, so I didn’t notice a guy standing near them. I only registered his presence after bumping into him. He startled a little, then smiled and said something in Spanish. I stared at him, silently admiring his smile. He was handsome, a few years older than me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I don’t speak Spanish,” I said after a moment. “Are you okay?” I asked him, a little worried. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?” he asked, checking to see if the impact had hurt me. I nodded, and he smiled again.

“Is your friend as annoyingly positive as Maya, or am I the only one with an ex-girlfriend who cheated on me by accident?” he asked suddenly, pointing at the duo of Mintakans. I started to laugh.

“Poor girl, she must feel so miserable now,” I answered, mimicking Malkiel, still laughing. He started laughing, too.

“I’m Lucy, by the way,” I said, offering him my hand. “Eduardo, nice to meet you.” He shook my hand, kissing me on both cheeks.

“Are you doing that funny greeting again?” Malkiel asked, swimming toward us. He shook Eduardo’s hand first, then mine again. Maya did the same, looking just as enthusiastic. She said something in Spanish to Eduardo, and he laughed.

“Maya knows where others are,” Malkiel told me happily. “So we have to go, but it was really nice meeting you,” he added with a smile.

“Take care of yourselves,” I said, offering him my hand for the last time. He shook it with joy. We said our goodbyes, and then he and Maya swam away.

“I kind of envy them. It has to be nice to be so positive about everything all the time,” I said dreamily.

“Yeah, that’s true. But their positivity is really contagious; I’m not feeling as bad about my ex-girlfriend’s cheating anymore,” he said, smiling. I nodded, realizing I had laughed today for the first time since I left home.

“Do you want to grab a coffee or something?” he asked. I smiled broadly and nodded. “I would like that.”