Looking Into the Light

"Open wide please."

Buddy strained his jaw, and squinted uncomfortably beneath the bright light. The doctor had a face of repulsive green flesh. His sweat shimmered in the light, creating the illusion of fresh decay. Buddy half expected to see maggots crawling in and out of the cavernous grey dimples and wide unearthly eye sockets. Noxious fumes of perspiration mixed with vapors of formaldehyde, giving Buddy the impression of being present for his own autopsy.

A pain distinct to the probings of sharp metal along sensitive teeth and gums was accompanied by an unpleasant serrating sound. Buddy felt self-conscious, not just because a green face with beet red eyes was baring down on him while he awkwardly contorted all of his facial features, but because beneath that hideous facade lurked an imposing otherworldly authority.

At this moment Buddy felt great pressure to appear to be a model citizen, but knew that he was less than his ordinarily immaculate self. He hadn't brushed his teeth in more than twenty-four hours. His clothes were ripped and mud-ridden.

"Would you say that you take good care of yourself?" Came a gurgley voice from beyond the bright light. The question was accompanied, Buddy felt sure, by a look of dissatisfaction. Buddy shifted nervously in his seat, but the straps restraining his body accorded him little freedom of movement. This was beginning to feel less like an examination and more like a police interrogation--a situation Buddy was all too familiar with. Buddy rotated his jaw, relaxed his flushed cheeks.

"Well, ya see, ordinarily I'ma pristine example a model citizenry. Careful with my appearance dont begin to say the half of it. But ya see, there is some extrapolatin' circumstances at the moment. Got myself into a bit of a predicament 'fore I got here. Started with this negligee, really. I was tryin it on when--" Buddy was interrupted by the sound of a drill and the harrowing silhouette of an approaching blade, eager to inflict more pain.

When the exam was complete the restraining straps were released. Buddy felt as free as a dog without its muzzle. "Have you ever looked into using a facial cream?” Buddy said, leaning closer to the doctor's face. “Herbicides maybe in your case? I happin' to be an expert pertainin' to both, and I know its not easy to sow the seeds of hygiene along ones porous pastures, but with the proper mix of chemicals one can achieve remarkable results in complexion. Personally I use a careful blend of five different--"

"That is the last of the exams,” the doctor interrupted. “You are free to go." He gestured a tentacle towards one of the orderlies. As Buddy began to leave the doctor patted him amiably on the shoulder, leaving behind a streak of slimy sweat that adhered his shirt to his skin. Buddy followed the orderly through the automatic doors and into the hallway.

Two long glowing tubes ran along the upper corners of the ceiling, lighting the hallway in a strange fluorescent glow. The walls were grey and smooth and curved endlessly to the right so you could never see more than a short distance ahead. The monotony was broken only occasionally by a small round window on the left side. Buddy stopped and peered out. A small blue and white sphere filled most of the horizon. Buddy stared at it intently.

“Nice view a the ocean,” Buddy declared. “I always wanted to live somewhere I could see the water. Ain't got much where I come from.”

The orderly waited impatiently while Buddy admired the view. He shifted his gaze from the earth to the sun just over its horizon, where he stared until his eyes began to hurt. The orderly tugged on his shirt and the two of them continued walking. Buddy rubbed his eyes.

"Exams check out okay?" Buddy inquired.

"We did find a growing cluster of benign cancer cells in one of the earlier exams, but we had it evexerated. You will never get cancer again."

Buddy blinked slowly. Nodded. "Preciate that. Cant wait to tell my mother. She's always worryin bout me gettin the cancer. Been sayin for years that rectal cancer is the second most deadly form of the cancer after the lung cancer and if I keep fraternizin I's bound to catch it. God's way of punishin me, she said. Recommended that I take up smokin instead. I said two wrongs dont make a right. She said it ain’t wrong. I says which, the smokin or the fraternizin?"

"Whoops, this is the wrong way," the orderly said. The two of them had dead ended in a small room, empty, except for a tank of water on one side.

"Whatsit for?" Buddy wondered.

"It's an experiment."

"It's empty."

"Precisely. Empty of life that is. Yet it contains all of the necessary ingredients." The orderly smiled proudly. "When electricity is passed through this tank of water and basic elements, it transforms itself into amino acid chains not unlike DNA."

"Transforms itself?" Buddy repeated slowly, curling his long beard around his finger.

"Well, it does so in a similar sense that ropes, when left to the whims of the wind, will tie themselves into various knots."

Buddy nodded. He understood knots.

“But unlike knots it has been observed that amino acid chains, while they are not alive, follow certain rules of natural selection. The amino acid reactions compete with one another, gobbling up the limited resources at different rates. As lightning struck our early planets, it drove the construction of these amino acid chains. As the amino acid natural selection grew more complicated it produced some sort of primitive primordial cell. Computers are constantly monitoring the progress of this tank for signs of life."

"Huh. So how long fore you expect the water to get murky?"

"Current estimates put the span of time that it took for life to emerge on earth at around one billion years. Everything is based on probability, so if you scale down the size of your oceans, to this hundred liter tank, than we can expect to see results any time within the next eight trillion years. Needless to say we have all been feeling apprehensive with suspense since we began the experiment last week."

Buddy hunched over and squinted inside the tank, tapped the glass, smiled longingly. "I had a fish tank once with a fish in it. It was bright orange with a blue stripe round its neck. My first fashion inspiration really, but my parents wouldn't let me wear the matching fish outfit I made. Broke ol' Fishy's heart. Fishy was 'is name ya see. My Pop never proved a Fishy. Said hangin round spicious charachters 'ad gotten 'im into trouble his whole life and he didn't want me follwin 'im down the same dirt road. Stick to the pavement Pop always said. But always keep an eye on the rearview mirror.

“Pop wasn't always great at followin 'is own advice. It was damn near impossible, he would say, to keep one eye on the road, and one on the mirror when ya had to tilt your head back to put the bottle to your lips. Somethin had to give. Most often it was the mirror first, sometimes the road. Us kids was with 'im once when that happened. Plowed straight through a house like a rotten fence we did. Wood boards was flyin all round us like a goddamned tornado. Sounded like momma's cookin.

“By the time pop finished his swig we was out the other end. If he was aware a what happened he never let on. Sides a that truck had so much character from all a pop's multitaskin ya couldn't hardly notice a change. Only evidence a the incident was a magazine that had flown up from the livin room and landed itself on the windshield. It was flipped to an advertisement: there was a cowboy ridin on a white horse with a lady sittin behind 'im. Yonder was a big red barn with an open door. The cowboy was holdin a lasso he'd used to catch two young men that peered to a scaped from the barn. Them boys had greased back hair and was wearin fine suits and sodden expressions. Below the advertisement it read 'Dont Be a Filthy Stray!' The cowboy was awful proud a hisself, but then again, I woulda been too if I'da managed to wrangle them two boys with one lasso. When my pop saw that picture he let out a good whisky wind a curses bout them damn homosexules.

“But ya know what the funny thing was? The windshield wipers got jammed on that magazine. Just stuck there in front of me. Real symbolic like. Never could figure out what they was really advertisin. I dont know if I was just gettin rebellious like them wipers or what, but I felt for those boys. Didn't seem right to call'em filthy when they was dressed so nice. They was my second fashion inspiration after Fishy.

“Poor Fishy. He was a martyr, he was. One day my brother dropped a rat in the tank. Rat ate poor Fishy, him bein trappen and all. Rat drowned 'for it could 'scape though so I suppose Fishy got 'is revenge in the end. Guess what I been tryin to say is, well, the therapist down at the correctional facility always tell me with a double dose of optimism and persistence you can make anythin happen. If you mix in them two ingredients I bet you could have a bloated up rat in that thar tank any day now."

The orderly shook his lumpy green head. “If all that was able to manifest itself from the void between your ears than I am confident that the universe is capable of anything.”

“Preciate that,” Buddy said with a smile.

The two doubled back and continued through the halls. At last they stepped into a large cafeteria. An eclectic group of people was huddled together at the center of a long table. When the door behind Buddy closed with a mechanical swoosh, the group turned in unison and stared with timid silence. Buddy nodded at them and tipped the hat he didn't have.

Buddy was led over to a counter where another orderly plopped several mounds of multicolored mush onto a tray and handed it over to him. He was directed to sit.

"Good God what have they done to you?" Exclaimed a British gentleman in a ruffled suit.

"Oh you mean this?" Buddy said looking down at his scrapes and scratches and torn clothes. "They ain't done this. They been real good to me. Cured me a the cancer."

"Only to use you as the carrier to a deadly new plague no doubt."

“I ain't feelin sick. Thanks for askin though. Name's Buddy.”

“I am Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd.” He extended Buddy a hand. “Please excuse the rest of the company, as they do not speak English. The womman here beside me is Filipino. I recognize that beautiful language from my vacation soiree there just last year. The fat man beside her, Mongolian perhaps. That pygmy off to the side there has been keeping to himself for the most part. He appears quiet and harmless, by I am nevertheless suspicious of those frightening feral eyes. There were more of us in here you know, but they keep shuffling us in and out like cattle. Its been hours since they came to claim someone. Their restraint over their obvious bloodlust must be wavering. I'm afraid we haven't much time left."

"What makes you think them aliens is ill intentioned?" Buddy asked. "They seem like friendly folks to me."

"The fact that they have taken me, of all people, makes their violent intentions painfully obvious."

"Why's that?"

"Don’t tell me you are as naive as the rest of these heathens. I, Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd am an esteemed member of the House of Lords. I was in the midst of regaling my people with a speech--a tribute to the sensibilities of British freedoms and rule—when these green gestapos mistook me, no doubt, for the leader of earth. An honest mistake really. In the midst of my powerful pontifications a light appeared over me. I thought nothing of it naturally, until my feet suddenly left the ground. But as London shrank beneath my feet I was not concerned for my own well being.” Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd stood up and placed an emphatic hand against his chest. “Like a true leader I felt concern only for my subjects. How lost and frightened they must feel to lose their leader, their shepherd. I just hope that they are able to maintain some minimal sense of order in my absence."

"That there is awful unusual, but if your right, I cant figure what them aliens want me for."

"What were the circumstances of your abduction?"

Buddy stared blankly.

“How did you get here?”

“Well I guess you could say it all started with this here negligee. I'd seen it when I was in Bloomingdales the other day, and I thought it'd look awful perty on me. I dont got the money for it though, so I decided to hide in the janitor's closet and wait til the store closed. When I crept out the closet it was real dark. Could hardly see where I was goin. But I found that dress and went to the changing room and tried it on, and it fit real good. I was delighted, and got to talkin to one a them perty plastic people they always got hangin round. 'Oh, I jus love your new negligee she said.' I laughed cause we was wearin matchin outifts. 'Youre lookin mighty fine yourself' I said, slidin an arm roun her waste. Everythin was goin real nice til a light shined in my face and I heard a man shout. Next thing I knew I heard a gunshot, and that poor lady's head exploded into tiny plastic bits against the side a my face. It was right about that time that I decided to leave. I left through the backdoors of the loading dock, to where I'd parked my car, and sped off. Made it to the highway fore them police got in behind me.

"Ya know I tried to stick to the road my whole life like my pop said but I always felt maybe the road just ain't right for me. It started to rain a bit and I switched on the windshield wipers. Lookin at them wipers got me to feelin rebellious all over again. I felt like my whole life had been one big ol' circle. I'd had enough. I decided to spin the wheel of fate, and by that I mean the steering wheel. I crashed through a white fence, and drove through an open field til the car got jammed in a ditch. I didn't know what else to do, so I got out, kicked off my high heels, and started to run and scramble through the brush and the trees. When a light appeared over my head I stopped runnin. Figured the cops 'ad caught me and it was time to give up.”

“Strange,” said Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd.

“Yea, I guess you could say Iv'e always been kinda different. Ain't always been easy. Tried to kill myself once. Took the top off a bottle a sleepin pills, stuck it under the faucet, and gulped it all down. Turns out that my younger brother, bout fourteen at the time, had been stealin mamma's medicine from the cabinet. When she found out she decided rather than yell at the boy, she'd jus switch around the pills in them bottles to teach 'im a lesson. When the fifty alka seltzer exploded in my stomach one right after the other I spent the next two days in the bathroom plop-ploppin from one end, and fizz-fizzin out th'uther.”

Buddy rambled on for a while, until the group fell back into the silence that Buddy had found them. The uneasiness in the air was palpable, but no one knew what to do. Suddenly Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd raised his hands above his head, “I've had enough of this!” he shouted, and then slammed his fists down.

The plastic fork beneath his fist ricocheted off the table and flew towards the pygmy's face. With savage speed the pygmy pulled his food tray in front of his face, shielding himself from the four-pronged attack. Dining debris scattered from the tray across the table and into the lap of the flabbergasted Filipino. In one swift motion the pygmy lunged forward and sunk the fork into the tense tendons of Charle's beefy left hand. The force of the stab cracked the plastic fork in two. The “click” of the breaking plastic punctuated the air like the crescendo of a classic pygmy punchline. The pygmy jumped back and began to laugh.

"Bloody hell!" The politician hollered, leaping to his feet and waving his half forked hand in the air.
“I demand a surgeon and four bandages, lest I rally the forces of the British navy in their entirety for the purpose of cremating this coal colored cretin and sending this flimsy flying frisbee falling to the depths of the British channel!"

People from England talk like poetry, Buddy mused.

Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd marched up to the food counter. “That mischievous midget is not an accurate representation of our species," Charles barked at the orderly. "We are a highly sophisticated race with advanced nuclear weapons capable of more than sufficient retaliation."

"We are well aware of your level of sophistication," the lunch line orderly groaned indifferently.

You could wring enough con-den-scension out a them words to fill a trough, Buddy thought.

"In that case I am willing to negotiate a ceasefire," the politician continued.

"Our ship is not fitted with weapons and the nations of your planet are unaware of our existence. We are a research vessel. We have no interest in colonizing your planet."

"I will not stand here and meet your threats with passivity," Charles bellowed.

"Sir? Sir? Are you listening to me?"

"We have been stockpiling nuclear weapons all these years, not so that we can destroy ourselves--though at times I'm sure it has appeared that way--but out of keen foresight for the inevitable battle with extraterrestrial life over limited resources!"

"Sir space is infinite. There is hardly a lack of--"

"Alright. Your steadfast perseverance indicates a great deal of experience in the hostage negotiations of planets. We will give you Australia. They have been led to believe by their figurehead government that they are now independent of the crown, but I speak on behalf of the entire commonwealth when I say that the deal is more than generous, and that, if anything, their false sense of autonomy should make the exchange all the more expedient."

The orderly slithered away. Charles shouted after him.

"Your not going to get a better offer than THAT I'm afraid. I will wait while you pass on the message to your leader!"

Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd paced the floor in front of the food counter for nearly an hour.

"The arrogant bastards have refused my offer" Charles declared . "It's war they want, bloodshed. They need our women as walking wombs, our children as batteries. They brought us here to study our weaknesses but they did not consider that this plan could backfire. They have lured the fox into the henhouse as they say. We are in the unique position of being able to strike at them from within. It will be a noble self sacrifice, but I was destined for it. The Great Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd was divinely lifted into the sky to save the world. The second coming they may say. And whose to say they're wrong? In short, I am sacrificing myself, not for their sins, but their lives!"

Warren stepped closer to the table, gestured for everyone to lean closer, "This is what we have to do..."

When the doors to the cafeteria swooshed open the doctor slithered into the room. Buddy approached the doctor, holding the sides of his polka dotted neglige and walking with careful grace.

“Howdy doctor,” Buddy said, flashing the doctor his most innocent bearded smile, and blinking repeatedly.

“Now!” The Great Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd shouted and began waving his arms in the air like an orchestra conductor.

Buddy lifted his neglige and amidst a ferocious blur of polka dots the pygmy leapt as if from the thick bush of his African home and stabbed the doctor repeatedly with his favorite fork. The Filipino appeared from under a table and began flinging the rest of her cutlery with ninja-like accuracy. Even the spoons stuck into the doctors soft flesh. The Great Sir Charles Alfred Humphrey Warren the 23rd raised both of his hands high in the air, balled them into tight fists and then swung them downwards in a dramatic display of force. The massive Mongolian fell from the rafters above and landed on the doctor, flattening him like a slug.

"We have done it!" Charles exclaimed. The others stood hunched over, panting and covered in the green grease of victory. "Their hostile alien conquest is nearly thwarted. We must be off to the main computer!"

In one fluid snake-like motion the doctor's body coalesced back together and rose to a standing position. The depressions in his body where their blows had landed began to restructure themselves into their original position.

"You are all idiots and fools," the doctor remarked. "We didn't come here to invade your planet, or murder its inhabitants, an all too human fantasy. We are nonviolent by nature, but after minimal interaction I now completely empathize with your race's propensity to the contrary."

"Does that mean that we can go back to earth?" Buddy asked cautiously.

"It means your not fit to go anywhere else. Its a miracle you have survived at all. The existence of your species is antithetical to all known laws of the universe."

Buddy hung his head, feeling once again as if he had been a disappointment. He didn’t want to stay, but he didn't want to go back home either. There was nothing there for him but a jail sentence, a wrecked car, more disappointed faces.

As they led him down the hall to the exit platform Buddy mustered the courage to ask the orderly a question. The answer, terse at it was, filled Buddy with a new sense of hope and delight.

When the blinding flash of light subsided Buddy's eyes looked out at a whole new world. Buddy finally felt at home. Above the Eifel Tower a distant dot disappeared with a wink.

"Pardon me maam," Buddy said to a passing stranger. The seething look of disdain that was cast down on him--centuries ahead of its American counterpart in refinement--was overlooked by Buddy. "Do you know where I can find a Bloomingdales round here? I just hafta get outa these clothes quicker than honey in a hive fire!"