2003-06-30 9:07 p.m. The scientific community was looking forward to its arrival on the Earth, promising as it did our first contact with an alien race. It was there when we woke up, in the green hills outside of town, standing with one foot raised as if in mid-step. Somehow we all slept through what must have been a fiery arrival. The soldiers went to have a look first and when they came back down the hill, they said it didn't look dangerous. They said the creature was large, made of metal, and seemed sad. The gathered members of the press noticed that all the soldiers needed a shave. And they were clean-shaven when they went up to the creature. In its hand, the soldiers said, it held a note which they had taken a battery of pictures of. Top linguists who would otherwise never be invited to be on television bought new suits and got nice haircuts and explained the note to the world. The note said that the creature's partner no longer cared for its company. This is what the linguists all agreed on. They differed on other arcane linguist issues, but non-linguists couldn't follow the arguments. So even if the creature's presence on Earth was unknown, at least the letter explained its melancholy demeanor. Weeks passed and stories about the creature went from the front page of newspapers to the second or third pages. The creature did not seem to be moving very fast. Investigative reporters noticed some strange goings-on from behind the military barriers. For one thing, the flowers at the metal creatures feet never bloomed. And when the wind kicked up, the grass near the creature didn't move. One soldier got drunk one night and decided to fire a few rounds at it. The next morning, the rounds were still hanging there, in the air. Eventually, out of courtesy, men wearing hot pads on their hands went to pluck them down and came back reporting that the monster was so sad, time was slowing and twisting in sympathetic pain. The men, it turned out, were also members of a poetry reading club. I imagine our grandchildren and their grandchildren will be able to track the visitor's slow progress down the hill, perhaps towards our town, perhaps towards the river, clutching its break-up note. But the novelty of watching birds in flight slow and stick when they got close to him, feathers pinned in the air, wore off after awhile and we all found other things to worry about. Our own romantic failures, for one. But time won't stop for us. |
1. today is nice 3. happy yesterdays 8. thanks for hosting 4. doing other things |
(Proof that I am the only one reading.) |