It was the alien invasion one again.
It starts at night- it always starts at night- and it never
turns to daylight no matter how much time spans throughout the dream. Daylight
is not welcome. Christ, if only once there were sunlight during these things,
there’d be the off chance I’d wake up knowing immediately that the pending
death resting overhead like a mothership wasn’t actually real. I’d be able to
differ the lucid and reality even before I woke up. Alas, the alien invasion
dream has never operated on such terms.
It begins at what seems to be an outside bon fire in a cabin
district. My family and I sit outside of our home log cabin, where seemingly the
dozen of us all live- The damn thing is
tiny and barely looks to fit a honeymoon, but apparently dreams make space for
the incomprehensible. My friend and old co-worker from the Old Spaghetti
Factory, Paul, is there for what seems to be perfectly natural in him joining my
family. Ok, first indication this is not reality- Paul joining my extended
family for a bon fire in the cabin district. But no, I’m still suspended in
belief that this is real.
The aliens never show themselves. It’s never a “boo” or a
hop out from behind the bush with a laser cannon- it’s a known. Our dinner
round the campfire dissipates under the general understanding that “Oh shit, it’s
about that time. The aliens are coming.”
A television lights up in the cabin with news reports of what
we already know… because we’re psychic like that. The first to leave are my
uncle Dave and his house members. His wife and kids somehow scurry into the
bushes like snipers blurring with the background. Myself, Paul and my
mother have no such skills. My sister and her husband go ninja vanish into the
night air, while Paul and I remember the giant DIY laser cannon, the aliens left
behind from the last invasion, is in the cabin.
I should remind you
that I’ve only had this dream one other time, and I distinctly remember this
device being left behind from the last invasion. Poor suckers, Paul and I
were going to set this bitch off and give these bastards a taste of their own
medicine.
Dragging the device near the fire, it looks to be an
oversized propane tank. The liquid inside is yellow from the tint of the
see-through shell, while the bottom half is pure metal with a vent outlying. Of
course Paul muscles the thing to what he believes is the this-side-up way of
setting it. “No, look at the directions, dammit Paul!” I yell. I look at the
device closely. Broken English written backwards appears on the shell of it. One of two things is happening now- I can
read alien, or the alien’s written language is that of backwards broken English.
Mind you at our moment of deciding which half is the bottom
of the device, motherships are floating 400m overhead. Their lights bursting at
the sight of earth’s surface dwellers, ready to colonize our cabin district, I
fumble with the alien device and bump the top (or what I believe is the top)
nozzle and it turns out of its own volition. It speaks to me where only I can
hear it, Paul stands by. “Device now on, get ready for detonation” it murmurs.
I hated the device now. We stored the damn thing from the last invasion, held onto it like a gun bestowed from Jesus in case the 2nd coming were to arrive, and this is how it repays
me- in a miscommunicative nozzle nudge that’s now going to take me along with
it in its detonation. Born for one thing: to shoot a lazer skyward. For a
moment, Paul and I stand next to the device, now pointing up at the motherships
hovering above, and feel a sense of union.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said patients on their death bed
have the profound ability to say “I love you” unfiltered with 100% compassion
and presence. Living under the presumption you’ll live another day, confuses
the words and intent. If it all went down tomorrow- fuck it, if it were to all
go down in a few seconds I’d be able to look a few folks in the eye with
undoubted contrition and say “I love you”.
Knowing we were about to go down with an alien laser cannon
detonation, Paul and I didn’t say “I love you”, we just stared at the
oversized-propane-tank looking device like it were a newly attached limb to our
body- a necessary heart or artery soon to explode. We needed it, but it would
be our undoing.
A yellow hue glows from the rim of the cannon. “You have 5
minutes” it murmurs in a female robotic tone of synthetic voice. The kumbaya
moment shatters, Paul and I make a fucking break for it. He, one way; I, the
other with my mother who was apparently somewhere nearby the entire time.
I run alongside my mom, who hobbles in stride with me. She’s
keeping up amazingly well for the age of 60-something. Others, from the cabin
district, scurry in our direction, passing us up, bumping into my mother.
Long jumping down a staircase, my mother and I are sprinting atop a portion of the cabin district made from wood bridges, pathways and
steps. I easily adopted the underground
Goblin Village from The Hobbit movie as the backdrop for this in the recess of my mind. Her
leg goes through a faulty board while running down a staircase. People are in
full sprint, now. The swarm of humans coast around us like flooding
waters would a tree trunk. We’re stuck- well my mother is stuck.
It’s at this moment I realize the world is going to end.
Nothing is going to matter.
That damn device is going to fire off and take out at least
one of the alien ships… but not enough to stop the rest of them from colonizing
our planet.
The interstellar foreigners will whitewash our history from the
galaxy, and not a single fucking thing will be remembered of the silly humans
that thought they had a grasp on this thing called life and imperialism. We’ll
be forgotten.
And that’s ok.
What isn’t ok, is if I leave my mother stuck in a floorboard
before it all goes down. We’ll be forgotten, but I won’t forget this moment. I can
make a break for it and suffer the world’s end for a few seconds more… alone,
or I can suffer it a few seconds less
and help my mom up and try to keep up with the crowd.
I choose the latter. She springs up, almost damn near twice
as fast than before, and we find shelter in a cabin on the edge of the district
near a body of water.
…
I peer my eyes open to a room. My room. Sunlight bleeds through
broken shades onto unopened boxes and comic books. The alien invasion is a
dream. Possibly a reoccurring mind-fuck to remind me that nothing is promised,
and someday you might have to tell someone you truly love them when the time
isn’t called for.
When the apocalypse strikes, bless it, nothing is going to matter
after it goes down.
However, for now, a few things matter to me.
