Warrick had seen the homeless man a number of times before in the area. Usually, the vagrant would be pushing a trolley filled to overflowing with various bits of other people’s garbage, veritable treasures to him. Until that morning, that fateful morning of heavy significance and remarkable consequences, Warrick had never given the man a second glance or a moment’s thought. He had always simply registered him in the periphery of his perception, like a stray piece of floating paper landing up against a wire fence, and immediately forgotten. But on this particular Monday morning, something caused him to look a bit longer than usual at the man struggling through traffic with his loaded trolley.

He noticed in sharp detail what the bum was wearing, and what his features looked like. The homeless man was dressed in a mixture of rags; from a tight-fitting blue tracksuit pants to a thick check shirt covered by a brown hoodie jacket. His face was seamed like that of a sailor’s, full of wrinkles and deep lines and skin so browned from exposure to the sun that it looked like hard wood. Remarkably though, the man had not a speck of dirt on him. He was as clean as if he had just stepped out of his house to go to work after having taken a shower and shave. It was this incongruous aspect of the man that had caught Warrick’s attention. He was instantly fascinated and his curiosity piqued.

Warrick Rhoda worked as an advertising executive for Foschini, one of the major clothing retailers in the Western Cape. As such, he had an innate sense of style and instinctively noticed apparel and how people wore their clothes. He had not a queer bone in his toned body, but more often than not, those who met him for the first time, or had contact with him via email or WhatsApp, immediately assumed that he was gay. On the contrary, he was straighter than the straightest arrow, and his masculinity flowed off him in waves like the ripples off the bow of a ship. His charismatic manner and Gerard Butler ruggedness caused otherwise sensible and respectable women to swoon over him, only to come to their senses in embarrassment once they were beyond his magnetic presence. Many prim ladies had whispered indecent proposals to him, and on becoming clear-headed again, cringed in chagrin at their promiscuous behaviour. Warrick took it all in his stride and was extremely flattered, to say the least, but he never took advantage of any of these smitten sirens.

“Hey, if I told you that you have a great body, would you hold it against me?” one hopelessly thunderstruck woman he had nearly bumped into while entering a building had once whispered to him. Aside from it being a cliché and the lyrics to a famous song, it also happened to be one of the most common lines women lugged at him, as if it were the most original pick-up line ever.

And Warrick never failed to respond with the same line.

“Only if you promise not to sue me.”

To which most women reacted in one of four ways.

One: they raised an eyebrow in mock surprise, smiled coquettishly and walked off; two: they gave a silly laugh, often covering their mouths, then sashayed away, making sure to give Warrick a good long view of their departing tush; three: they appeared shocked, mumbled an apology and beat a hasty retreat; and four: they made brazen eye contact, held it for a second or two, winked at him and strolled off as if they owned him and the rest of the men on earth.

Warrick loved the last category of women the most for their spontaneity, mischievous nature and confidence in their female powers.

Coincidentally, that’s how he met and fell in love with Dionne, when she called him on his bluff and said, “I won’t sue, but I can’t promise that you won’t fall for me.”

And fall for her he did, monumentally. Since that first memorable encounter, Warrick had fallen more and more in love with Dionne. They had been dating for two years when he surprised her one evening and proposed. She hadn’t even hesitated, but simply said, “It took you long enough, didn’t it? I was starting to think I would have to propose to you!” That was typical of her, and it was one of her qualities that Warrick adored.

Warrick impulsively pulled out of traffic and turned down the side street into which the homeless man had just pushed his trolley. Seeing the man stop to rummage through one of the bins left out on the kerb for collection, he quickly parked his car in a vacant parking spot. Before he could question what he planned to do next, he switched off the car engine, placed his phone in the car’s glove compartment and exited the vehicle. Although Warrick walked confidently towards the man, who was still sifting through the rubbish, his stomach was flopping around like a panic-stricken fish out of water. His throat constricted in a vice-like grip of anxiety, while his palms became ever so moist with perspiration. His heart was thumping at an accelerated rate, nearly loud enough for him to hear its reverberating beats.

Warrick was confused about why he was feeling this strange compulsion to speak to the vagrant, and his uncharacteristic behaviour scared him a bit. For someone who lived by a rigid routine, this abnormal act was starting to terrify him. Suddenly the homeless man became aware of Warrick’s approach, and he looked up. The second he made eye contact with Warrick, time froze.

Warrick was caught like a helpless insect when the man’s blue gaze settled on him. He felt a sudden shift in his mind, like someone had opened or closed a hitherto unseen window, as if an ancient being had effortlessly reached into his mind and thrown a switch, a switch that challenged everything he had thought he knew or believed in.

The man’s cerulean gaze stood out in sharp contrast to his browned and wrinkled skin, and Warrick felt as if he knew the stranger as intimately as he knew himself. The absurdity and impossibility of it struck Warrick like a house falling on top of him, and he wondered if he were losing his sanity. He knew he had never met the itinerant, but his heart or soul – he was unsure which – was screaming that the man was not a stranger at all. Just before Warrick registered why the man looked as familiar as his own face seen in a reflection, everything went dark.

“As you can see, Jeffrey, this flat is move-in ready. You said you wanted a place that required no last minute renovations or maintenance, right?” Dionne asked her potential tenant. She had learned to identify the variety of potential property buyers or tenants over the four years she had been working at the Your Home Estate Agency. She knew Jeffrey Kemp was a “winner” the minute she met him. He didn’t have the shifty-eyed look of the “wasters” – those who browsed around but never committed themselves; the indecisiveness of the “waverers” – those annoying ones who could never make up their minds but kept vacillating between this or that; or the antagonism of the “wankers” – those who argued and bitched about every detail. She despised the latter the most, for they inevitably spoiled her mood and made her wish she had never become an estate agent. Instead, he projected an aura of the confident observer who was committed to finding a place.

“Absolutely!” Jeffrey heartily agreed. Dionne knew she had pegged him correctly when she saw his enthusiastic response to the flat.

“I love that the kitchen is spacious and modern,” Jeffrey was saying as he moved from room to room, “and the bedroom has these beautiful built-in cupboards,” he pointed out. He smiled even wider when he saw the small but modern bathroom with a square shower head.

“Did I mention that there is a small backyard as well?” Dionne asked as she opened the back door to show him the narrow alley at the back of the flat that served as a yard.

“I’m definitely taking it,” Jeffrey confirmed and shook hands with Dionne to seal the deal. Dionne led him back out of the flat and told him she would contact him later in the day with the documents he had to sign.

“When can I move in?” Jeffrey asked her as he was getting into his car.

“Well, as the flat is vacant at the moment, you may move in at the beginning of the month, after we’ve received your deposit and the first month’s rent, of course,” Dionne informed him. “But I’m sure the landlord won’t mind if you started to move some of your belongings in from tomorrow.”

“That’s wonderful! It will mean I won’t have to pay for another month of storage,” Jeffrey informed her and bid her farewell as he drove off.

Back at the office, Dionne printed out the lease agreement and application forms. On her desk there was a framed photograph of her with Warrick, serving as a welcome reminder that she was no longer lost, alone or despondent, as she had been for nearly most of her life. When she had met Warrick for the first time, she had felt a closed part of her soul opening like a flower blooming in joy in the sun’s warm rays. Yes, she had been attracted to him physically from the start, but once they got to know each other more intimately, she realised that she had met her soul mate.

“You are the other half of my soul,” Warrick had told her on only their third date. She had been left speechless when he had made this announcement, as she had felt exactly the same way about him. He had just been more courageous and honest to reveal it.

“I know it will sound totally clichéd, but you definitely complete me,” she had replied in response.

“Hey, that’s a cliché I will take any day,” Warrick had responded as he held her tighter in his muscular arms and kissed the tip of her nose.

Unbidden tears suddenly sprang to Dionne’s eyes as she recalled that wonderful moment. After that date, she had known that Warrick was the man her heart had been aching for and the man she was destined to marry.

“Why are you this intensely on my mind now, babe?” Dionne silently asked Warrick’s image. She felt a sense of unease, but was unable to place the origin or find the reason for it. She had an uncanny ability – something akin to a sixth sense – to know when some loved one was in dire need or in peril. Her “Spydar” Radar – as Warrick liked to call it – now kicked into overdrive. She jumped up so suddenly from her seat that the papers she had gathered on her desk went flying to the side and she had to grab them rapidly to prevent the pile from spilling to the floor.

She instantly dialled Warrick’s number. Her anxiety continued to mount as his phone rang for longer than usual. He always answered her calls after the third ring (“Third time lucky,” he liked to joke), but it now rang for so long that it eventually went to voicemail. She ended the call and redialled his number. Again it went to voicemail after fifteen rings.

“Warrick, where are you?” Dionne thought furiously as she gathered her things and left the office.

Warrick slowly regained consciousness, and the first thing he became aware of was the all-encompassing darkness. The next thing he registered was the utter silence that surrounded him. Not the whisper of a sound reached him, and he wondered if he had been blinded and deafened. He carefully and gingerly explored his body for any wounds, injuries or blood, but he was unharmed. He stretched out his arms to the sides to test if he were perhaps confined in some claustrophobic place, but his searching hands met no barrier. Gradually, light started to seep into the room from some unknown source, and a minute later Warrick saw that he was standing in the centre of a vast chamber. However, it was unlike any room he had ever seen, as the walls looked as if they were constructed of a strange kind of metal. The design caused him to squint slightly because of the way the walls shimmered and glinted. Along the sides of the room weird protuberances attracted his attention. They were evenly spaced apart, some resembling knobs while others appeared to be square panels. It was while he was looking at the walls that he finally spotted the man standing at what seemed to be the entrance to the room: a circular aperture surrounded by flashing lights along its perimeter.

“Where am I?” Warrick demanded angrily. His fear had long since faded to be replaced by fury.

“Quiet!” the man snapped as he stepped closer to Warrick. Again, Warrick experienced a sense of recognition when he looked closely at the approaching figure. As the stranger finally stepped fully into the light, Warrick stepped back in disbelief. His mind had finally made the connection, but Warrick refused to accept what his eyes were seeing.

“It can’t … can’t … be,” he stuttered idiotically. “What are you?” he asked in fright, as the man’s features seemed to melt and meld into a face Warrick was only too familiar with, but a face that altered and twisted and formed and reformed like ripples on the surface of a pond. It finally settled and as the grey eyes focused on Warrick, he shuddered involuntarily.

The thing smiled or sneered at Warrick, who wasn’t sure how to interpret the expression. He was looking at his own face, or rather, a version of his face, of what he would probably look like in ten to fifteen years. This was the face he had seen on the vagrant and which had triggered some recognition just before he had lost consciousness. He realised he was probably in great mortal danger, but he was determined to find a way to save himself. He had always been a very hopeful man, and he knew he would have to use every ounce of his fibre and fortitude to remain sanguine.

“Why did you have to be such an inquisitive busybody?” the doppelgänger rhetorically asked. “If you had just gone on your daily business, you wouldn’t have been in this mess, would you?” he stated. “Now, because of your insatiable curiosity, you’re probably going to get both of us killed!” the man nearly shouted as he lunged incredibly fast at Warrick, grabbing his right arm in a steely grip.

Warrick let out a yelp before the man covered his mouth and said, “Silence, you idiot! I’m trying to help you, but if you make another sound, you might as well slit both our throats right now.”

Terror, bewilderment, panic and rage thundered through Warrick’s mind, each emotion vying for supremacy. He didn’t have a chance though to give vent to any because with lightning-fast speed, his double picked him up as if he weighed less than a feather, turned around and walked right through one of the walls. Even though this stunned Warrick nearly senseless, he realised this must be how the stranger had managed to subdue him so fast on the street, but walking through walls was way beyond his power of reasoning.

As if reading his mind – which Warrick suddenly realised the man might very well be capable of doing – the creature said, “They are not true walls, but membranes which grant us access to other compartments in the ship. They serve as barriers to create temporary or permanent cells,” he explained.

Warrick’s mind fixated on only one word the man had said: ship.

“Wait!” he said as he freed himself from the man’s grip and refused to budge. “Ship? What do you mean, ship?” he asked in consternation.

“You know what I mean,” the stranger replied enigmatically. “Spaceship,” he finally admitted after a few heartbeats. “I’ll explain soon, I promise. We just have to keep moving so that I can get you into a safer zone. The room you found yourself in was the closest I could transport you to when you caught me by surprise, but it is also the one nearest the Interrogation Chamber, which is one room you definitely do not want to find yourself in,” he stressed and pulled Warrick along. This time Warrick complied immediately. The phrase “interrogation chamber” had turned his bowels to water.

“I’m just a fashionista,” Warrick protested pathetically.

Dionne found Warrick’s car entirely through serendipity. Had she gone to their flat via the usual route, she would never have seen his car parked along the side of the road. As it was, she knew traffic would still be heavy at that time of the morning, thus she had taken the alternate route back home.

“Warrick, where could you be?” she was asking herself as she called his number and again his phone simply kept on ringing before switching to voicemail. She immediately redialled the number, but this time it went directly to voicemail.

“The phone must be out of charge,” she reasoned to herself just as she passed his parked car on the other side of the road. She screeched to a stop when she noticed it at the very last second. Fortunately, there were no other cars behind her, and she reversed quickly to stop opposite his vehicle. Pulling off the road and onto the kerb, Dionne hastily got out of her car and ran across the road to Warrick’s Ford Fiesta.

As she reached the Ford, her entire body started to tingle, as if she had stepped into an electrical field. She noticed an abandoned trolley lying on its side next to an empty garbage bin and near it, half-buried in dirt, lay what appeared to be a holder for sunglasses. It turned out to be something else entirely.

It was ovoidal in shape and had some indentations along the top and bottom of the oval. Along the edges were what appeared to be grooves for fingers, but only for three fingers. Then she noticed a tiny green light flickering at the very edge of the top of the oval.

“What the heck?” Dionne asked in confusion. She looked closer at the pulsing light and noticed that it was set into what seemed to be a touchpad, and she instinctively depressed it. It made a tiny click, and Dionne and the device simply disappeared.

She reappeared seconds later in a most unusual room, one she had never seen the likes of. It was glowing a soft golden yellow, like the colour of honey, and aside from a single chair placed in the very centre of the room, it was otherwise devoid of any décor.

“Where am I and what is going on here?” Dionne exclaimed loudly as she turned in a circle, trying to spot any kind of clue to her whereabouts. Suddenly, the device she was still clutching in her hand gave a melodious ping. The very next instant, two beings appeared in the room, causing Dionne to literally jump in surprise.  In utter shock, she recognised Warrick as one of the two who had entered the room. She did a double take when she looked at the other being. Before she could say anything though, Warrick flung himself on her and grabbed her in a huge bear hug.

“Dionne!” he called out as he held her. “I don’t know how you got here, but am I glad to see you, babe!”

Dionne pushed him off her and said, “Warrick, what in God’s name is going on? If I don’t get any answers right now I’m going to lose it!”

“We don’t have time for this,” said the third occupant of the room. “Warrick, we are still not in a safe area. We were pulled here by my Portal Key, which she activated,” he gestured to the device Dionne was clutching in her hand, “because it’s programmed to me, but we need to get out of here now.” With that, he nimbly plucked the device from Dionne’s hand. “It’s a miracle that she found it,” he added before he depressed the touchpad.

“Wait, back up,” Dionne said in utter exasperation. “What do you mean you’ve been on our planet for centuries? Surely, the world would have become aware of your presence by now.”

The stranger had transported them to another room and given a brief explanation for his presence. He now turned to Dionne to answer her.

“You have, but we’ve fabricated myths and legends to disguise who we are. It is only occasionally, as in Warrick’s case, that we reveal our true selves out of necessity. Most of the time we act in a ruthless manner, even resorting to killing, when we are discovered. Especially when one of you finds one of our ships or meets one of us face-to-face, as Warrick did. He’s just lucky I’m the one he found. If he had stumbled across one of our Enforcers, his life would have been instantly forfeited,” the stranger stated.

“Enforcers,” Warrick echoed. “That sounds ominous,” he stated lamely.

“Are you an Enforcer, or what are you?” Dionne quickly queried.

“I’m Zith, a Cultivator, as unlike any Enforcer you could ever meet,” the stranger explained. “I’m what you would call a farmer, except that I gather knowledge about planets and their inhabitants instead of crops. We send this gathered information to our Advisory Committee, which decides on the action to be taken against or for the planet.”

“What the…? Are you for real?” Warrick interjected, disbelief clearly plastered across his face. Dionne moved closer to him and gripped his arm in fear and alarm.

“What do you mean by ‘action to be taken’”? she asked, dreading Zith’s answer.

“Sometimes, a planet is on a path of destruction because of its inhabitants’ actions, and we intervene. If the planet is worth saving, we put measures in place to help it recover. However, in most cases we simply obliterate the sentient inhabitants and allow the planet to heal itself, which it normally does. On planets where nature is the destructive force and the inhabitants are merely innocent bystanders, we make positive alterations in the planet’s weather and composition to enable it to recover,” Zith stated blandly.

“Obliterate the inhabitants?” Dionne exclaimed in shock. “What right do you have to annihilate an entire species –” she began before Warrick interrupted her.

“And who made you God to decide on our fate?” he asked heatedly.

“Actually, you did,” Zith answered in an infuriatingly calm manner. “When your ancestors first came across us, they assumed we were gods. Over the aeons, we eventually became the God, as your forefathers pared the stories of gods down to one ultimate Almighty Being. Your religions all stem from those very first sightings of us, the only difference being in the way each religion perceives us.”

Warrick and Dionne stared at Zith as if he had sprouted a second head. As matters stood, he very well might suddenly grow another head.

“Bullshit,” Warrick spat and turned to Dionne. “Do you believe this guy?” he asked her.

“Well,” she reluctantly said, “haven’t we recently been questioning religion and our notion of God? This makes about as much sense as anything we’ve been taught about God, doesn’t it? Why can’t God be … an alien?” she asked him. Before Warrick could reply though, Zith spoke.

“We need to get out of here, please. If an Enforcer should discover us, he won’t hesitate to kill the two of you. Unlike me, Enforcers are violent and highly aggressive against intruders. I must get you to a secure station and transport all of us back to the surface of your planet.”

As if having been mentioned brought him into existence, a looming, menacing man suddenly materialised in the room. He closely resembled the actor, Jason Momoa, and was obviously another doppelgänger, but whereas Momoa always had a smile on his handsome face, this creature’s features radiated hostility. He approached the three in a deliberately slow manner, his body language unequivocally displaying his evil intent.

“Zith. I should have known it would be you,” he barked. “A traitor like you never changes his nature, does he?” he asked nastily and stopped about ten paces away from the group. He seemed unarmed, but he was dressed in a black body suit that was covered by angular projections and barbed spikes. Warrick and Dionne had no doubt about the man’s lethal nature, or that his suit might also serve as a weapon of some kind.

Zith turned to face the man fully and spoke in his imperturbable manner. “Enforcer Virren, they are innocents. If anyone has to be terminated, it should be I,” he stated flatly.

“Oh, don’t fear, Zith. You will definitely be killed this time, as you should have been the previous time you assisted a planet’s inhabitants, but your death can wait. For now, I will deal with these intruders first,” Virren ominously declared.

He slowly grabbed hold of one of the projections on his abdomen and pulled. With a sickeningly wet sound, a slender sword slid out of his body. It oozed an ugly pulsing purple colour, apparently the creature’s blood. Virren smiled wickedly and stepped closer to the group. Warrick and Dionne were rooted to the spot, petrified and beyond any form of resistance, but Zith was not. In a sudden blur, he moved towards Virren and smashed so hard into him that both of them spun away to the other side of the room.

Virren had been caught completely by surprise, as Cultivators were docile and never attacked anyone. Had he not been caught unawares, things might have gone completely awry. Fortunately for Warrick and Dionne, Zith had managed to knock Virren senseless. He rose up and looked down at the sprawled, unconscious figure of the Enforcer.

“That … that was amazing!” Warrick shouted as he hurried across the room to Zith. Dionne was close behind him and looked at Zith in awe. “How did you move so fast?” Warrick asked.

“It is of no consequence. What is important though is for us to get to a safe station now, before he awakes,” the Cultivator declared as he pointed to the supine form of Virren. “Please, we need to go. Follow me.”

The three figures materialised next to Warrick’s Ford, Dionne stumbling slightly before Warrick reached out to steady her. Fortunately, there was nobody around to notice the three’s miraculous appearance.

“You need to leave now. I will return to our ship to deal with Virren,” Zith stated.

“But what about you? He said he would kill you,” Dionne asked in distress.

“Yes, and won’t he hunt us down, too?” Warrick asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” Zith said with an enigmatic smile. “I can take care of myself. As for Virren hunting you down: he won’t be able to. I erased any sign of your presence on the ship before I transported us back here. He won’t be able to track you down, and in any case, I will speak to the Advisory Committee about today’s incident. They will listen to me,” he declared confidently.

“What makes you so sure they will listen to you?” Dionne asked in obvious concern. “Virren scared me! He looks like someone who doesn’t ‘listen’ to anyone.”

Warrick added, “He’s a killing machine, isn’t he? As such, how can he be reasoned with?”

Zith faced the two of them and smiled, and this time there was no ambiguity about it.

“I haven’t been fully honest with the two of you, but it was necessary for me to be duplicitous. I’m sorry,” Zith apologised, totally mystifying Warrick and Dionne.

“Dude, you’re frightening me,” Warrick stated while Dionne clung more fiercely to him.

“No, there’s no need to be afraid. I promise,” Zith said kindly. “You see, I’m not just a simple Cultivator, and this is not my true form. I am the Cultivator, the true Ruler of my race … and yours.”

With that, Zith started to glow so brightly that Warrick and Dionne had to avert their gazes. When they could finally look at Zith again, he had disappeared. Only a lingering image was left, which quickly dissipated, and the faintest smell of jasmine and roses drifted on the air. Warrick and Dionne stared at each other in total incomprehension, as they heard the faintest tinkling of a thousand silver bells.

Image: NASA (www.unsplash.com)