Zombie Space Unicorn: Chapter One
Nov. 3rd, 2012 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanOne beer at home and now I've had a coffee with a shot in it and three pints at the pub.
I was complaining to BC that I couldn't think of anything to write about. She told me to write about zombie space unicorns. I have no idea if I'm going to be able to manage to get zombie space unicorns inserted in here anywhere, but let's see what happens.
I just went and looked up cargo cults on Wikipedia. They are religious traditions that started when primitive people were exposed to cultures with better technology during World War II and afterwards tried to encourage the Gods to keep bringing them all that cool stuff by by building runways, buildings and fake radios.
So cargo cult is a pretty good way of describing our relationship with the aliens. They show up, do the inscrutable things they do, and we spend the next six months imitating them in a futile attempt to get their attention. Everything from creating crop circles to presenting them with cattle to chop up - somebody even got Whitley Streiber to show up at one of the alien landings. They were completely indifferent to everything we did, going about their business and then finally departing on their ships without even acknowledging the humans around them. It became a source of enormous frustration to pretty much the whole planet. How dare these strangers show up, walk around like we weren't even there and just... not even notice us, no matter what we did. It was embarrassing.
The first time I saw the aliens in person I was walking from the bus to my house after work. I heard the high-pitched whooshing sound that had become so familiar from all those youtube videos that had been posted from all over the world and I immediately broke into a run. I rounded the corner just as it was settling onto the playground section of the tiny local park. The metal frame of one of the swing sets peeked out from under the curve of the ship wall. A small crowd were already clustered at the edge of the park and I could see more people coming out of the doors and running from nearby streets.
I reached the edge of the park just as the door opened and the first alien emerged. They look pretty much like you would expect them to. Tall, ethereal, bald, all the same shade of pale grey and with those enormous almond-shaped eyes. He (She? It?) stepped to the ground and walked out onto the sidewalk. Others followed him, all identical, and they strode in purposeful patterns back and forth across the street. People tried to speak to them, tried to block their path, waved their hands in front of those blank grey faces. It was like we weren't even there. A few people tried to walk into the ship without success and I followed them just out of curiosity. Just like everybody else I hit an impenetrable wall at the door and stood pressing against the invisible barrier, trying to peer into the dark interior of the ship while the indifferent aliens brushed past us.
I was standing by the ship door like that for a few minutes before I realised that behind me the aliens had actually started going into peoples' houses. Doors swung open before them without them apparently touching anything, then closed behind them the same way when they left. They were emerging with random household objects in their hands and carrying them into the ship. This was new and everybody immediately paid attention. People ran into their houses and back out carrying chairs, dishes, anything they could easily carry. I watched people duck in beside the aliens and try to slip into the ship in their shadows, slamming abruptly into the invisible wall instead. In retrospect the whole thing was crazy. But nobody had ever succeeded in even so much as getting a direct look from one of them so any sense of danger had long since worn off.
While I watched people running back and forth I witnessed the first human in history actually entering an alien ship. A little girl in a pink dress with matching ribbons in her thick black curls ran to the door in the middle of a cluster of laughing children. The other kids slammed to a stop when they hit the invisible barrier, but she kept going and disappeared through the door. There was a second of shocked silence from the children and then a horrified shriek from her mother that halted all the other adults where they stood.
I was still close to the door and so I was among the people who tried to force our way through the invisible barrier, pushing and punching the air. The aliens who brushed through us paid us less attention to us than they would have to insects beating ourselves to death against a screen door.
I was complaining to BC that I couldn't think of anything to write about. She told me to write about zombie space unicorns. I have no idea if I'm going to be able to manage to get zombie space unicorns inserted in here anywhere, but let's see what happens.
I just went and looked up cargo cults on Wikipedia. They are religious traditions that started when primitive people were exposed to cultures with better technology during World War II and afterwards tried to encourage the Gods to keep bringing them all that cool stuff by by building runways, buildings and fake radios.
So cargo cult is a pretty good way of describing our relationship with the aliens. They show up, do the inscrutable things they do, and we spend the next six months imitating them in a futile attempt to get their attention. Everything from creating crop circles to presenting them with cattle to chop up - somebody even got Whitley Streiber to show up at one of the alien landings. They were completely indifferent to everything we did, going about their business and then finally departing on their ships without even acknowledging the humans around them. It became a source of enormous frustration to pretty much the whole planet. How dare these strangers show up, walk around like we weren't even there and just... not even notice us, no matter what we did. It was embarrassing.
The first time I saw the aliens in person I was walking from the bus to my house after work. I heard the high-pitched whooshing sound that had become so familiar from all those youtube videos that had been posted from all over the world and I immediately broke into a run. I rounded the corner just as it was settling onto the playground section of the tiny local park. The metal frame of one of the swing sets peeked out from under the curve of the ship wall. A small crowd were already clustered at the edge of the park and I could see more people coming out of the doors and running from nearby streets.
I reached the edge of the park just as the door opened and the first alien emerged. They look pretty much like you would expect them to. Tall, ethereal, bald, all the same shade of pale grey and with those enormous almond-shaped eyes. He (She? It?) stepped to the ground and walked out onto the sidewalk. Others followed him, all identical, and they strode in purposeful patterns back and forth across the street. People tried to speak to them, tried to block their path, waved their hands in front of those blank grey faces. It was like we weren't even there. A few people tried to walk into the ship without success and I followed them just out of curiosity. Just like everybody else I hit an impenetrable wall at the door and stood pressing against the invisible barrier, trying to peer into the dark interior of the ship while the indifferent aliens brushed past us.
I was standing by the ship door like that for a few minutes before I realised that behind me the aliens had actually started going into peoples' houses. Doors swung open before them without them apparently touching anything, then closed behind them the same way when they left. They were emerging with random household objects in their hands and carrying them into the ship. This was new and everybody immediately paid attention. People ran into their houses and back out carrying chairs, dishes, anything they could easily carry. I watched people duck in beside the aliens and try to slip into the ship in their shadows, slamming abruptly into the invisible wall instead. In retrospect the whole thing was crazy. But nobody had ever succeeded in even so much as getting a direct look from one of them so any sense of danger had long since worn off.
While I watched people running back and forth I witnessed the first human in history actually entering an alien ship. A little girl in a pink dress with matching ribbons in her thick black curls ran to the door in the middle of a cluster of laughing children. The other kids slammed to a stop when they hit the invisible barrier, but she kept going and disappeared through the door. There was a second of shocked silence from the children and then a horrified shriek from her mother that halted all the other adults where they stood.
I was still close to the door and so I was among the people who tried to force our way through the invisible barrier, pushing and punching the air. The aliens who brushed through us paid us less attention to us than they would have to insects beating ourselves to death against a screen door.