I trailed my hand through my hair. It was a nervous gesture. Old and familiar, it comforted me as my thoughts wandered down my turbulent past. My focus firmly on my scars which littered my body in varying degrees of protuberance. 

The one that came to mind now was more than a scar, it was an actual maiming. A physical reminder of how fragile we are and how easily we convince ourselves that we are invincible. Not to mention how quickly that illusion can be shattered. It was of course the stump on my right hand. The one where my pinkie finger had been severed at the second knuckle.

It took weeks for the digit to actually register as MIA (Missing in Action). My mind simply refused to accept that it was gone. Perhaps only now that I had spent long enough without it, without its utility, that I could finally accept that it was gone forever. I rubbed the calloused nub as if a Genie would appear.

It was the nature of thought to flit between ideas, to randomly remember, linking to other things that were missing too. Like my life on Earth, my old life, friends, colleagues and those who I considered family. Loved one’s had deserted me long before I left Earth. 

All of them were gone now. Bittersweet memories of a past I could never return to, and my life before my enhanced existence seemed like it had no real meaning or relevance. These events were not related to my scars though so I shifted back to my task.

I decided to continue with my writing, my chronicles. I wanted my deeds and suffering, and most importantly my victories to be recorded. Those would be of the most use. I needed to educate as well as explain to the others before it was too late for them. 

“I must point out that it is not for recognition, you understand? Not for accolades, but rather for the comfort that what I have been through is noted, and what I have learned is recorded. Perhaps some use could be gained from it. Perhaps someone back home will heed the warnings of what is to come.” 

I looked up to the Cleverman waiting for me as I sorted through my notes. ‘Cleverman’ was what he called himself. It was a new term for me, but one that slid easily across the tongue. He said everyone used it to describe what he was now from some TV series, so they, as a people embraced it. He was what I would call a witch doctor or wiseman from Australia. An Aboriginal, loincloth and all. He stood, clouds of pungent tobacco smoke wafting around his head as he gazed into the distance. His rheumy eyes never shifted, never even blinked that I could notice. He seemed to be in a trance, patient as a rock. His stork legs were placed in that peculiar way, standing on one leg as the other foot was balanced just above the knee on the inside thigh. His calloused hand made rasping noises as he slid his grip to adjust for balance along the spear shaft propping him up. I was tempted to ask if he could play the didgeridoo, but then thought better of it. I couldn’t, after all, play the guitar, or piano, or any other musical instrument for that matter.

“Be patient Edgar, it takes time to catalog all that has happened. It’s important to get the details right.” I spoke out rhetorically, he had been waiting for several days already and had made no move to hurry me along. Edgar grunted while taking another pull on his pipe. 

“Call me Kunmanjayi, I have died here already mate, it is unwise to speak of the dead. Besides, this waiting around is nothing. You should have seen how long I waited for the bloody portal to appear back home in the outback. Now that was an act of patience. You’ just a mild annoyance. But take some advice from me mate. Nothing you say or do will be taken seriously. I’m just an Abbo’ to the white folks, and an oddity doing too much Jukurrpa.. a kind of dreaming practiced by my people. The legend of orb travel and aliens will never be taken seriously by those people of yours. We have been telling folks about it for years.”

“Our stories, our culture all passed down through the ages was never taken at face value. You Westerners are a strange bunch. Always looking for alternative meanings. When we say there are monsters. It’s not a metaphor. Anyway, no one cares what I have to say. Your "Chronicles" will be laughed off as a joke, nothing more. Come back with me. You will see what I mean.”

I looked up at his wrinkled brown face, white wisps of hair poking out in every direction as he turned his flat stare on me, and I nodded in acknowledgement. This Cleverman would be considered an oddity alright. Some wild and woolly maniac with tall tales that would be immediately dismissed as a lunatic's rantings. Unfortunately he was all I had, and I had to use whatever way I could to get the message out there and back to Earth.

“Just try your best to get my notes to General Craig in the NSA. Use Email, FAX, post, courier, whatever you have to, just get these notes to him. Please! You could very well be saving the entire planet. When he sees my ID code he will follow up, because only I could give you that code and he will want to know where you got it from. He will take it seriously, that’s his job. Anyway, we have been over this. You pledged your agreement after I brought you back from the brink of death. No backing out now.” 

“Yeah, yeah, so shut up already and get on with your scratchings.”

We both turned and continued what we had been doing. He waited, pulling deeply on his pipe, and I dipped the quill and continued with writing my Chronicles.