Never Trust an Amikiri

Never trust an Amikiri.

Everyone knew it. Hell, everyone knew it so completely, so perfectly, that nobody even needed to say it, like gravity, Amikiri were one of life’s great constants.

Marshal leaned back in his chair with a creak, never taking his eyes off the diminutive humanoid currently staring transfixed by its own feet as it shuffled back and forth across a faded shag rug that had been here longer than Marshal had.

“Can I help you… Miss?” He guessed. To human eyes, there wasn’t much way of telling. They were close enough in appearance to be mistaken for Terran children, at a distance, with soft, delicate features, and large eyes peeking from beneath long blue-green leaves that were almost, but not quite, hair.

“Can I get parking permits here?” She, presumably, looked up, pulling a well-folded sheet of paper from the pocket of a poorly fitting, probably stolen, grey jacket.

Marshal frowned, cautiously holding out his hand. The Amikiri passed the document up to him, standing on tiptoe to reach over his desk. He read a few words at a time, quickly looking back to the Amikiri who had gone back to shuffling around on his carpet, paying him no attention.

Vehicle registration seemed standard, the name was… He peered at the Amikiri again. Possible? He looked back. Vehicle access and parking rights for the front of the administration building? Everything seemed normal. He shook his head, scanning the document into his terminal and hitting a button. A permit popped from the machine with a whir of machinery.

“Here you are, Mister, uh, Blastawich.” He held out the paper and permit to the little alien.

“Thanks a lot.” The Amikiri flashed him a sharp toothed grin and made his way out of the door, leaving, at least to Marshal’s eye, everything intact and still in its place.

Marshal sighed with relief, taking a sip of his lukewarm coffee as he looked out of the window at the sprawling colony below. That could have gone a lot worse, all things considered. He pressed a button on his terminal to call in the next person in line.

It was three minutes later when a van smashed through the front of the building.

~ Thanks for reading. I wrote this little darling without much story to go with it, and it’s been haunting my drive for years since. I may well end up using it in some far future sci-fi story as soon as I remember where on earth I was going with it. Hope you enjoyed this little snippet either way! ~ Pan