Sequins From Space

A yellow van with decorations of a rainbow on its back and various large brown flowers on its side walls drove into an abandoned parking lot in Cleveland, Ohio.

The lights and engine were turned off and the doors were locked on the inside. The driver of the van moved to the back of the van where there was open space and wall to wall leopard skin fur carpet on the floor.

The driver pulled out a large lava lamp from a brown postal package box. He plugged batteries into the lava lamp to give it energy to be turned on and then the lava lamp began to light and warm the wax inside into various floating forms.

The light from the lava lamp began to fill the van enough to see the surroundings. Some of the driver's sequins reflected color in its light.

The owner then placed his six fingers on the top of the lava lamp as if tuning in a loved radio station.

Slowly, from static into a full three dimensional Technicolor image, a head appeared across from its owner, appearing with sequins on it's skin, around its collar bones.

The image began to speak.

"What is your progress on our plans of conquering Earth?" it asked.

The driver of the bus took off a layer of postal clothing and then a layer of skin. Sequins were on his arms in strips.

"Have no fear, your worshipness," said the van's alien driver, "Our forces of the fifty million you described are now in the process of building your military forces here on earth. The Earth leader you spoke of has been disintegrated and others as well. Your arrival on Earth will be unchallenged once the war is over. You will be the king of all you survey, your greatness."

"Thank you. Thank you very much." said the leader of the aliens. "Now we must set up a large base camp for me in Las Vegas, Nevada. There I will make my appearance to the world and you must inform the followers to follow my lead once I deliver my message to the earthlings and begin to take my position as king."

"Yes, your greatness."


The paperboy didn’t stop on his ninja 3000x pony express dirt bike to deliver the paper as each house was thrown its paper on the fly.

Plop! Again another hit for the week on the front porch of the suburban yellow and white house with 2.5 bathrooms, backyard pool, and white picket fence to boarder the archer of land that the paper sat on.

Plop! Another direct hit!

This was going to be a record day of delivery. A stone single level ranch house with a large entertainment room and no pool. At least 53 clean deliveries so far of the morning paper, wrapped flyers and all.

Plap! A miss!

But this one was on purpose, aiming for the roof of the house instead of the front of the yard. This was the house of John Brown, 171 Beach Street.

The calculated miss was an exception because this was Saturday and the paperboy always noticed that Mr. Brown was on the flat roof of his ranch house looking up at the sky with his telescope on Saturdays, often there with an empty wine bottle and blanket.

While the ninja 3000’s master sped away on his bike to its next house, John slowly came awake to his surroundings. His eyes opened to the newspaper headline on his face.

"ALIENS!!" read the headline of the paper, which meant that John was still asleep or very hung over and seeing things in the morning without a good cup of coffee to open his eyes clearer.

If he HAD drank another cup of coffee this morning it would help him read the rest of the article which read that alien ships had arrived last night during a calm night of peace over the United States in Washington D.C.

He also would have read that most of America's leaders were trying to be optimistic that the aliens were friendly since there was no initial firing on the capitol of the U.S., but once they landed and came out of their space ships, the President and his staff were greeted with a ray gun from a side pocket of a alien’s strange jeweled sequined costume.

"The ray run's blasted holes into the President like Swiss cheese, so S.E.T.I's ideas of friendly visitors went out the window at light speed," said the front page.

John rolled over from his slumber to accidentally kick the third leg of a telescope he had brought out the night before to watch the stars with a date of his. Actually all of John Brown’s recent dates had had come up to the roof to watch the night sky from sunset to a change of a dark infinity of stars. The telescope was also part of a night life which included wine and cheese and crackers with the woman of the romantic date. The telescope came down on top of him and waken him completely from the night slumber.

Opening his eye completely he looked and saw a piece of paper with a phone number on it with some lipstick in the form of a kiss and the phrase 'Call me.'

"Ugh," said John Brown of 171 Beach Street in wrinkled, slept-in Saturday night clothes and began working his way up to a blocking his eyes from the day-breaking sun and moving his body down stairs into the house where a hot pot of coffee sat on his kitchen countertop. A good cup of coffee would be needed.

John went downstairs from the roof, put down all of the nights props into the corner of the kitchen, and drank his morning coffee. John saw from his eyes again the front page of the newspaper and wondered. Maybe a copy of the National Enquirer was delivered today as well. He picked up the paper, read that it was the local paper, and then screamed. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Then he re-read the paper and screamed some more.

Then seeing a war draft was in the mail he screamed even more and then tripped into the kitchen’s chair and fell onto the floor. Knocked to the cognitive sense that he had to get off the floor to take care of the bump on his leg, but he then remembered that the paper was up above the floor and screamed again. And again. (Once for the bump and once for the war against aliens from outer space.)

John’s inner-mind realized that all this screaming wasn’t getting him anywhere so instead he passed out on the floor with his subconscious at control of the rest of the day.

John woke up in the night after passing out and stood up from the floor. He felt like screaming again but someone covered his mouth before he could get anything out. It was the doctor, Dr. Stevens who was John Brown's neighbor and friend since John had taken the telescope from the Doctor’s garage sale last summer for a dollar and fifty cents. Dr. Stevens placed his index finger over his mouth, the international sign for "Shhhhhhhhhhhh."

"John, you must be very quite," the doctor said. "You mustn’t cause alarm. I’ve been going from one house to another to see who is left after the abductions began."

John pulled the doctors hand from his mouth. "The abductions? Here?" asked John in a mild panic.

"John, You and I are the only ones left in the neighborhood who has survived the first wave of the war against them. They made the first move by beaming up people from Earth into their spaceships. The news said that they don’t know what for but many as in millions have disappeared into nothingness."

John slowly took steps to look out his window and see the neighborhood where he lived and saw no one where they usually where on a Saturday night. No partying at the Simons, no basketball in front of the Grants house, and Mrs. Vince’s dog jumped and barked at the front dog of her house, scratching its claws into the door hoping someone would let it inside to eat.

"We are all alone," said John.

"No, we are not. The army has been watching over the possibility of aliens invading the Earth for years now and I’m the lead sky watch specialist for spaceships at the base just outside of town," said Dr. Stevens. "Come on. We have to go there for safety. I’m going to put some food out for Mrs. Vince’s dog before we go and in the mean time I need you to get dressed before I’m done so we can leave to the base and get help."

John sighed and made his way to the bedroom while the doctor went across the street to feed a hungry dog some treats.

John tried to envision an entire neighborhood disappearing except him, wondering why the aliens thought him so special to leave him still intact at his house rooftop. Flying aliens where never known to be picky in the movies, he knew about aliens. Maybe he just got past their quota for picking up random humans in an area like his neighborhood. For all he knows half the neighborhood could have their ass being probed as he packed for retreat to the army base. The army would be the only place of safety. Jets, tanks, missile launchers. I should look into some camouflage clothing as well to keep them from seeing me, thought John, and maybe some tin foil to put on my head to keep out their brainwave devices. That last thought was a bit on the paranoid and stand-outish compared to camouflage, he thought, maybe just a green baseball cap for now until he could get an army helmet.

"John!" Dr. Stevens said from the first floor. The doctor and John were out the door and into the doctor’s borrowed army jeep to travel to the base camp for safety from the aliens. Dust flew behind them as they broke the speed limit to a safer, more guarded setting. Missiles and tanks, John thought. That will do just fine… I hope.

The jeep left a lone street of houses and a well fed sleeping dog.

John sat in a generic brown aluminum chair in a group with about 300 other citizen of the local areas that had neighborhoods that were attacked. The gathering of them was for an orientation of the aliens that had attacked and their demands and motives of attacking earth. A large blank white screen appeared in front of the 300 people to show slides and footage of the attacks and about the aliens themselves.

John was hoping for a bigger crowd of the people left over who survived whatever attack he missed out on (luckily). The more likely people he knew were still alive but there were no familiar faces in the randomly picked crowd of John's tri-city area.

The screen turned bright, and the crowd’s faces looked for answers on it. Why are we left behind? What do they look like? How can I escape? Will we win the war against them that the papers and television news have been talking about? The bodies, the destroyed buildings, the lack of understanding why some were left alone and the President dead like a dead body falling from the top of the world hitting the ground with an empty lifeless thud. It emptied everyone inside and out of hope of a peaceful life with the aliens, but maybe the human race could get back on its feet. Hopefully this lecture, John thought, would be the directions they needed to do this.

A general standing to the side of the screen, dressed with more medals than John had ever seen, stood to the side of the screen with a slim pointer. The general held a black microphone as well. He turned it on.

"Welcome to the meeting, everyone. I hope you are all well or at your best since the attack began," the general stated and then pointed to the back of the room. "First slide please," said the general.

The crowd of 300 took a combined gasp and shock of what was on the brightly lit screen. "This is the enemy," someone in the crowd said.

Standing on one side of the giant screen was that of an average everyday pedestrian. On the other side was a picture of a similarly tall and slim creature but instead of standing on its own, it was laying down on a morgue gernie, its skin from head to toe in brilliant colored sequins, a head that looked like that of a hammer head shark, and feet and hands of the same form of our extensions with a green tint and dripping of a clear gelatinous slime which made a small puddle beneath their feet and around them. "Before and After" was typed beneath the creature’s two images of a civilian life and interplanetary appearance.

"It's got slime!" someone screamed.

"They dress and appear like us!!" yelled another.

"Will they turn us into one of them!" cried someone on the other side of the crowd.

"Uncle Earl is missing! Did they probe him?!" yelled another voice from the crowd of 300.

No one could stop wondering about the danger they were in and how they might be sitting next to or had been living or working with an alien until they decided to attack the president and world leaders. Slime would be everywhere and there didn't seem to be much hope....yet.

"Now listen to me clearly. We are not without our own intelligence on this planet," said the commander. "We can think ahead of their thinking and think of thinking ahead of their thinking at all times of thinking. And eventually after enough thinking we will have something for them to think about but the last thought will not be of them winning over the human race, not with us thinking of it first on our path of saving Earth," said the officer with the pointer and microphone.

"The most shocking news of our intelligence gathering was that the aliens were living among us as everyday citizens of countries across the world." The U.S. Officer began reading a list of identities the aliens have had while living here on earth until the big attack came, called by the military as 'the day of alien attack, A-Day.'"

The list began with Mimes in France, DMV workers in Germany, movie key grips in Hollywood, people who look for things on the beach with metal detectors in Jamaica, Spanish game show hosts, geometry teachers in Denmark, televangelists in Utah, bums who talk to themselves on the streets of the Red Light District of Amsterdam and New York City, England's male cheerleaders for cricket players, Chinese fortune tellers, and telemarketer's found anywhere in the world.

John looked as the slide changed on the big screen and moved to showing a list of people's jobs with a different color alien next to it. The only similarity was a line of sequins or a patch of sequins on their skin. Strangely, the list of people seemed logical. John always thought that these people came from places he couldn't imagine, out of nowhere. Now he learned that they are from another planet, another dimension, traveling through black holes to get here. But how incredible. And tragic. Generals, lieutenants, captains - all anonymous aliens who will rule the world if we don't fight back.

"Luckily, they didn't have any positions of power in our country. The highest position we found was a chief of a postal office lost mail department." said the military officer with medals on his chest. "The bastard," he added. "But they have been showing their true faces now since their attack on the world and even though they may be of higher intelligence or of a more advanced world than ours, we are not without intelligence or armory to fight against them ourselves. They are out in the open now and we will win this war."

To be continued...

The State