It was a cold, mid-winter morning and Tom was not enjoying it one bit. Of course, one would expect a mid-winter morning to be cold, but this particular morning was noticeably colder than any Tom could remember.

He had woken, or to be more accurate, been woken, at an entirely unreasonable hour by his ever-inconsiderate house mates, and despite having every intention of spending the entire day in the warmth and comfort of his bed, presently found himself wandering around the house, hoping that the aforementioned house mates would hurry up and leave. Or, if they did intend to hang around and crowd his space, at least make him some breakfast. There was food there to be had, but he didn’t want that food, he wanted something else, even if he wasn’t sure what that something else was.

It was still dark outside, not that it mattered much to Tom, he very rarely went outside; it must have been even colder out there, though he couldn’t imagine how.

He also harboured hope that, if or when his house-mates chose to leave the house, that they would forget to turn the heating off. The heater was on, it was the first thing he checked after he pushed himself out of bed and stretched his tired limbs, but it was fighting a losing battle with the biting cold at present; it always seemed to take a while to reach its full potential. Of course, his house-mates rarely did forget to turn the heater off, and there always seemed to be an argument when they did, but it was so much nicer (for him) when they did. He didn’t know how to work the heater, or perhaps he just couldn’t be bothered learning.

He had no specific activities planned for the day. he would need to wash at some point, though that was something he could start now and come back to whenever he wanted. He was a stickler for personal hygiene. Outside of that, all he could see himself accomplishing with the day was starring out the window, a half dozen naps or so, and perhaps a little exploring. It was a simple life, but a generally satisfying one.

Tom’s house-mates did eventually leave the house, which made him both happy and sad. The sadness he was not expecting, it kind of crept up on him, though he could vaguely remember feeling something similar the last time they had left him home alone. perhaps it wasn’t sadness? Perhaps it was something else? Feeling uncomfortable with emotion, and not wanting to dwell on it any longer, he chalked it up to the fact that they had not occidentally left the heater on as he had hoped.

When everyone had left, he moped around the house for a little while, seeing if anything had changed since his last exploration, or if his house-mates had left anything interesting for him to play with, when he heard a noise coming from one of the rooms upstairs. He generally preferred to stay downstairs when the weather was this cold, the rooms on the lower level doing a much better job of retaining heat than those up above, but the noise intrigued him and so he began to climb the stairs. It wasn’t something he could recall ever having heard before, though it did resemble some of the sounds he heard coming from outside the house, more often than not, first thing in the morning. I sounded a little like talking, but in a language and cadence with which he was unfamiliar. It was a pleasant enough noise, but he could imagine it becoming grating if it continued in this manner for too long.

As he followed the gibberish speech, he wondered if the source was a friend of his house-mates and, if so, would that mean that they would be friendly towards him. Perhaps they would turn on the heater for him?

Entering a room which he rarely spent any time in, mainly because there wasn’t usually anything of interest in there, but also because it was never heated, the noise grew louder, so he knew he was close. Of course, as far as the cold was concerned, this time was no exception, in fact this time it seemed even colder than usual. It only took him a moment to understand why: the window had been left open. Not a lot, but enough for the cool air to make it’s way inside, the cool air and the outside noise, though it should be noted that the outside noises he heard did not included the mysterious sounds he had heard from all the way downstairs. And, aside from the open window, the only thing that Tom noticed about the room was that nothing else was any different, it was still the exact same unremarkable room he was used to avoiding. There certainly wasn’t evidence of whatever it was that was making the strange sound.

This meant that there was nothing to keep Tom in the room. Turning around to leave the room, and looking forward to the ever so slight increase in temperature he would experience when he made it back downstairs, Tom heard the sound. It was coming from directly behind him, from the open window which only a moment ago was unoccupied. The sound startled him somewhat, so he turned to face the window, albeit with a smidgeon of caution. What he saw, when he was fully facing the window, was a small, yellow creature with a kind of rounded body, beady little eyes, skinny legs and a bizarrely pointed and protruding mouth. What’s more, this alien creature did not appear to have any hands.

Tom and the little lemon guest locked eyes and both remained silent (Tom’s default setting) for a moment before the creature began to make it’s progressively abrasive sounds. Tom wasn’t sure if it was trying to communicate with him or whether it was making noise simply for the sake of making noise, something his house-mates seemed to be particularly fond of doing. Perhaps the creature was in distress? Tom wasn’t sure whether he should feel threatened or not, but a little voice inside of him told him that he should, while at the the same time compelling him to get closer to this other being.

Crouching down low, he slowly approached the window, doing his best not to startle his potential new fried. Or potential new rival. When he was close enough, he leapt up onto the window ledge so as to get as close a look as possible at this noisy neighbour of his. Unfortunately for him, the moment he landed on the ledge, the pointy mouthed visitor finally revealed its arm, stretching them out wide into a bright yellow blanket, and took to the sky. Tom was both frustrated and amazed, confused yet enthralled. He had never seen anything like it before, and he desperately wanted to follow. His instinct from a moment ago had only grown stronger and he wanted nothing more than to hold the creature in his own hands. Not to harm it, not necessarily, but to play with it, and to learn more about it. At the same time, despite having sampled some of the snacks that had been left out for him, Tom felt a pang of hunger in his stomach.

The bad news for Tom was that the window wasn’t open quite enough for him to squeeze through, no matter how hard he tried, and even if it was, there was another barrier on the other side of the window, that prevented anything from getting in, or perhaps, Tom thought for the first time ever, prevented him getting out. He let out a yell of frustration.

So captivated by the elusive, flaxen interloper was Tom, that he spent the remainder of his day staring out the window, in a room which as recently as yesterday, he had been loathe to enter. Every now and again he would call out to the departed guest, hoping for it’s return, but to no avail. He had no idea if he was waiting by that window for 10 minutes or 10 hours, he just knew that he was still there when he heard the front door open and the sound of footsteps from the next room over; one or more of his house-mates had returned.

He heard his name being called but he was too distracted to react or respond. Eventually, the house-mate cam to him, and for some reason beyond comprehension, decided that now was a good time to pick Tom up. Tom tried to protest, but his cries fell upon deaf ears, a common occurrence, as though Tom were speaking gibberish that none of the people he lived with could make head nor tails of, and he found himself being carried away from the window. Away from his yellow friend.

It didn’t take Tom long to warm to the idea of being moved from his perch from the window. In fact, as soon as he was back in the warmth of the house’s main room, the one in which his house-mates most often congregated, he soon forgot about the curious incident involving the noisy visitor with the odd appendages. Until the next day that is, when, cold and curious, Tom heard the strange sounds coming from the room upstairs, and so went to investigate.

The End.

James Farish-Carradice