He and his friends met for beers and conversation. As they raised glasses and clinked them against one another, he said, “I just learned that the reason people originally clinked glasses like that was because the sound was supposed to drive evil spirits away.”
“Really?” Another asked.
“Yes, apparently the Gods didn’t like people to have fun outside of celebrations of Gods, and would send evil spirits and demons or minions or something after them to stop them from having fun.”
“Huh,” several said.
“Yes,” he continued, “and I just learned that when I made it up.”
Late log in on this August 14, a Sunday in the common era human year of 2022. That’s the date according to the instruments. Looks like a decent world. I’ve already sampled the drink which they call coffee and sent a glowing report back to headquarters. Feel like I can fly back there without a ship after drinking that coffee!
Greetings from Earth! I made it. As expected, the situation for humanity is swiftly deteriorating. Few of them should remain in another five hundred of their years, making our conquest very easy. I am looking forward to it.
The data specifies that I’ve landed in a small town in the Rogue River valley in Oregon in the United States on North America – their terms. Sol, their local sun – they only have one – passed the eastern horizon as the world turned at 6:17 this morning, using their time reference, shortly after I touched down. Air samples revealed the fresh, oxygen-rich atmosphere that we’d anticipated and a temperature of 22 Gluck, cool for us but a comfortable temperature for humans and most other life firms of this small rock. I’ll stay here, where the temperature will reach 30 G until the sun sets. I want to see a Terran setting sun. I heard that pollution makes them very pretty. That sunset will take place at 8:13. Then I’ll take off and continue to my final destination, Mars. It’ll be interesting to see how Mars as changed since I’ve last been.
Meanwhile, I’ll drink coffee and listen to human music. Influences of others who’ve been to Earth are felt. Although a large spectrum of music is available, the genres and its offspring known as rock and roll most please my neurons. There seems to be a mental musical stream which this music has ignited. I have one particular song, which I’ve learned is called “Crossfade” by Cold, playing in this stream. (Sorry, I have that backwards. I don’t understand this aspect of their terminology, and why Crossfade is the band’s name and “Cold” is the song title. Perhaps I’ll study it while I’m here.) I find myself inexplicably humming this song, “Cold”, off and on as I do other things. The song came out about one hundred years after I hatched, which would make it 2005 on Earth. I do not know why it continues to play in me in this way. I’m not the first to experience this, of course. Elvis warned us about it in his report, for example.
I am going to drink more coffee now. As always, my Lygers, stay positive and test negative. Hope to be home again in a mersoon. Meanwhile, please enjoy this song which is trapped in my head. See what you make of it.
A small orange striped creature which humans call a cat is approaching. It seems to know our language! I will provide an update later.
He enjoyed people watching. Regulars were given backstories as their habits and details were observed and conversations they had with others were overhead.
One twentyish woman always wore a jean jacket lined with wool. An ordinary jacket except she wore it every day. This was during summer, during the day, during times when the temperature tiptoed up through ninety to one hundred degrees F. Yes, she was inside, where air conditioning sometimes made it feel like we huddled in shacks as we went ice fishing. But she never removed it, always wore it.
Imagination began fabricating reasons for her jacket. It could be fashion commitment. Perhaps a medical condition? Maybe the jacket provided her with extraordinary powers or protected her. There was also the possibility that the jacket gave her form. Removing the jacket would reveal that she had no body beneath it, exposing her as a neck with two hands and a lower body.
It was hard to say why she wore the jacket, but many possibilities existed.
The end of the world was coming in fourteen minutes, according to the news reports on television.
He checked his phone. Still no bars. The news said that the phone system was overloaded and several satellites had already been lost. Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC were all saying the same thing. He couldn’t check the net because it was still down, probably so they could control the information. Control information, and you control the mind.
Yeah, it was all fake news and bullshit. Bleating to control the masses. Opening a beer, he turned the channel, searching for a ball game or some kind of sports distraction. Weird, but no baseball or basketball games were in progress anywhere. ESPN was off the air. So were the cable sports networks. He slammed his beer down, spilling some. Such fucking bullshit! This was a bigger hoax than the goddamn moon landing.
He turned on the oven and prepared to bake a frozen pizza. Better than nothing, because going out would require human contact and most humans that he encountered were idiots.
Glancing outside, he realized that he was hearing a growing roar. Well, what the hell is going on out there, he wondered. Picking up his gun, he went to the door and stepped out.
His last words were, “What the – “
Then the fake news slammed into him, disintegrating his body, gun, and home.
Michael Seidel, writer 