Ava's Helaal Walk: An Out-of-this-World Adventure

“So,” said Ava, “how did you guys meet?”

She smiled. It had been a long day and she was finally back in her dorm room on Mars after walking an hour from the bus stop to campus. She was exhausted but also excited because tonight was the first night of the semester where all of the freshman would be gathering for a mixer.

Ava didn’t know any of them yet, but she wanted to make friends. The only thing she knew about them so far was their majors: biology, history, physics and math. She had no idea what they looked like but that didn’t matter. She could go up to anyone and introduce herself.

It hadn’t been easy to get accepted into Helaal University. On Mars there were four universities and not many people got into Helaal because it was well known for its hard core science programs. For example, Ava had opted for astrophysics because she wanted to study the stars one day.

She looked around at her three new friends. They were sitting on her bed with her and the funny thing was that they each looked so different from each other. There was a tall alien who looked like he might weigh 400 pounds! His skin was gray-blue and he had two small eyes that sat close together on his head. He was wearing some kind of fancy purple robe down to his ankles and he had some kind of weird hat made out of sash that went over his larger than normal head. What was even stranger was that he talked in a very normal voice like he should have been from New York or something!

Then there was another alien who seemed shorter than Ava who stood maybe 5’6” tall and wore glasses with thick black frames on his face. He wore a suit jacket with an orange shirt underneath that came down to his waist. He had very short dark hair except for two long strands of black hair that fell down right above his pointed ears. He waved at Ava as if he knew her for a long time!

The last alien sat next to the one in the orange shirt and wore a black cloak over his white body with little yellow spots all over it. He turned to look at Ava when she spoke and smiled widely at her as if he couldn’t wait to tell his part of the story!

Ava started off by looking at the two men who were aliens sitting beside her on her bed before she turned toward the man dressed in purple who seemed like he couldn’t wait to talk either! “Oh boy, I think this is going to be interesting…” she thought with a smile on her face as she opened up her can of Moxie soda and took a sip while waiting patiently for anyone to start talking!