Intergalaxies, The Second Chance

Chapter 1.4: A Guest for a Week

... After a while of trying to break through the alleys of the well-known Charcis marketplace, Lissey and Aldo could finally see the simple, but well decorated stall of the master fisherman called Higgy.

"HEY, HIGGY." Lissey yelled at Higgy, so that he could hear her through all the noise. "LISSEY?" Higgy replied starting to look from where the voice came from. "HERE WE ARE HIGGY." Gulp, now the hard part. I have to influence Higgy in believing that I am really one of his distant relatives and looks like there's no turning back as he already saw us. "Hi Lissey. Wait; let me guess. You brought me some of that delicious home-made food you use to prepare, right? I can't wait to try it." "I did but that's not the main reason why we're here." "We're?" "Guess who came to see you?" "Don't tell me you brought one of your great friends with you?" Higgy asked with a troubled expression on his face. "Huh?! Did you say something Higgy?!" "Nothing; nothing." "Come on, Aldo, don't just stand in the back." I came closer to Higgy's market stall, when Lisssey said: "Look who came to see you. Now isn't this great?" Well you should have seen Higgy's face. He was looking at me and one could literally read from his face expression that he didn't have even the slightest clue who was standing before him. I played along and was trying to look surprised as well. "Higgy? Is it really you? Wow, you changed?" "I did?" Higgy asked with a surprised tone. "Sure and how, I mean in a good way." Higgy was still staring at me with that big question mark above his head, so I decided to play the big surprise game to the end. "Wait; don't tell me you don't remember me at all?" After several more seconds of just staring Higgy broke from his trance, shook his head and said: "Ehm, should I know you?" " It's me Aldoran." "I am sorry Aldoran, but I really don't" "It's me Aldoran Loit Bougi. I know that it has been more than 16 years since we last saw each other at my mother's birthday celebration, but you surely remember my mom? Loira ... Loira Loit?" "Loira, you mean one of my cousins?" "Yep Loira Loit, I am her son Aldo. Well who would have thought you'd have forgotten about me so easily." "My apologies Aldoran, but tell me what brings you to these parts? Don't tell me you've decided to come and see me after such a long time?" "The truth is that I am going to grand-aunt Tilga's birthday banquet and I've thought that I would stop by a bit sooner to get to know one of my distant uncles who I didn't see for quite some time." You should have seen Lissey. She was turning hear head from one side to the other, at how Higgy was still staring surprisingly, trying to remember who I am. "Oh, and where do you have my new address from Aldoran? I have moved since I was as at your mother's birthday party." "From grand-aunt Tilga. She called my moms, gave her your new address and asked her to make sure that you come to the birthday banquet as she couldn't find your phone number. To tell you the truth we wanted to give you a call before I show up but we also couldn't find your phone number anywhere, so I came a bit unannounced." "You know Aldoran, well how should I put it, ... I currently don't own a telephone, so maybe that's why you didn't find any."

"Oh, ok; and by the way you can just call me Aldo since were family uncle Higgy." "Then Aldo it is, but where are your parents didn't they come with you?" "Nope, mum's is taking care of father as he got sick and wasn't feeling very well lately so they asked me to take some free time from work and make sure you'll be at the party. Oh, I'd almost forget mom's is sending one of her new types of fruit pies I just hope it's still in one piece." I opened the compression backpack, looking for the fruit pie I took from the bunker. To be honest I wanted to eat it later, by myself, but I felt like I could use it to strengthening my made-up story. "I hope your father eh , .... Mmmm?" "His name is Colbert, Colbert Bougi. Don't you remember?" "Oh, sure I just hope Colbert is going to be alright?" "The doctor checking him said it's just some kind of viral illness and it should disappear in one or two weeks." "By the way nice backpack you got there Aldo." "Oh thanks, it's one of those new high tech backpacks in which you can compress items before storing them inside. Pops got me one when he was on one of his work trips." "Well I definitely didn't see one of these before, did you Lissey?" "Neither did I, and isn't it heavy Aldo?" "Not at all, as the weight of the stored items decreases trough the compression process." "Well that's definitely useful." Higgy nodded. "By the way Aldo if I do remember right aunt Tilga's birthday party is in five days or?" "That's true uncle Higgy, but I thought I'd get to know you a bit better and also wanted to see how is life on Vrasz Seris. You know? See some other culture, habits and maybe some different type of architecture. I just hope I didn't come at a bad time?" "Of course not. It seems that now that you're my guest I'll be taking care of you during your stay here." "Ok boys sorry to butt into your talk but I'll be going since I still have some work to do at home." "Sure Lissey and many thanks for the lunch and for bringing Aldo here." "I would also like to thank you Lissey especially for the whole sightseeing tour you gave me on our way here." "Eh, no, no need to be thanking boys." Heh, one could see how Lissey blushed a bit when we thanked her. "Higgy don't forget that I brought you an extra meal today, so that you can have lunch together with Aldo, Ok?" "Got it." "Well then I'll be leaving you as I can imagine that you surely have a lot of things you want to talk about. Be seeing you around Aldo; and Higgy can you please bring me some of those cherms when you get back?" "I'll go put some aside right now Lissey." "Goodbye Lissey and it was a pleasure meeting you." "Likewise Aldo." After these words I watched Lissey disappear in the crowd, while Higgy took eight of the cherms and put them inside of the water filled crates. It was only then that I saw the crates have that very same yellowish glass from the inside, the very same glass the jars filled with fireflies nests were made out of. The crates top had many smaller holes which enabled some light and air to get inside. So to sum it up these crates looked like some kinds of tanks used to transport and keep the fish alive. Now I'd like to move onto describing the different types of fish species placed or hanged on the master fisherman's market stall. Please note that for better understanding I will try to compare these unknown types of fish to earth's fish species. The Cherm, as the locals call it, could be partially be compared to the earth's fish species known as catfish due to its long small whiskers, but on the other hand I don't think that your average catfish has two back fins and is of a slightly brick-red colour. Apart from the cherms one can also notice many other unknown fish species, most of which I saw for the first time. One of the fishes looked like a flounder, and then there were many types of fishes looking like a distant family of the pike fish class and also many smaller types that resembled sardines. On the side one could see one larger fish that was already cut onto many smaller fillets by your master fisherman Higgy. The snow-white steaks of this big fish were displayed between its rather weird face and its huge tail. To be honest its head looked really gruesome. It had two long teeth that looked like elephant tusks coming out from its mouth. On a closer look one could also see a lot of smaller sharp teeth. From the many small sharp teeth I can only assume that this is a carnivore type of fish. After a while of examining this unknown fish specie's head, Higgy asked me: "Well Aldo it seems that you're also mesmerized with my capital catch, huh?" "What? Oh yeah, to be honest with you Higgy I haven't seen anything like it before." "Then allow me to introduce you two. What you see here is a Vraszian Gillbus. To be honest I am quite surprised that you don't recognize it as this fish species was brought and introduced to our planet from Vrasz. Although the former Vrasz species of the Gillbus didn't have tusks this large and also didn't have smaller horns, so maybe that's why it's a bit hard to recognize." "Hmm?" "Now that you mention it, I can see some resemblance with our Vraszian Gillbus, not that I have seen any lately." "Heh, but truth told, it took me some while and a lot of nerves till he was out of strength and I could pull him out of water." "With the size of its head and tail I can surely imagine the long fight you two had." Suddenly a vraszian male, looking like one of those humanoid-foxes, came to Higgy's market stall and asked: "I'll like to have two larger steaks from that beautiful Vraszian Gillbus." "Sure, sir. Two larger Gillbus steaks just for you sir." Higgy replied turning to me. "Aldo, can you please take out one of the larger yellow fish sacks I have prepared, while I weight the two steaks for this gentleman?" "Huh?" "They're in the cooler, inside the market stall, just open it up and you should see them" "Sure Higgy, I am on it." I bent and opened the market stall's wooden hatch to find it filled with lots of ice and two sizes of yellowish sacks. I noticed they're filled with chopped ice, so I took the larger looking one and handed it to Higgy who had just checked the weight of the steaks. "Oh wait Aldo now open the side hatch and put some of the lemon slices into the sack. That keeps the fish fresh and also neutralizes their smell, at least a bit." "Ok." I opened the side hatch to find almost thirty slices of the lemon Higgy was talking about laying on the ice. These lemons looked almost like when you mix a cucumber with a lemon, well the inside looked like a typical lemon but they were a bit longer as the uncut one's I saw had from twenty to thirty centimetres and had many smaller lumps all over them. As instructed by Higgy I took five slices and put them into the sack filled with chopped ice and handed it to Higgy. "Here you go Higgy." "Thank you Aldo." "Here are your two larger Gillbus steaks, freshly packed sir." "Now that will be___"