Part Three: Beginings

He stared at her for a while. The professor huffed audibly but otherwise pretended they didn’t exist.

“Fine.” The man said eventually. “Lead the way, little sister.”

“Wait for me in the waiting rooms.” The Professor called after them as they left.

They walked out of theatre reception and into the patient waiting rooms. “Please have a seat. We’ll just wait for Prof Pretorius here.”

He sat down as he carefully appraised his surroundings. He acted like an alien that just landed on earth.

The medical student collapsed on the chair and took a deep breath. The first thing on her mind was how relieved she was to get out of that theatre. Then she wondered if she should share that with the man, but the terrified part of her that professors carved into her kicked in, and told her that she should always act with inhuman dignity, and show absolutely no signs of weakness or any real selfish emotion. Then she took that part of her and threw it out of her mind.

“God!, Its good to be out of there!” She breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back and stared at the ceiling. The man was awfully silent, she thought.

She sat up and looked at him, suddenly curious to get a closer look at the strange fellow who seemed to appear out of thin air.

He was already staring at her. It was too late to turn away now, and she just stared back.

“So!” She said eventually. “I’m Elise. Whats your name?” She tried to keep her voice as pleasant as possible. It was fake, as usual. She was becoming more and more like her professors every day.

“I am Zohl’Noush.”

There was an awkward silence, and Elise pinched herself for letting it happed. She tried to ignore the strangeness of his name and move on. “And where are you from, Zohl’Noush?”

“I am from Earth.” The man replied seriously.

She laughed. “No kidding!” His serious expression just made her laugh more. “Arent we all?” She looked at him, and he didn’t even crack the slightest smile. “Are you serious?” She laughed again, and this time, his lack of response wiped the smile right off her face. “um..this is earth.”

He looked at her for a while. “Where on earth?”

“uh..” She couldn’t believe this was actually the conversation they were having. She felt like she was reciting lines from a bad screenplay in a cheap movie. “We’re in South Africa. Where did you think we were?”

“I assumed I must have been on another planet. Things here are so different. I’ve never heard of this South Africa.”

“Where are you from, then?”