I’m in an abandoned hotel restaurant. It’s old and most of the interior is in shades of brown. I look out the window sipping my cold coffee. You can see the weather phenomenon from here. That’s what they’re calling it weather phenomenon, in truth no one knows quite what to call it. I can see a small part of it on the horizon, dark and menacing like a storm cloud. It swirls in on itself like a tornado… only it isn’t coming down from the sky but is swirling sideways eating everything in its path like a circular saw scraped across the surface of the earth.
I happen to be in America where this big black vortex is shredding everything from south to north.
The news is playing on an ancient TV hanging in the corner. ‘Funny how the news reporters still keep a straight face when telling the whole country we’re doomed’ A man sitting a few tables across remarks. He wasn’t there before but I instantly like him. He has dark messy hair and eyes that always seem to smile at you like you have an inside joke no one else knows.
He speeds past, we try to yell at each other but can’t hear anything over the screeching wind.
The space station looms before us, the entrance is behind large Gardens. We drive around, the 3-meter hedges sheltering us a little from the flying debris.
Rounding a corner we come to the main entrance, which has not only a giant marble staircase but also roman pillars surrounding the front façade. I can almost picture a giant ball with fancy rich people chatting before a big event. The waiters smoking on the sides and the fine ladies carrying their skirts up the staircase. I shake my head and open the car door. My coat and hair get whipped around my head and are beat into my legs painfully by the wind. The others have similar problems with their own garments and baggage. We rush to the stairs, swaying as though drunk, the wind pushing us this way and that way.
Once everyone is inside and the giant doors are shut everyone sighs in unison as the wind stops.
The first shuttle we get to is one that is shaped like a giant loaf of bread. We climb in and are about to start take off when I argue that we should take more supplies. Especially food, water and entertainment (who knows how long our journey will be). The smiling eyes guy agrees with me and so we all go to find supplies. In one of the supply rooms, we find a small boy hiding under some tables. We coax him out and take him along.
Once everything is stowed away we take off. I’m strapped into a seat with a window on the side of the ship. I don’t see much until we are out of the building. The wind tilts and sways the shuttle alarmingly, but after some maneuvering, it levels out with only small turbulence. I see the vortex on the horizon, slowly coming closer. It reminds me of an Andrew Wyeth painting, the landscape in faded mustard colored blurs, burnt green and drown hills. A great gaping sunset swirling black, brown and grey before us.
As we gain altitude everything below grows smaller and smaller. Once level with the top of the Vortex we start arguing where we should go. Knows everything better guy claims space is our best option. Smiling eyes guy argues that we should just head for a different continent. Some of the others, myself included, agree that Europe would be a good option. In the end, we reach an agreement, the spacecraft will fly over Europe before heading out to space and those earthbound will take one of the small landing crafts.
We do this and as we are slowly floating in the clouds something weird happens. I’m strapped into a seat on the floor next to a beam. One of the women sits behind me trying to establish contact with a nearby airport. Around the corner, a group of 5 others are strapped in, including the small boy we picked up along the way. One of the guys laughs and wonders (aloud) if it wasn’t aliens after all. As if this conjured them, we all have a vision of one of the upstairs closets where a small alien unfolds. It raises its head, no bigger than a mandarin, tentacle-like arms flailing out around its slim body.
I see it all before me, the alien slides down and is standing in front of the 5 people around the corner. I wriggle trying to come up with a plan. A weapon being the obvious answer. Under some blankets next to me lies an ax. I grab it and fumble the plastic safety clip off not minding that I could have just sliced my fingers off if I had slipped. I go to rise but stop to undo my seatbelt. A tiny part of my brain wonders why space seatbelts are just the same as toddler strappings in car seats.
I run around the corner the ax heavy in my left hand. 6 pairs of eyes turn towards me. The alien flails its many arms as if floating in water, it makes a small squeaking sound. As if by reflex I grab the ax with both hands and swing it sideways at the alien. It bounces off awkwardly so I swing again, this time cleanly decapitating the head from the weird body. The head splats against the next wall and slides down with a sound like a shoe stepping on a slug.
Everyone cheers up at me and I wonder why in every movie ever the first reaction humans have to aliens is always to kill.
Shaking my head of this vision I wonder if it isn’t better if the little boy were to find the aliens. Perhaps that screeching was its way of trying to communicate.
Yes, I’m sure the boy would find the alien and understand it in some primal way children get along with dogs.
The shuttle we are on can be split in two, we place the alien on one-half and shut ourselves into the other. The boy explains that the alien will try to head to wherever it is it came from and we can land on earth.
We do this cramped into one-half of the shuttle and crash land at some airport. It’s all good and nice when you see Europe on a map, each country separated by lines and colors, but from a shaking space shuttle, Europe just looks like landmass.
We’re all pretty shaken from the crazy landing, not yet grasping that we survived. I look over at the smiling eyes guy and wish I had said something cool to him like ‘if we survive this wanna go grab coffee some time?’ he grins as if he had been thinking the exact same thing.