Monday, December 16, 2002 8:50 PM Joe Coluccio
Dreams of ExtraTerrestrials - Three

Falling swiftly across the frigid north, high above the DEW line geodesic domes painted pure white snow; further blurred white by frequent blizzard came the bright glowing sphere. Some say yellow, some say green. Esquimaux waved as it streaked across the sky. It paid little heed and plowed a heated furrow in the upper atmosphere. Saber jets from nearby Prudhoe AFB scrambled but could not match the incredible speed of the fiery ball. Nations went on Option One Alert Red Red Red. Two youngsters, call them Tommy and Johnny pitched desultory soggy soft balls to one another, whap! and let two or three gather in the outfield before one boy or the other would hop the distance and retrieve them with a weak overhand throw to the pitchers mound. Newscasters with wide banded hooked down brim Stetsons sweated in front of hot studio microphones and announced with a growing foreboding the impending doom. Somewhere above Manitoba the thing did a hard left turn and headed toward our boys in anytown everytime US of A.

Johnny, or Tommy, laid down at the base of the pitchers mound. Tommy, or Johnny, joined him. They shaded their eyes with their heavy hooked hands and looked into the hot pale blue summer cloudless sky. The heat wavered around their bodies. They used the webbing of their catching mitts , expended more work than purchased, to cool sweat rivulets that ran the contour of their faces. A long cool shadow and a low pitched throb that shook the roots of Tommy’s new silver fillings settled over them. The low pleasant throb started an ascent to a high howl and slowly, a slowness that expended massive impressive quantities of sheer power, the, some say yellow, some say green, globe settled earth ward. Eventually landing dead concentric center in the pitchers mound. By that time both youngsters were sitting, one in a blighted elm the other in a sticky maple about ten feet above the ground at the edge of the field.

The Civilian Guard came first with comfortably armed, 50 mm rounds dispensed from an air coiled platform, open half-tracks. Shiny green hard helmets over admirable young shaven heads and khaki green fatigues. They set up a perimeter of fire and drank tin cups filled with sloppy coffee made in large silvery commissary pots. Several shook brown papered cigarettes from government issued packages adorned with green targets. After about two hours decks of playing cards came out of field packs, and from under front vehicle seats and wagers consisting of cans of water packed fruit, tins of spicy ham, three by five photographs of bathing beauties began to madly change hands. Johnny, and Tommy, timidly came down from their perches and ate a can of peaches that was offered to them. The glowing object on the pitcher’s mound throbbed and twinkled. Finally the press was granted entry to the area by General Higgenbottham..

At a little after midnight a hatch making a sound like a man hole cover twirling down the spiral of entropy opened and out popped, quicker than any one eye could see, later photographs, taken by Jim Schneider who was walking the dog and had a camera complete with infrared scan, revealed in time lapse a radiant red dot that grew and finally filled the 35 mm frame with a fearful iridescence, a large metallic, smooth as the gleam on a mirror, robot. Ten feet tall if it was an inch. The Guard sprang to attention and bristled a fairly large array of rifled barrel at the creature. It stood, impassive in the moonlight. David clean features chiseled by some alien Michelangelo. “Hey. Kids, stay back!” barked Corporal Henry Baker IV Corps press liaison. Tommy, and Johnny, moved forward slowly toward the solid monument in the grass next to the sphere sitting on the pitchers mound, Grand Memorial Park. They had their baseball caps in their hands and moved in a dreadful unison. As if in a daze.

The large tin man bent slowly and picked both of them up and quick as a nod up the chimney disappeared back into the vessel. Oh Dear! The growing throng of listless people flared passed the phalanx of the Guard and beat on the sides of the space, if that is indeed where it came from, ship. Time, parallel time was another possibility. Eventually a governmental gent from Project Blue Book showed up but by then all the evidence was trampled into the deep recesses of the playground and Tommy, or Johnny, was in the engineering program at MIT. So issued another case of inconclusive evidence by the Air Force experts Possibly, suggested Gustav Holstbinder, Doctor of somethinghighorother, it was just a case of burgeoning master hysteria caused by the psychosociopolitco temper of those times. Most of the crowd pounders got bad ruddy blisters and lived to be a hundred and seven.

9:01 AM The church bells at St Benny’s began to clang and several of the volunteer fire crew present felt the irresistible urge to fire up the sirens down at the hall on Borgman Road. Tommy or Johnny appeared in front of the crowd. The globe began to flash a pastel rainbow of noise that changed to a fine garish neon display and gently, with stealth ease lifted to about twenty feet, then disappeared into an arc of light that reached the ionosphere in 2.34578 seconds, but who was really counting and finally it was coasting on a solar wave into the depths of intergalactic space. After the blush of wonder wiped off the faces of those present, Tommy, or Johnny, were questioned. “What was it like in there?” breathed ace reporter Carol Sajak, for Channel Seven, Canal Broadcasting, the News Team.
“Like a big baseball stadium.” said Johnny.
“Yeah, but the balls were in the stands watching as people went rolling around the bases.”
They never, Tommy or Johnny, said another word about the experience.