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I Wove You

Sandra and the Little Green Man

An original short-story by Nathan Gregory

It started in the craft store. Sandra wasn’t much for crafts—she didn’t have the time, patience, or fine motor skills for things like knitting or beadwork—but she had an office Secret Santa coming up, and the theme was “Handmade.”

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     Given her aversion to actual crafting, she’d decided to cheat a little. She was buying a pre-made ceramic vase kit and planned to just smear a bit of paint on it and call it a day. It was a classic Sandra move: minimum effort, maximum avoidance of social judgment.​

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     She was standing in the clearance aisle, debating between "Tuscan Sunset" or "Midnight Rose" paint (or, more accurately, wondering which one sounded less like a rejected wine flavor) when she felt a tug on her sleeve.

I Wove You.webp

She looked down, expecting a small child, probably some brat whose parent had lost track of them in the yarn section. But when she glanced down, it wasn’t a child at all. It was something far more unnerving.
 

A little green man.
 

He was maybe three feet tall, give or take an inch, and he was green—green all over. He wore no clothing, just smooth green skin from his pointy ears to his tiny little toes, he was like someone had taken Kermit the Frog, dipped him in alien goo, and given him too much caffeine. His big, round eyes blinked up at her with a kind of terrifying innocence.
 

"I Wove You," he said, his voice small and sweet, like a puppy confessing a crush.


Sandra froze. Her brain did that thing where it short-circuits and refuses to process reality. She could hear her relays click click clicking as her eyes blinked in her boggle. The little green man tugged at her sleeve again, insistent. "I Wove You," he repeated, more earnest this time, like a declaration of cosmic importance.
 

She shrieked. Loud. Loud enough that a couple of women at the other end of the aisle turned to look. But when they did, their eyes went right past the little green man, as if he wasn’t even there.
 

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Sandra yanked her sleeve free, her hands shaking and her breath quickening as the bizarre little creature’s tiny hands stretched toward her.
 

"I Wove You."
 

"Get away from me!" she squealed, hurling a vase at him before sprinting out of the aisle, leaving behind a trail of clattering ceramics. She didn’t stop running until she burst out of the store, skidding onto the sidewalk like an Olympic sprinter escaping a flaming baton.
 

She checked her surroundings. Nothing. No sign of the little green man. She tried to catch her breath. Maybe she imagined it? Maybe someone had spiked her iced latte? Anything seemed more reasonable than an actual alien following her around professing love. She mentally swore off all future Secret Santa parties.
 

Sandra hurried home, desperate to put as much distance as possible between her and the bizarre encounter.

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When she unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside, she was met anew with fresh horror.


The little green man was standing on her desk, gazing at her like he’d just been waiting for her to come home. "I Wove You," he whispered tenderly, reaching out again.
 

"OH COME ON!" Sandra screamed, slamming the door behind her. "How the hell did you get in here?!" She darted back out and ran down the hall, banging on her building manager's door until a bleary-eyed man in a bathrobe finally answered.
 

"Gary, I need help! There’s a—a thing in my apartment!" she stammered.
 

"A thing? What kind of thing?" Gary yawned, scratching his stomach like this was somehow the most natural question in the world.
 

"Like an alien! A little green man! He’s in my apartment!"
 

Gary blinked. "You been drinking, Sandra?"
 

"No!" she cried, dragging him down the hall to her door. "Just come and see!"
 

But when they arrived, the apartment was empty. The little green man was gone. No sign of him anywhere. She even opened the closet just to be sure.
 

Gary gave her a bemused look. "Uh-huh. Well, I’ll have the exterminator check for… little green men, I guess. Have a good night, Sandra."

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At first, Sandra prayed the incident was a one-off. A stress-induced hallucination. She avoided the craft store, drank nothing but herbal tea for days, and tried to forget the whole thing ever happened.
 

But the universe looked on, and laughed.
 

The next time he showed up, it was during a crucial Zoom meeting with a client. One second she was presenting quarterly sales projections, the next the little green man was crawling onto her desk, waving at her camera.
 

"I Wove You!" he said in the middle of her presentation. Sandra flinched, accidentally turning on a cat filter while scrambling to shove him off the screen.
 

"Sorry about that! Just a glitch," she told her baffled audience, who thankfully hadn’t seen the little green man—but were now staring at her in wide-eyed confusion as she batted at the invisible creature in front of her.

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As the days passed, the little green man appeared constantly. At the grocery store, during dates, even in the shower—mouth open, eyes wide and unblinking. Always with the same message: "I Wove You." Always when it was least convenient.
 

Once, during an awkward elevator ride, Sandra could feel him tugging at her sleeve again, whispering his undying affection while a crowd of strangers looked on, oblivious.
 

She started to lose sleep. She tried to ignore him, but his persistence was unmatched. The constant interruptions—often at the most embarrassing moments—made her life an exhausting series of near meltdowns. And no one else could see him, no matter how much she tried to explain. He was her personal nightmare, visible only to her.

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Eventually, Sandra hit her breaking point.
 

One night, after yet another unwelcome visit during her attempt to binge-watch a crime drama, she decided enough was enough. She could not live like this. Something had to give.
 

So she lured the little green man to the roof of her building. "Come on up," she said, trying to sound as casual as possible. "We need to talk."
 

The little green man followed her obediently, his wide eyes full of hope. "I Wove You," he said once they were alone, stretching his tiny green arms toward her.
 

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Sandra muttered. Her palms were sweaty, her heart racing, but she steeled herself. In a quick, frantic motion, she shoved him. He tumbled off the roof, disappearing into the night.
 

Sandra exhaled. A long, shaky breath. Finally. It was over.
 

But the relief didn’t last long. Panic settled in. What had she done? She sprinted downstairs, her mind racing with the terrible image of his broken little body on the sidewalk.
 

But when she reached the street, there he was. The little green man, standing perfectly fine, staring up at her with tears in his eyes.
 

He sniffled and looked up at her sadly. "I don’t Wove you any more."
 

And with that, he walked away, leaving Sandra standing there in stunned silence—heart pounding, tears welling in her eyes

The End

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© 2022 by Nathan Gregory

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