Fledgling

by Octavia E. Butler

Being naked had seemed completely normal until I became aware of it. Then it seemed intolerable.

I had an endless stream of questions and no answers.

His car seemed to fit him almost as badly as my clothing fitted me.

It was as though the people in each of these houses were pretending they lived alone in the woods.

Things kept coming to me in this frustrating, almost useless way.

Whoever and whatever I was, no one seemed to be writing about my kind. Perhaps my kind did not want to be written about.

Did others of my kind do such things? Had I done such a thing before?

I did find it interesting, though, that human beings made up these fantasy safeguards, little magics, like garlic and crucifixes, that would somehow keep them safe from my kind—or from what they imagined my kind to be.

All of my life had been erased, and I could not bring it back. Each time I was confronted with the reality of this, it was like turning to go into what should have been a familiar, welcoming place and finding absolutely nothing, emptiness, space.

He frowned, looking confused. It was a kind of confusion that worried me since it seemed to me that it could mean only one thing.

I nodded. “I know.” But of course I didn’t know. I hoped.