Project Gutenberg's Lonesome Hearts, by Russell Robert Winterbotham

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Title: Lonesome Hearts

Author: Russell Robert Winterbotham

Illustrator: Kelly Freas

Release Date: October 4, 2009 [EBook #30170]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_Mjly is Yljm's love life. She is her sisters, her
mothers, herselves and her ancestors. But poor old Yljm
can never be a mother or a sister--just himself!_

[Illustration]

_lonesome hearts_

By RUSS WINTERBOTHAM

Illustrated by Kelly Freas

It seems unnecessary to say that my story began a long time ago, but I
do not intend to be subtle. I am not clever and my lying is unpolished,
almost amateurish. So I certainly could not be subtle, which requires
both cleverness and an ability to tell the truth and a lie in the same
breath.

Let us turn back the clock a few ages. I was lying in the sun thinking
of love. I understand that you human beings have an aversion to
biological discussion, so I will not go into detail. But I must remind
you that my love life is quite different from yours, for I am from
another planet. At the time under discussion, I was most deeply in love.

My heart's desire had no shape, the lovely creature. She had no
intelligence, the divine soul. But she was the greatest bit of
protoplasm in any galaxy you could name. By our standards, I probably
might be called handsome. I was young and healthy. I had all of my genes
and chromosomes. My color was the dirty green that is associated with
beauty.

The sun warmed my body and the tidal undulation of my planet's surface
rocked me gently. And then she came into my life. She floated gently in
the breeze, her dainty figure held aloft by a mere hint of levitation.
Sparks of static electricity shot from her tender cilia so brightly that
I was forced to exude a layer of protective fibre to protect my visual
buds. She sucked a deep breath of cyanic gas into her pulmonary pouch
and spoke to me sweetly with a voice like distant thunder.

"My dear