Invasion…a Clear and Present Danger

“Don’t go around tonight, Well, it’s bound to take your life, There’s a bad moon on the rise.” Credence Clearwater Revival

We live in troubled times. Dire warnings predict doom. The world is in a fighting mood. Things have not been the same since Orson Welles read War of the Worlds on the radio. People fled in wild pandemonium from the fictional alien invasion.

Now, invasions are actual. Look around. They’re everywhere. They’re overt, they’re covert. Social media assaults us…“flash mobs” erupt spontaneously. Twitter topples empires. No one is safe.

What’s changed? Nothing. We just get brutalized with the mayhem quicker and in more graphic form. Pity. Poe did a better job with words and spared us the videos.

The best location for editorials on current events is in a hair salon or doctor’s office. I prefer salons. They’re recruitment central for contestants in the Jerry Springer circus.

But today, it’s the dermatologist office. I hide behind an enormous flaming icon of a Sun god. It’s a symbol of the doc’s business raison d’etre. I try to pull myself together before being plundered. I ignore the invasive TV thrashing from Judge Judy. I need to focus on something besides myself.

But boredom beats on the door of my weak defenses. It wants to drag me down dark alleys of physical inspection and personal introspection. Nothing good comes from these obsessions. Imagination dredges up dread diseases. Worse, my skeletons rattle their chains, awakened from former late-night invasions of hard whiskey. In this hellish state there’s no statute of limitations.

So I read an article about alien invasions. Seems some leftover U.S. senators have assembled to form policy on the problem of aliens contemplating colonizing the planet.

It reads, “They’ve been monitoring us for decades, there’s proof. There’s a government cover-up. The public demands transparency. They won’t attack because we’re a war-like planet…,” and on and on. Really? What would aliens expect to find here…brotherly love? Wonder if they have a religious preference?

Then I hear something…cloaked voices, blended with heavy breathing, are coming from the nurse’s station. Lucy and Betsy are whispering. It invades my senses and stimulates the voyeuristic impulse to eavesdrop.

I listen, strain to hear, catch only a few words:

“It’s…about sex,” Lucy says. “What’s not?” Betsy replies.

I hear more excerpts.

“…crawling from their holes after 17 years…”

“…absence…heart…fonder…”

“…ratio, 600 to 1? …not enough males…30 billion females?”

Betsy laughs. “Can males survive such an invasion?”

“What, survive the ratio, or the 17 year hiatus?” Lucy asks. “Males deserve torture.” They laugh hysterically.

Their whispering continues.

“…go underground…back in 2030…”

“…sing for sex…94 decibels…”

My curiosity rages. I creep closer, listening.

“…and huge red eyes that bug out…”

Sex, a 17-year hiatus, bugging-red eyes? Is this college déjà vu? Or simply speculation on the miserable plight of out-to-pasture old men? My curiosity sweats. I must know.


"What are y’all talking about?” I plead. They’re startled, hand me a newspaper article about the invasion of armies of cicadas. It has a picture. It resembles Gregor Samsa, a man-turned-insect in the book, The Metamorphosis. Kafka wrote it after a night of heavy drinking and serial debauchery.

Before I could justify my invasion of their privacy, a door opens. It breaks up the conversation and my concentration. The scene is shocking.

It’s my old pal, Larry. He comes crawling from an exam room like a crippled cockroach. His face is soot-black and appears to have been scorched by a blowtorch. Two gigantic blood-red balls, posing as eyes, protrude from his skull. His body is plastered with bandages. His hair is singed. It still smokes.

“My god, man,” I say. “Look at yourself. Was there an explosion?” (What can one say to a man who looks like he just escaped from the invasion of hell itself?)

“Ravaged by the sun,” he says. “The tumors, the tumors.” Pain eats his face.

“Will you survive?” I ask.

“Death is the final doctor here, pal,” he says as he shambles out.

Out of the corner of one eye I glimpse a dark figure clad in a black cape. He stands in the shadows. A white mask shrouds his mouth. Tinted welder’s glasses conceal his eyes. He holds a butane torch. It hisses with a blue-hot flame. With the index finger of the other hand he beckons me to come. I do, but remember little after he invades my body with fire.

Life sometimes burns us…how many ways can you count? But as for extraterrestrials, there’s proof they’re already here…they signed up for welfare a long time ago!

What’s your bet?

Bud Hearn
May 16, 2013