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by Rick Darr © 2004
“Eeiiooeeaa.” That sound comes from the one called Ixtrilapp. Strange looking snakelike tendrils hanging off
both sides of his head jiggle up and down. What a sight. He is laughing. How do I know? A bit earlier I saw the
same thing from his ugly little friend. Trust me, it’s a laugh. Let me explain.
* * *
A few short hours ago I was driving down Nevada’s Highway 93. My plan was to spend a worry free weekend
in Vegas, gambling and chasing the ladies. Not that either of those pursuits are truly worry free mind you,
nevertheless. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a shimmering, as if something was and was not there. I
pulled to the side of the road, got out of the car, and stared intently in the direction of what I thought I saw.
There was nothing. Just tumbleweeds and flatland, nothing else as far as the eye could see. I’ve been around
the desert long enough to know about mirages, but then I’m the curious sort. Walking back towards where I
believed the shimmer had been, I scanned the area intently. Nothing.
Standing there talking to myself – I’d said “Nothing” aloud… – it struck me how silly that was, so I did a slow
circle and headed back towards my car. Wham! I ran smack into something - but there was nothing visible.
Have you ever run into a plate glass door without realizing it was there? That was a similar experience, the full
body bone-jar, but there was also a tingling sensation involved. What the…? Staring intently, I could see a
slight rippling in the air where I had impacted with…something. Reaching out my hand I touched a solid object,
then an electric charge shot down my arm and coursed, stronger this time, through my body. Suddenly I was
bathed in white light. It engulfed me to the point I could see nothing else. The next thing I knew I was standing
inside a, well, I suppose I’d have to call it a room. But everything around me had a metallic tint to it and was
unlike anything I had ever seen before. That’s when I first saw…them.
Yes, they were quite ugly. One was five or six inches taller than the other, both were shorter than me, but
beyond that they looked alike…pug ugly. I think it was the four eyes that freaked me out the most, and no,
they didn’t wear glasses. There were two eyes on the front of their heads and one on each side, with the
previously mentioned tendrils hanging down to just above the eyes. The latest style in pug ugly to be sure.
Add to that there was nothing that appeared to be a nose, and the mouth was small and lipless. Their verbal
communication, through those slits, sounded to me like two cats in a back alley fight. The bare arms reached
almost to the floor, ending in what appeared to be six-fingered claws. I couldn’t make out much about the legs;
they wore a metallic looking uniform robe thing that hung loosely from skinny shoulders almost to the floor as
well. There were matching metallic-y boots on their…feet. Both were covered in what I can best describe as
green scaly skin, the one called Ixbinill a darker almost motley green. What the…? Good lord they were are
little green men.
As for myself, I couldn’t move a muscle; the shimmering light surrounding me must have been some type of
force field. After what seemed hours, but was probably minutes, one of them wiggled over to me with some
type of device in his…hand. Just what it was I have no idea, but the hollow opening at one end didn’t sit well
with me, that’s for sure. I felt even worse about it when the creature put it up to the side of my head. After a
slight stinging pain everything went black. When I regained consciousness I was in for a surprise. The
damned things spoke in English, very good American English, with just the hint of an accent on the long “u”
sounds.
“Ixbinill, hand me those findings again, please. I see where youu are going with this, but it just seems hard to
believe.”
“I am telling youu the numbers are correct, Ixtrilapp. These creatures trim their ranks on a regular basis.
Huumans eliminated one hundred forty million of themselves from the year they call 1860 until 1914, another
one hundred forty million from 1915 through 1975. And their methods are so creative: everything from planet
or world wars to biological and nuuclear destruction. According to the most recent data we have, they are
woefully behind in this time period. Are they are trying hard? Yes, I will give them that much, but they just keep
dropping the, what do they call it? Oh yes, dropping the ball. That AIDS thing got off to a good start, eleven
million died there, but it has fizzled out somewhat as of late, down to three million a year. The Ebola one, now
that had potential except they released it too deep in the jungle; otherwise they could be very close. The Iraqi
wars, eeiiooeeaa, it is as if they are teasing themselves there. With a massive death toll just on the horizon
the first one was halted, and now they are still playing around with the second. There are other wars, but
again, eeiiooeeaa.”
The best I could figure, as I’ve said, is that strange screech was laughing. I believe Ixbinill was excited, as the
six-fingered scaly hand scratched at what I suppose, with its eyes and mouth and placement on top, was his...
head. His other appendage hovered over what appeared to be a control panel.
“Look at the facts, Ixtrilapp. They practically begged us to come here and help them. First, our stationary
probe detected anomalies impacting on it. Luckily for them it was able to decipher those, what do they call
them? Radio waves…yes, radio waves. Anyway, those waves showed their great leader in one sequence, then
a few of their earth years later we see the same leader trimming down their popuulation in record time. Am I
wrong? Youu saw the same thing I did: all the other ugly creatuures adored that one, and I think they called it
Hister.”
“It was Hitler, and that is truue, but…”
“I am not finished. Shortly after that we get their little object floating out into space, with directions mind youu,
of how to get here. It does not take a Gnilpraxx of our intelligence to figure out what they want.”
“Yes Ixbinill, I know that is what it looks like, but all I am suggesting is that we confirm your theory, perhaps
contact one of their tribal leaders or even ask this one. It should be able to understand us now, at least on
some primitive level. If it can understand us then perhaps we should take it back for fuurther study.”
The one called Ixtrilapp waddled over to within three feet of me, looking at me the way I would look at a
goldfish.
“So, ugly creatuure, is it truue? Does your species eradicate certain numbers of the popuulation on a set
periodic scheduule?”
“No no, you have it all wrong,” I said. “We have had wars, yes, and granted our leaders have made a mess of
things, but it wasn’t done to trim our numbers on purpose.” The look, if I can use that word, he gave me was
something else. The head tilted slowly from side to side then turned back towards his partner, the side eyeball
blinked at me as he spoke. What the…?
“Amazing is it not? Even with a translator implanted, we cannot commuunicate with them. They are too low on
the evoluutionary scale. I am going to do it.” The one named Ixbinill moved his finger toward the strange
looking control panel.
“No, youu cannot.” Ixtrilapp smacked his forehead and for a second I thought he had poked out one of his
four eyeballs.
“Please tell me why? Just a little sonic resonance into the area they call ‘Yellowstone Park’ and, poof, the
underground pool of lava explodes and their numbers are cut down to acceptable figures.” His finger inched
closer, oh so slowly.
“Listen to me, youu pprratIx. What if your calcuulations are off by even one millimeter? Then it is a ‘Big Poof’,
too much ash shoots into their atmosphere and the next thing youu know they are completely gone and we
get thrown to the griknarrs. I do not know about youu, but I will not be the one that answers to the central hive
if that happens. We were sent here to catalog and record, period. Youu know the laws: ‘As long as any
primitive cultuure remains within its own solar system, no deletion of said life form is allowed.’ Just what part of
that do youu not understand? The ‘primitive’ part? This race of morons has barely inched off its own planet.”
“Youu are no fun, Ixtrilapp.” Ixbinill’s scaly hand pulled back from the panel. Good god. It was as if the Abbott
and Costello of another universe were standing there, debating wiping out the huuman – sorry, human – race.
“How about this, Ixbinill? I have a friend in the extermination buureau. He told me about a planet in the
Centauri sector whose inhabitants have almost reached their excluusion zone; they are perhaps only a year
away. I can see to it that we are the science uunit assigned to monitor the cleansing. Will that not be fun?”
“That would be nice, but I still do not see what is wrong with helping this backward race out…just a little.” Ugly
alien or not, I could tell it was…pouting.
At that point I started getting ticked off. “Listen to me, you buttheads, I’m not going to stand here and listen to
you talk about us like we’re a pail of fishing worms.” Once again they stared at me, this time like I was a
monkey in a cage holding my wiener in my paw. “Let me out of here and I’ll kick both your butts.”
Ixbinill threw up his hands and waddled over to a smaller control panel next to the spot where I was frozen in
place. "I cannot stand listening to this chattering a moment longer. I am getting rid of this huuman right now.”
As I stood there expecting to be turned into floating atoms, or something worse – floating dinner? – it
suddenly came to me. These two outer space geniuses had implanted a faulty translator (I watch Star Trek,
you know) in my head. I understood almost everything they said, but my speech was a jumble to them. That
had to be it. “Ha ha ha ha.” I laughed out loud at the thought of the insane irony. Suddenly the bright light
intensified and the room went black.
* * *
Something was tickling my face. Opening my eyes, I saw a curled tail disappearing from my line of vision; it
was a scorpion. Laying as still as possible I counted to ten then sat up quickly, looking around for the damned
thing. The deadly arachnid was about five feet away from me, and slowly moving off. I finally breathed. I was
sitting in the desert about fifteen feet from my car.
As I pulled into the next small town and parked in front of its lonely diner, I couldn’t help but wonder what the
hell had just happened to me. Was it a dream? If so it was the most vivid dream I’ve ever had.
Sitting on the ancient blue vinyl of the little booth, my hands around a scratched cup of strong java, my mind
kept going back to that strange encounter. It must have been real. Wasn’t it? The two weird looking aliens,
their discussion about our world, it all seemed a clear memory. Nah, I must have gotten heat stroke, then
somehow wandered back towards my car and passed out. Pushing the thoughts, ridiculous and sensible, from
my head I stood up to grab a previously read newspaper laying on the next table. Damn, my head hurt. Wait a
minute. One of the creatures put a translating device in my head; in fact, it was the exact spot in which I was
experiencing pain.
“CHINA ATTACKS TAIWAN.” That was the main headline of the newspaper. I read on. “U.S. threatens
blockade. The Chinese ministry has stated that if the United States carries out that threat, Chinese defense
forces will use any means to break it. They indicate the nuclear option is clearly on the table.” What the…?
There were more, individually scant details about the devastation being wreaked upon the Taiwanese people
and such. But my mind was somewhere else.
It wasn’t a dream, it really happened and perhaps they were right after all. We’re a race of idiots and maybe
our leaders are working to keep the population down. If nuclear war broke out, even on a limited scale, then
Ixbinill was absolutely right. Maybe he should have pushed that button. I sat there for a few moments
pondering the paradoxes of our society, then paid for my half-finished coffee and left the diner.
Walking to my car, I wondered for a moment if anyone watching me pound the side of my head would think I
was crazy. With a slight chuckle I whacked myself even harder. Did the alien’s electronics work like ours?
Could a good smacking get the translator working both ways? Perhaps. And you know what? Maybe they
weren’t that ugly after all. I pulled my car out of the parking lot and headed out into the desert, back towards
the shimmering light.
* * *
“Eeiiooeeaa.”
So here I stand, frozen in place yet again, waiting for Ixbinill to quit jiggling. The translator is now working
properly. How do I know? I just asked Ixbi to take me along with him. For a second it seemed like both of them
were about to fall over, yes, they were laughing that hard. That’s how I know.
I’m currently trying to explain the value of taking a member of the huuman – sorry again, human – race back
to their home planet. Wish me luck.