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I kiss River's lips and grin as I look around. The aisles between the booths are bustling with UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike.
"God, I'm so surprised! You could about knock me over with a feather."
He flexes his hands, squeezing me closer for just a moment. Then he lets go and steps back, gesturing at the convention.
"Where do you want to start?"
I pucker my mouth, looking around. "I have no idea. Should we just pick a direction?"
River nods. "I am following your lead, darlin’."
My bones melt just a little at his pet name for me. Darlin’. That name always makes me feel some type of way when he purrs it at me.
Taking his elbow, I pull him straight down the row of booths. The fair seems to be set up with fifteen booths per row, and a seemingly endless number of rows. My attention is pulled in a thousand directions at once.
Alien and UFO themed bars of soap. Leather chaps that are supposedly good at repelling tractor beams. Cute alien dolls with giant heads, huge eyes, and tiny bodies. Alien themed kettle corn in spaceship tins.
It's a lot to look at.
The first booth that really pulls me in has a bunch of sleek black viewfinders, halfway between binoculars and the really sexy, tiny sunglasses you see on models. The walls of the booth are plastered with colorful galaxies.
"C'mon in! Try the GalaxyFinder3500!" a woman encourages me.
I look over my shoulder at River as I step forward, making a silly face to crack him up. He follows me closely, accepting the wraparound glasses when they're handed to him. I put on mine and look up, expecting to see cool galactic lights.
But all I see is the cement ceiling far above our heads.
"You can't see much because we're inside," the woman warns. "But you can look at the galaxies that I've picked out here."
I jerk when I feel her hands on my head. She guides me to look at the same galaxies I saw on the posters hanging on the booth’s wall. Only this time, they seem to be moving. I hear something whirring in the glasses and then a rainbow sheen takes over my view, dancing and bright.
"Okay," I say, freeing myself from the viewfinder. I blink, trying to focus my eyes. River is doing the same thing, blinking rapidly at his glasses. "What the hell?"
"A little trouble focusing when removing the viewfinders is normal."
"God, you could've warned me," River grumbles.
"They're only ninety-nine ninety-nine each!" the woman chirps, not swayed by his complaint.
River grabs my hand and scowls at the salesperson.
"I'm usually not the first one to say this, but what a complete waste of money." He glances at me. "Are you okay?"
I twine my arm with his and nod. I feel a wave of disappointment. This is the booth that caught my eye first. But it turns out to be nothing more than plastic junk. How awful.
"Yup. Ready to go." I wave to the viewfinders. To the sales lady I say, "They're really... uh... different."
The woman beams at me, but I let myself be pulled along back into the crowd. We walk for a while, stopping to check out silly alien-themed sunglasses and a booth where a "live" alien autopsy is being conducted. Members of the audience are being called on to remove 'organs' from a quite realistic looking alien corpse. The booth is selling full surgical autopsy kits, “just like the researchers at Roswell used!”.
River gives me a hard look but doesn't say anything until we're well away from that booth. "So do you believe in alien autopsies?"
I bark a laugh. "No. Thinking that aliens might be out in outer space is one thing. Believing that there is a vast conspiracy to cover up that aliens have been here on multiple occasions is something else entirely."
He pantomimes wiping sweat from his brow. "Whew. I wasn't sure how deep your belief in all things UFO goes."
I scrunch my nose. "It's more of a whimsical belief for me. Like... that famous poster of the flying saucer that says, ‘I want to believe’. I want there to be more to this life than working all day and being exhausted at night. With UFOs, I think the world gets a lot wider."
He slides me a glance. "Have you been visited by little green men?"
