8

Macy ran to the library. She had been rudely awaken about 5 minuted ago by blaring sirens. When she had looked out the window of her apartment, she had seen that cars with the sirens were headed straight for the library. Not bothering to check the state of her burnt hair in a mirror or change out of her bright yellow pajamas, Macy barrelled down the stairs to the ground floor of her building and continued to barrel down the street. The library was as much a home to Macy as her own apartment was. She had spent so many days there reading her favorite books and reminiscing about her long-gone friends, who she now realized may never come back for her. Macy fretted over the possibility of there being more problems with the books. The fire the night before had destroyed many of them, but there had still been enough to keep the library open and running. But maybe the books weren't the problem; maybe there was something wrong with Edith, who always showed up to work much earlier than Macy.
Gasping from exertion, Macy pushed through the front doors to find a room crowded with policemen and medics. There was an overturned bookshelf with its contents strewn over the floor. Worried that they could be damaged, Macy carefully inspected one, but realized the books were about the old American West and ceased to care about their condition. Where was Edith? All these people disturbing the library, especially after what happened the night before, should have been incurring her wrath, but she was nowhere to be seen.
A policeman walked up to Macy. "Did you know the victim?" He asked.
"Victim of what?" Macy said, confused.
"The murder that happened here."
Oh, that would explain Edith's disappearance. She was obviously the murder victim.
"She was my boss," replied Macy as she walked away.
She looked around for Edith's body, but she only saw a gurney with a body bag. Macy had never really dealt with death first hand before, and therefore didn't quite know how to react. Her boss was gone; that much was clear. But should she feel sad about it? Edith wasn't family; they weren't even really friends. So Macy decided that sadness was not an appropriate response, but also couldn't think of any other emotions to feel that would be any less inappropriate; she easily ruled out happiness, relief, and fear; those emotions were associated with other things. After some thought, Macy also ruled out anger because she did not know how the murder happened or who did the murdering. She walked over to a medic. "What should I feel?" She asked.
"Just feel whatever you feel," the man said, obviously weirded out. Frustrated, Macy gave up on her quest for appropriate feelings and, without anything better to do, went to her favorite corner of the library, took out her favorite book, and read.

7

Macy walked into the library for another day of work. But something was different today. No one was there. It was normal to not have any customers, but where was Edith? She was always here to harass Macy first thing in the morning about being late or for her poor work in shelving books the day before. There were shouts outside, which Macy followed over to the abandoned parking lot across the street. She spotted Edith. But what was she doing? The scene in front of Macy became clearer. There was a fire. Huge tendrils of yellow and orange flames licked the early morning sky. Edith was dancing around the fire, yelling something Macy couldn't make out. There were men too, but they weren't joining in with Edith's the dancing and yelling. They were throwing things into the fire.
"Cool," Macy thought. The beauty of fire had always enticed and mystified her. She walked closer, hoping to join in.
"Macy!" Yelled Edith. "Stop them, Macy! They are burning my precious books! My books, Macy!"
So that's what the men were throwing into the fire. Macy caught the title of a book one man was about to throw in. It was entitled Aliens Walk Among Us. Furious that any human would be so insolent as to burn her favorite book, one which was vital to uphold the integrity of any library's collection, Macy tackled the man.
"Good, Macy!" She heard Edith yell over the crackle of the fire which was now next to Macy's head!
Cursing her head of large frizzy blond hair, Macy scooted away from the fire, but she was too late. Her hair was ablaze. Screaming at the pain as the flames burned her scalp, Macy ran out of the parking lot despite Edith's shouts for her to stop being silly and dunk her head in some water.
Macy ran blindly until someone threw a blanket over her head. She thought that someone was trying to suffocate her and wildly kicked until the person released her head.
"Jesus, honey, I was just trying to put the fire on your head out," said a woman.
"Oh," replied Macy. "Well then I thank you with all the honor of the Gruslin clan."
Deciding that the strange girl with seared hair had obviously suffered some sort of head trauma, the woman asked, "did you catch on fire from the Mosque?"
"No, books," said Macy. She eyed the woman and suddenly became very shy. The woman had on nothing but a skimpy bathrobe, which had blown open. All around them were more under dressed women who were throwing bottles at a huge fire engulfing the town's Mosque. Blushing and confused as to why there was another fire, Macy ran back to the parking lot to help Edith save more books, which were now being photographed by a group of dark-haired tourists who Macy had to run around as she neared the fire.

6

A streak of bright sunlight shining across Macy's face woke her from her fitful sleep. She hadn't been sleeping well lately. Her friends had done nothing to contact her, so Macy was feeling depressed. Slowly, Macy got dressed, putting on a bright red dress and her favorite blue rain boots, even though the weather was warm and pleasant.
It was Saturday, but Macy still had to work at the library. Because she continually neglected to pay the rent for her apartment, Macy had been hounded by the landlord for more money. Macy ducked into the stairwell as she heard the landlord coming, hoping to avoid him at all costs. Outside, the bright sun hurt her eyes as she made her way down the block to the library.
"click-clack," came a sound from somewhere behind her. Startled, Macy froze, terrified that another monstrous chicken had located her whereabouts.
The noise came again, but this time right beside her. Cringing, Macy turned to face her enemy, but found that no chicken was beside her. A girl not much older than Macy beamed up at her with large white teeth. The girl was shorter than Macy, but most females were because of Macy's awkward vertical length.
"Hi there!" The girl said, still beaming.
"Hi," said Macy in a small voice, wishing that the strange happy person would go away.
"I like your boots!" Exclaimed the girl in surprise as she noticed the large rubber things that Macy was wearing.
"Thank you," Macy replied as she continued her progress towards the library.
"Hey, wait up," said the stranger. "I just wanted to let you know that if you ever have any juicy gossip, come let me know in apartment 323 so I can report on it, okay?"
"Okee-dokee," Macy said quickly in her usual nervous manner. The girl smiled again and walked away, her boots click-clacking as she went. "Well at least it wasn't a chicken," Macy thought to herself. She considered the smiling girl's offer about spreading information. She wished there was some way to send a signal into outer space, and thought about asking the girl if her technology could do so, but thought better of it. Macy, inside the strange workings of her mind, knew that she couldn't wait forever for he friends to claim her. As depressing as the thought was, her friends may not come back for her anytime soon. Times moves slower when you travel at the speed of light, she remembered. "They are probably coming as quickly as they can," she assured herslef, "it just takes them longer to do things".
Happy again, she bounced her way down to the library to see Edith for another long day of work.

5

Macy was on her lunch break. Usually, she would go back to her apartment and eat a bowl of her favorite cereal, Lucky Charms, but today she was feeling adventurous. The incident at the carnival had boosted Macy's self esteem; she was proud of how well she had handled the bear-man and his sly coaxing. Macy passed a diner and considered the possibility of eating her lunch there. Through the window she saw a girl, probably in her twenties, sitting in a booth, making little movements with her mouth as if she were talking to herself. The girl looked terrified, her eyes huge with shock. A few people in the diner were giving her worried glances, but for the most part ignored her.
"Maybe she is waiting for her friends like I am," Macy thought. "Maybe they abandoned her like my friends did me."
A waitress noticed Macy's intense stare through the window and knocked on the glass, pointing to a sign that read, "No Soliciting."
Disheartened by the sudden arousal of her sadness, Macy decided to just go back to the library, flip through some books, and skip lunch altogether.
She walked back down the street much slower than she had walked up it. The day was dull, everything was dull.
"Cluck, cluck," came a noise at her feet. And Macy had thought her day couldn't get any worse! A terrifying, humongous chicken was pecking at her shoes.
"Aaaa!" Macy screamed. Startled, the chicken violently flapped its wings, screeched, and hurriedly waddled away. But there were more; there were clucking hens all over the street! Convinced that chickens were finally declaring war on humans, Macy ran back to the library, eager to escape before the battle began.

4

It was night time, around 8 o'clock. Macy walked through the streets near her apartment building as she pondered the predicament that she was in. Maybe her alien friends weren't coming for her. Maybe they had forgotten about her. But Macy refused to let such thoughts run through her mind for long; her friends would come for her. They had to.
When she was about a block from her apartment, Macy came along a brightly lit carnival right behind the library. Edith had been complaining about the noise coming from the gleeful carnival-goers earlier that day, saying such people were "indecent and quite annoying." Macy had given Edith a small nod in response, hoping her austere boss would find someone else to torment for a while. With nothing else to do to keep her mind away from depressing thought of abandonment, Macy decided to go in the carnival.
There were bright lights everywhere; big bulbs hung from wires strung across the numerous tents housing different attractions. Macy was overwhelmed and bewildered by the strange people she saw in the different tents: a woman with a beard, dwarfs, conjoined twins, and a man breathing fire. All the acts were pretty generic, but Macy had never seen a carnival before.
Breathing hard from the excitement of being around so many strange people, Macy jogged over to a quieter, darker part of the lot. There was an old woman sitting at a table inside of a lustrous tent covered in purple drapes. The woman had a crystal ball and was speaking lowly to someone kneeling down before the table.
"Never seen a fortune teller before?" A man said behind Macy. Startled, she spun around and gasped. The man's voice had come from the mouth of an animal head, a bear maybe. The rest of the body looked normal, but it was hard to tell in such dim light.
"N-no," Macy stammered.
"Good for you, they're a bunch of lunatics who don't know what they're talking about."
"Okay," she said meekly.
"Why don't you come with me to see an act worth watching."
Macy didn't know how to respond. The bear-man was scary. She remembered a lesson her friends had taught her: "Never trust the words of one who is not of your own species." They taught Macy this because all alien species are at war with each other, but Macy didn't realize this lesson didn't apply to Earth.
"No! I won't go anywhere with you, bear-man," Macy yelled, running away as fast as she could.
"Damn, I was really hungry," the bear-man said to himself.
Macy ran until she burst through the door of her apartment, thankful that she had remembered such a wise lesson.

3

Macy went to and from the main desk at the center of library, shelving stacks of books that had people returned earlier that day. As she walked with the numerous paperbacks, Macy liked to read their titles before she put them away. There was a romance story called "A Moment of Love," a cookbook called "Healthy Treats to Keep Your Kids Slim," and finally something worth reading, a large book with a black cover and silver words spelling out "Area 51: What the Government Didn't Tell You," a delightful book that Macy had flipped through frequently during her days at the library.

"Macy, stop reading the books. Your job is to put them away, not to enjoy them!"

Just Edith scolding Macy again. Normally Edith's harsh attitude annoyed Macy, what with her strange poetry and all. But today was different; it was the first day of the carnival! Macy had been awaiting this day in utter excitement ever since she had seen the poster taped in the window of the butcher shop.

At three o'clock, the end of Macy's shift, she hastily finished filling some late notices, grabbed her coat, and ran out the swinging doors of the library, her gawky limbs flailing in all directions as Macy left Edith rolling her eyes. Macy had always loved the carnival, with its bright lights, huge rides, and dressed-up workers. The atmosphere the carnival created was all so wonderful that it almost seemed other-worldly, which was precisely why Macy loved it. She ran to the first ride she saw, a rickety roller coaster that shook so much the riders' heads were slammed into either side of their seat restraints. Macy didn't mind the head trauma; she knew the ride would help her prepare for the great flight out of Earth's atmosphere. The line was long, so Macy took her place behind a shorter girl with baggy overalls who popped her gum loudly as she chewed it. The popping noise was quite annoying, and Macy tried to block it out by enjoying the screams of the people riding the roller coaster. But she wouldn't stop that damn popping! Distressed, Macy thought of how to speak to the girl, how to tell her to please stop. But Macy suffered from a severe social disorder that prevented her from speaking to strangers. This disorder went unnoticed by Macy, who chalked her shyness up to simply not wanting to fraternize with humans. So, unable to find the right words to say and silently scorning the girl for being human, Macy stoically continued to wait.

2

Macy lightly bounded down the stairs of the Wilshire apartment building. After a big breakfast and a routine check of her radio wave receiver, from which she expected a massage from her friends in the sky any day now, Macy was ready to start a day's work at the public library. Edith, Macy's supervisor, never paid much attention to the tall girl with limbs that stuck out at awkward angles, giving her the look of a very large stick figure with frizzy blond hair. But macy liked it that way; she enjoyed her privacy, and since the library was by no means a popular place for the people of this block to visit, she was able to get much quality time in with her favorite books.

The morning was frigid with a light drizzle of nearly freezing rain. Macy pulled her bright yellow trench coat tighter around herself while trying to avoid the dangerous puddles that filled up large potholes in the run-down street. The walk to the library from Macy's apartment was fairly short, just down the block, but it took an agonizingly long time in such treacherous weather. "Just wait until they finally come back for me," she thought to herself , "then I will be able to travel faster then the speed of light."

While crossing part of the street that was especially slick from the ice frozen overnight, Macy kept her eyes focused downwards in order to pick her way carefully. "Ooof," she exclaimed as her face smacked into a large pile of blubber. Or at least that's what it felt like. Macy looked up into the face of a very large man. As she examined his droopy cheeks and inset eyes, the man rather reminded Macy of one of the species her friends had introduced her to while she was aboard their spaceship, one they called "gluk," who were known for their large gravitational force.

"S'cuse me," the man muttered, wattling on his way.

Macy said nothing, the vivid memory of happier days bringing an overwhelming flood of emotions to her mind. Saddened, Macy entered the library only to be scolded by Edith for her tardiness. Macy apologized numbly, hung up her coat, and grabbed a small stack of returned books waiting to be shelved.