Page 42 of Every Almost

“Reyna! Reyna! Where's Elena?Ellleeeeennnaa!”

Reyna turned from her console as Jere walked onto the bridge. "She's in her ready room. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me! That's just it! Something'srightwith me! Never before kind of right! Where is she? I need both of you!Now!”

Elena emerged from her ready room with with her eyes wide and light expression of concern on her face. But Reyna could see that some of that look was also just a captain who had beenenjoying five minutes of quiet and was already mourning its loss. "Jere, you're back. You alright?"

"I'm back, I'm so much better than alright, and you're not going tobelievewhat I found on Earth."

"I'm almost positive that is true," Elena said, settling into her command chair. "But, whatever marvels Earth holds, mission report first."

"The mission went fine. Everything's done. The three Rippleback Tallis were brought back for observation. In the habitat now with Lenke," Jere rattled off before stopping dead and staring Elena down, his hands active with his voice. "Elena. Listen." He grabbed the edge of her command chair and leaned in like he was sharing state secrets. "They have something called Jell-O," he whispered

Reyna stood up from her console and walked over to Elena's command chair. "I have a feeling I'll regret this but, what's Jell-O?"

"It's a food!" Jere shouts, pushing himself off the command chair and swinging around, his arms dangling at his sides like eels. He finished his spin and turned back to them both, his eyes still wide and that Jere smile plastered on his face. "But it's a food thatjiggles, Reyna. Elena," he started, turning to Elena again. "Itjiggles, I kid you not. You put it right on a plate and it just—" He pauses, and then makes this wobbling gesture with both hands that conveyed absolutely nothing that either Reyna or Elena could comprehend, except his own delight. "And they eat it! For fun after major meals! And they eat it in little squares," his voice drops a whole octave with the last sentence, as if food in little squares is something to be respected more than the Commander of the Coalition itself.

"So, let me just get this right, Jere. You're back from your first mission to a Protected World, your mission report was... lacking, for its own lack of a better way to interpret that, and youdecided to, instead, interrupt the Captain's afternoon for jiggly food," Reyna said dryly.

"I interrupted the Captain's afternoon for theprincipleof jiggly food, my dear Rey. There's a difference."

"No, no, my dear sweet Jere. There really isn't."

"You didn't see it, Rey! It defies all we know! There is absolutely a difference, and I will explain it to the both of you in precise detail later."

Reyna looked over at Elena and watched as the captain pressed her lips together. She recognized the look on Elena's face as trying extremely hard to maintain authority while her best friend vibrated like a tuning fork about jiggly food. "So, Jere, jiggly food aside,isthere a mission report in here somewhere, or?—"

"I just said the mission went fine. Jeez, are you even listening? Because, Elena, I'm not even done. They have these things called lava lamps." He leaned, once again, over the command chair, and Reyna contemplated whether she would need to physically peel him off the furniture. "Do you know what a lava lamp is, Elena?"

"I have to say I do not," Elena replied.

"It is colored oil in a heated container where the oilmoves. It rises and falls in these incredible blobs of disconnected orbs. And humans just...stareat it. Forhours," Jere explained, his eyes going a bit glossy as the obvious member. "It serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. It produces no useful output and is strictly and entirely for the mere experience of watching something beautiful morph and take shape before your very eyes."

He said the final part of his lava lamp speech with an expression closer to reverence than awe, as though describing a religious experience. And despite herself, Reyna actually felt a slight pull at Jere's description. Not for lava lamps, that wassilly. But instead for Jere's ability to find the sacred in the absurd without ever making it feel like a contradiction.

"They stare at heated oil?" Elena asks, seeming to confirm she heard everything correctly.

"They stare at heated oil," Jere confirmed.

"And you want us to be impressed by this," Reyna said flatly.

"I want you to be moved by this! There's a?—"

"If you say 'there's a difference' one more time?—"

"There's adifference, Rey!"

Elena made a sound that might have been a laugh and Reyna shot her a look, at which point Elena became very interested in her armrest.

"And their pants!" Jere continued.

"Oh god," Reyna stated, turning her back to him. "Please don't talk about pants without some sort of context before going in."

"Rey, you should see these pants," Jere continued, entirely undeterred by the fact that Reyna was unhinged over how he wasn't planning to provide any context at all. "The leg openings, they get wider at the bottom.”

"Wider at the bottom?" Reyna repeated. She was fully aware that she was engaging now, asking a follow-up question, and therefore, annoyed at herself for letting this continue on. But she just had to know. "Why?"

"It's a choice. A bold, impractical, deeply human choice. Just like the Jell-O."