Kirk MacLeod sat on a bench in Logan Square Park, pretending to read a book.
The book, which he’d bought at an airport book stand years ago, was a space opera. An old mass-market paperback with a spaceship and an exploding planet on the cover, yellowed pages with coffee stains here and there, and a spine that had been cracked many times. It smelled like an old basement, but that was part of its charm.
From the few words he read over the years, the book was mildly interesting. A stranger on a jungle planet fighting assassins. He expected aliens but there hadn’t been a single one in the book yet.
He could relate to aliens. Pretending to read a book made him feel like one. He never was much of a reader, but he sure played the part. To a passerby, he was just a black man quietly enjoying hi
