YOLK

Jenna Tobias

Honorable mention, Winnie Davis Neely Award in creative nonfiction, 2025

> LOG 01 - Year 2007 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 4 in human years. 

 Cradled in the fragile, off-white eggshell of a hammock, I watch buttery yolk drip through the foliage in slivers of blinding shine. I smell strips of timber burning; the larvae burrowed within are cooking with a grotesque snap-crack-pop. Flaming fingers scrabble towards the sky, smoke trails licking at an ocean of blue. From where I lie, I wonder if the creatures from outer space can see me down here, a tiny pinprick of person against the vastness of the world. Do they miss my presence on Planet Onotopotoa? 

Horseshoe Island is not an island, but I do not know that yet. There are many things this underdeveloped human brain of mine cannot comprehend at this age. But the instinct is there. I know I am here for a reason. Sometimes I think it’s because one of the many deities of this world has willed me into existence. It has conspired with the humans who wanted me, and then there I was, delivered in my spaceship with a single message: Experience the world and learn how to be 

human. 

How does one “be human”? 

So, I start to commit my surroundings to memory, storing this data away for future logs. My eloquence is about as spotty as the gaps in my mouth. I’ve learned humans lose pieces of themselves in their effort to grow. Baby teeth, they call them. It hurts. There is blood. 

Blood—a substance found in all creatures on Terra. It is red. When I bleed, all I can do is cry. 

When I know I’m going to be bleeding, I cry. I think crying is a defense mechanism of sorts. 

“What is a horseshoe?” I ask because this island is not an island—it is attached to the shoreline, jutting out towards the lake in a patch of soil and sand, covered with little frogs hopping to and fro through wildly cropped grass—and I am not a human. 

“Something they put on horses. It looks like a U. You know how you need to wear shoes to keep your feet safe and clean? Horses need that, too,” says the human who is my mother. She is kind and soft, a warm existence. 

She has given me a name that is gentle and sweet-sounding. She tells me horseshoes are symbols of luck. When good things happen, sometimes humans cite luck as the source. 

“Is it lucky I’m here?” 

“Very lucky.” 

I bend down to catch a frog, and, holding it carefully in my palms, I stare at its small body. It blinks up at me, suspended in its awe, as if my palms are a planet, and then it urinates. A defense mechanism, I’m told. Like crying. 

My slick hands are filthy, so the human who is my mother tells me to go wash them.  

I like frogs, but not as much as I like turtles. 

> LOG 02 - Year 2009 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 6 in human years. 

I have learned there are some foods I cannot stomach. On television, human children gag at the sight and smell of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and all kinds of green sustenance. I pretend I don’t like them either, so they’ll know my appetite is human and not alien. But, in secret, I munch on them gleefully. They are tasty. Human doctors use the word nutritious, and they say I am a good child for eating so many fruits and vegetables and getting lots of exercise. Praise is a very nutritious food. 

Sometimes my peers talk about things I don’t understand. Shows that I should be watching. Movies I should know the references of. My hair is cut and styled like Dora the Explorer, so they call me that. I don’t laugh because I think they’re making a joke at my expense. 

Joke—a thing that is supposed to make humans laugh. It is supposed to be harmless. Most of the time. 

I lose my carnivorous appetite as I age. I’m told this is a “preference”, developed over time. Humans are always developing “preferences” for all kinds of things. I think I might have been a carnivore back on my home planet, I can no longer remember its name. Maybe this is a way of becoming human. I am losing the things that made me an alien and I am trying to fit in. Trying to be human. 

Being human is exceedingly difficult. 

The human who is my maternal parent, Mom, writes me notes every day. I read them during recess when I stand alone on the blacktop. She loves me a lot. Is that what being human is?  

Love—a feeling that is warm… I think.  

When my human classmates make a laugh out of me, I wonder if it’s because their mothers do not love them, and so maybe they laugh to cover up the pain of something they’ll never have. 

My taste for meat is selective. Another preference. Culver’s chicken tenders. 

Culver’s—a resta-ur-ant. Restaurant. I know how to spell this word because the human who is my father has a painting with this word printed on it. I memorize it along with every other word I encounter. 

> LOG 03 - Year 2010 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 7 in human years. 

Mom used to sing “You Are My Sunshine” when I was very little. I don’t have any memory of this, but I sing to her. In the mornings, I wake in my little human bed and chitter out a made-up melody. She sweeps into my room and says I am like a cicada, always energetic and noisy. 

Together, we hum a wordless duet in my room. 

Sometimes, at night, the human who is my little brother wakes up in his bed. He climbs over the gate that is meant to keep him safe and escapes. I stand at the gate and peer into his bedroom, watching the bed. I don’t remember the two years of my existence before he came into the world. 

This unit is called a family. All creatures have families, so I don’t know if that is part of what it means to be human. 

When I hold Mom’s hand and she brings me to the hospital. I watch the tall humans in white robes roam to and fro with their clipboards. I am a very sickly human child, and the longer I stay here on this ocean planet, the more illnesses I succumb to. 

I eat a turkey sandwich while Mom sits across from me.  I eat a turkey sandwich while Mom sits across from me in the empty cafeteria. Hospital food is delicious.

My bronchitis allows me to sit on the sidelines during any and all gym classes. Too much exertion is dangerous for the fragile balloons known as the lungs inside my ribs. I take up residence in the classroom, a “teacher’s pet,” they say. I clean the chalkboards and smash the erasers. Powder mists the air. 

Teacher’s pet—a good human child who is favored by the teacher. 

When my classmates laugh at me, I weaponize my tears, and the teacher meets with Mom to discuss where I shall be moved. I’m allowed to choose my seat, so I decide I’ll sit next to the classmates who are nice to me. My friends. 

Friends—people you like to be around who have similar interests. 

I don’t think being a teacher’s pet is so bad. 

I am learning a lot about humans. I still can’t remember my home planet, but I think it might have been full of plants, and the sky was always black, and the stars were chips of eggshells. I think it may have been cold. I do not like the cold on Terra. It is not good. 

> LOG 04 - Year 2014 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 11 in human years. 

My parents and my brother brought a puppy home. We have another dog, too. She is a black lab named Bella, and she loves food, and she jumps onto my bed to wake me up each and every morning. Her bark makes her sound like a boy dog, but she is very strong and protective. 

The puppy is a border collie mix. He is small, like a baby human. His ear is flopped over, and his tail curls up like a chameleon’s. He is white with black spots. He looks like a raccoon, or a zebra, or an Oreo. His name is Caleb. A friend who isn’t really my friend says it’s a strange name for a dog. I look at her and say her dog’s name is just as strange. 

Bella likes to stomp her paws near Caleb. A show of dominance to prove she is top dog. He hides behind our legs, cowering. He sleeps in a crate that we cover with blankets. It was the same when Bella was younger, and we couldn’t trust her to freely roam the house on her own while we were out. I wonder if the crib I was once raised in serves the same purpose. 

Caleb learns a lot from Bella. Sometimes I wonder if he, too, is an alien and is trying to fit in as a dog when he copies everything Bella does. It’s possible. When you’re out of place in the puzzle, you pretend to fit. 

It’s what I must do. 

> LOG 05 - Year 2017 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 14 in human years. 

This is my last year of elementary school. In the many years I have been here, climbing the grades and making my share of mistakes, bathing in success when it comes knocking after hard work, I have learned a lot about myself.  

I cannot eat meat anymore. Any attempt to do so has it crawling up my throat in bile. I have developed a fondness for writing and drawing. I love to read. I like horror, but I get scared easily, and so I train myself to be stronger—to be fearless. I am “very mature” for my age, according to the adults around me. I like things that my peers do not understand, so I’ve learned to keep secrets. I know how to lie effectively and when to seem unassuming and disarming. I am friendly. I am always alert. I am sensitive. I am a perfectionist. A smile is a perfect mask. Oversized clothes are the perfect hiding place. I am nice, feigning hollowness, because if the humans peer in deep enough, they’ll see something I have not taken the time to properly dissect and check for flaws. 

I am a complex creature. When the weight of the world presses down on me, hoping to grind me into dust, I become a diamond. I learn to be self-sufficient, independent, swallowed up in the quiet corners of my mind.  

And still…  

I do not know what it means to “be human.” 

I lie in the grass and gaze at the clouds. The bone of my wrist pokes out, skin pulled taut over my skeleton like a cover on a book. Just beneath this deceptively human shroud, my blood is colored the same as every other human. I have a yolk for a human heart. A runny, gooey thing that beats in my ribs, caged like a little canary. I have lost a lot of my alien qualities in an effort to grow up. Humans call that puberty. In a year, I’ll look up at these same clouds, and I will be in high school. 

The sun kisses my cheek, warms my body. 

In a year, I might know what it means to “be human.” 

> LOG 06 - Year 2018 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 15 in human years. 

On my computer screen, I watch the end of the world in an animated show. Humans have started tearing each other apart, have begun to split the world in half, after having learned they live 

amongst demons. A half-demon, half-human—a devilman—stands in the midst of a rampaging crowd, fire blazing, and he begs them to stop. They raise their signs and weapons skyward, a 

parade of brutality. Humans are indeed the most bittersweet tragedy. 

The devilman, who is meant to be monstrous and cruel, who is seen as a threat to all of these humans, cries. He mourns for them—for himself. Backdropped by bloodshed, he is the most human. 

I feel the tears wet my cheeks, and then there’s a tongue lapping up the river. Caleb sits beside me on the bed, whining in concern. He leans in to lick my face again. I cry even harder because he always does this when I cry. He’s the only one who comforts me when this human body of mine leaks salty liquid—the only one I allow to see my vulnerability. He feels my sadness. I have never known the softness of sympathy. Who could care for an alien like myself? Caleb crowds in towards me, endeavoring to get as close as he possibly can, until he’s practically glued to me. 

I have observed that crying is very human. 

In this moment, I am a shattering egg, and my yolk soaks through the cracks. I throw my arms around Caleb in an embrace, feeling his fur beneath my fingers, the steady thrum of his own yolk-heart. With this alien dog, I cry. 

I think it’s the first time I feel grounded on this planet, like I might actually belong. 

Like, I’m not so alien. 

It is going to be okay. 

I am going to be okay, even when my universe is fracturing. 

> LOG 07 - Year 2020 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 17 in human years. 

Earth and its humans are embroiled in a disastrous pandemic. My high school days are cut short. Just as I’ve finally figured out what it means to fit in with a good crowd of school friends, I’m whisked home. 

Classes are held online, through the screen of my computer, and we all become digital versions of ourselves. Caleb sits to the left of me, curled on the floor, and Bella snoozes on the right. He pesters me to get off the computer, pawing at me with undeterred persistence, attempting to climb into the turquoise chair with me.  

My alien dog, who has the same anxiety as me, who scares at loud, sudden sounds, who cowers in the face of enraged humans, who drinks my tears when I cry, who lets me put hats and headbands on him, who never leaves my side, who trusts and loves me with all of his yolk heart, is my anchor as the world becomes a chrysalis of the sick, the suspicious, and the strong. More and more humans are shedding their skin and returning to their alien roots like new butterflies in bloom. I refuse to reveal the truth about myself as the world grows cold and cruel. Not when I’ve finally learned how to pretend to be human. 

I wonder if I should be thinking about wills and funerals and the age-old debate of cremation versus casket. On my home planet, I was certain my immune system was strong. Ever since I woke up on Earth, it has been weaker. I am prone to sickness like a Victorian. I definitely feel as much when I finally become bedridden with it—that unspeakable, grotesque illness. 

I’m relieved dogs can’t get it. Caleb spends every minute he can in bed with me, snoozing away the hours, listening to my painful coughing fits. My throat is glass, my head is a foggy forest. If being human means you will feel sick—like walking pneumonia and COVID-19 sick—I never want to be sick again. 

> LOG 08 - Year 2022 on Terra (human translation: Earth). Age 19 in human years. 

My universe is imploding.  

I do not know how to fix it.  

My alien nature is starting to peek through the cracks of my human façade.  

I do not know how to hide it. 

My yolk heart hardens. My blood runs thick through my veins with eggshell stars. I think I can see my home planet from where I stand here on the ground, looking up at outer space. 

I have learned that sometimes humans are more dangerous than us aliens. 

I’m told that I am not an alien. I am just a grieving human, and my dog is just a dog. 

This cannot be true. 

> LOG 09 - Year 2025 on Earth. Age 22 in human years. 

“I am an alien,” I say, and I say it confidently because it is true. Because it is me. 

I have spent so many years hiding it. I have spent so many years coming to terms with it. 

My dog is an alien. 

We are fragile shells of egg, and our hearts are yolk. 

And I have learned that “being human” and “feeling human” are two separate entities. Being an alien is the nebulous thing in between. 

In losing so much of myself, I have learned lessons. New parts. Old parts. Old parts that feel new. I am a butterfly. 

I cannot stomach love—only on weekends and holidays—and I will never eat meat again. I will fall ill when my defenses are down and my alien immune system cannot protect against human ailments. I will cry and bleed, relying on every other defense mechanism I have observed since coming to this unique planet and its interesting humans. 

But I know that this is okay—that I am okay—because in being an alien, I have never been more human. Flawed and imperfect, an operatic tragedy, I understand what it means to be human. To be human is to live with the complexities of existence and individuality. To be human is to love on weekends and holidays, and whenever else you can stomach it. To be human is to be brilliantly, beautifully different. Because it is these differences that brighten the universe, rivaling the eggshell stars from my long-forgotten Planet Onotopotoa.

This is where I must abruptly end my log, as I still have yet to experience the entirety of my alien-humanity.

Jenna Tobias is a writer whose works (short story "Snow Angels" and poem "Taffy") have previously appeared in The Vehicle. She is currently working on her first novel, which she hopes to publish one day. When she isn't immersed in her favorite fictional worlds, she's keeping up with various shows and video games, looking after her houseplants, and spending time with those she loves most.