The Aliens are Coming
by David OrlowskiThe aliens are coming. Channel 7 says two weeks from Tuesday, Channel 4 says next Friday, and the government says that based on the rate of deceleration, they might not arrive until June. My math teacher thought calculating an estimated arrival would make a dandy extra-credit assignment. In physics class we have to do the same thing, but it isn't optional. Everyone has to do it.
The aliens are coming, and everything is getting strange. They've already made everything strange, and it's still getting weirder, and they haven't even gotten here yet. What it will be like when they get here? All the big radio-dish telescopes in the world just point at the aliens now. Nobody is looking for black holes or anything. The scientists beam messages at them all the time, mostly questions: Where do you come from? What is it like there? Why are you coming here? What are your intentions? Why aren't you answering us? Please answer. - Things like that. The scientists send the messages in Albanian, because that's the language the aliens use for their message.
The aliens beam the same message, over and over: "Hello. The aliens are coming. We are the aliens. Thank you for your attention." Every comedian on TV tells jokes about the aliens speaking Albanian. Either they say that they sound like an answering-machine message, or that they must work for customer service somewhere in Albania.
Somebody blew off the very top of the Washington Monument, just the tip, like if you broke the point off a pencil, but no group claimed responsibility. Then there are other places where, ever since the aliens started talking to us, people have been behaving better than anybody can remember. In social studies class, my group had to research several social indicators. This is what we found out: In about one third of the world, suicide is up, and homicide is down. In about one third of the world, murder is up, and suicide is down. In the rest of the world, people have pretty much stopped keeping track.
My kid sister Jenny draws pictures of the aliens with her crayons. She doesn't draw pictures of me teaching her to ride a bike anymore. She makes them look like rainbow-colored teddy bears. She says the aliens are fuzzy.
Another group in my class said that churches and houses of worship from every religion have record attendance. Also, people are buying so much beer and cigarettes that the stores and the bars are running out, and that's what started the riot in Detroit. Julia Peabody presented the report and then she looked at Mr. Collins, but he was just sitting there staring at his desk. He wasn't making any noise, but tears were running down his face, and he was wearing the same shirt and tie as yesterday. Somebody started shaking him, and finally he looked up. He told us all to go home. I have social studies in the morning.
I felt like crying, too. Julia Peabody broke up with me because of the aliens. She said this was no time to act like silly children. She brings her Bible to school now, and whenever I try to talk to her she tells me that if I want I can go to her new church with her. Her new church says there are no aliens; it is only a trick pulled by Satan and his legions, and they are running scared because they know the Lord is coming and they are trying anything they can think of to keep people from getting saved. There are some brand-new religions that say the aliens are angels, or that Jesus and Buddha were aliens. Greg Meyer thinks the aliens came once before to make the dinosaurs extinct so people could evolve, and now they're coming back to evaluate our progress.
My Mom called the phone company to ask why we didn't get our bill and they told her they weren't bothering anymore. The fridge is covered with crayon pictures of the teddy bear spaceship, and Mom had to take some old ones down to put up the new ones. Mom asked me what I thought the aliens would look like. I told her I didn't care, that I was sick of hearing about the stupid aliens, and she gave me some money to go for a slice of pizza.
Pete's Pizzeria had a sign in their window: "The aliens are coming for that brick-oven taste you can't get in outer space." I went to Szechuan Express and they had a spaceship special platter. I rode my bike to the 24-hour diner that stays open on Christmas and they were closed. I didn't even know their doors could lock.
My brother Alex called from college to say he was going to the Grand Canyon with his girlfriend, because that's where he wants to be when the aliens land, and my Mom cried. The next day he called to say he is coming home, and he's bringing his new girlfriend with him. Then he wanted to talk privately with me and he asked if I was having sex yet. He said he didn't want his brother to be a virgin when the aliens came. I told him I'm in love with Julia Peabody and she broke up with me, but he said he doesn't care, I'm almost fourteen and I should be a man. He said he'll make sure it happens before the aliens get here.
Jenny's day care didn't open today, so my Mom stayed home with her instead of going to work. I had to remind her to call her office and tell them. My Dad called to say he's not going to stay for the rest of the sales conference and he's trying to get home, but there aren't any cars to rent or buy and the airlines are all iffy; so all the people from here are working together to come up with something to get them home. "Don't worry," my Dad said. He sounded worried.
They released the new Kid Zap movie early and I was really excited. I went to see it, and it wasn't even done yet - the special effects were just the actors running around in front of a blue wall, and when they flew you could see the ropes and everything. It made me mad at the aliens speaking Albanian and not telling us anything. "Thank you for your attention." Nobody pays any attention to anything else.
The aliens are coming and my English teacher makes us write about the aliens. We were going to do scenes from Shakespeare, and I was going to be Romeo, but now we have to write about the aliens. The aliens aliens aliens are coming coming coming.
Thank you for your attention.
©David Orlowski
David Orlowski is a writer, full-time student, and freelance editor/copy editor/proofreader living, working, and lounging in New York City. His work has appeared in Black Book magazine, where he was also copy editor.