Short Stories

The Pushback

It was an evening in the small town much like any other. People were milling about, closing up their shops, feeding their livestock, children were playing outside and elders were sitting on porches, enjoying the scene. As the daylight waned, bubbles began drifting gracefully down from the sky. They were each in single shades of cobalt, royal purple, salmon, magenta, green and orange, and ranged in size from a regular soap bubble (the size of an apricot) to the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Some stared and marveled at the sight, even reaching out to pop the pretty spheres, which exploded in much the same way a soap bubble would, only more violently and with more fluid. Someone had been watching their television and yelled from their door that it wasn't a completely isolated event, analyses of the bubbles' contents had shown them to be otherworldly...and that odd things were beginning to happen to the people the bubbles popped upon. That of course sent people running to their homes, to which the bubbles responded by seeming to follow, all exploding at least three feet above the ground and always on a person.

I had been outside, tending my horses, chickens and dogs and chatting when they began to drift down. My stomach sank with dread when I saw them, certain they were sent by the government to spy or to poison us. I hurried to my house as quickly as I could, but a small blue bubble popped just above my head, causing abrasions to my scalp and searing pain to my skin and later, my head, which would then spread to the rest of my body. News that evening of the local emergency room filling up with light abrasions from the bubbles was on every channel.

We all woke up the next morning to discover our world had changed.

For me, it was much earlier than some; unable to sleep soundly, I awoke at around 3AM. I had fallen asleep in a recliner in my living room...and been awoken by a strange, glowing light. At first, I believed it was the television, which was still on but showing static. Funny, I thought, This channel used to air all night...I mashed the buttons on my remote, which was only working sporadically, only to find that all the remaining stations were now in black and white, as if technology were de-evolving around us. Cell phones no longer worked. Most computers seemed to be fried. But aside from five isolated incidents around the world—all in small towns—things seemed normal for the world at large.

A harsh neon light was emanating from just around the corner of my L-shaped living room. Feeling like I was going to vomit, I stood slowly and walked around the corner. There, in the center of the room, I saw a tall glass cylinder with four tubes coming out of the top and four tracks coming out of the bottom. The whole thing glowed a fluorescent pink, which was not helping my nausea. Inside the cylinder and tracks floated orbs as if from a lava lamp; only semi-solid but almost perfectly round and all the size of ping pong balls. They floated into the tubes slowly, and down them to what appeared to be nozzles on the floor.

If one of them managed to make its way through a nozzle, it would roll across the floor toward me as if I were a magnet and it were iron, leaving a snail-like ooze trail behind. I screamed and ran as one of these things chased me; it even rolled up the leg of a chair that I had jumped on top of. Still having my boots on, I finally stepped on it and squashed it; the mass twitched and quivered, then no longer moved. I tied off the ends of the nozzles as best I could to keep the orbs from coming out, then went to find some news. Apparently, the things showed up inside the homes of all the people that the bubbles had popped on and those less watchful than I had swallowed the orbs in their sleep.

At that point, tearful and frightened, I woke my roommate, who wanted to break the tube and destroy its contents. I told him I felt that would only make matters worse. He promised to stand watch while I attempted some sleep, as I was still feeling sick from the previous incident.

In the morning, he informed me that the beings who had sent the orbs and tubes were incredibly crafty.

When I got up to see what he was talking about, I saw a contraption, straight out of the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. It was in the shape of a funky purple teapot with an askance window and a thatched lid; the now neon yellow balls and fluid were plopping Into an oddly-shaped teacup striped in the manner of a barber pole, then plopping out and laying on the floor for a while, before rolling up the handle of the pot and under its thatched lid. He then pointed to a news segment which stated that all the unsuccessful tubes had turned into something considered least threatening by the bubble-plagued individuals' brain. Successful ones remained as they were.

Of course, I still didn't eat the orbs and I wouldn't go near the contraption. Sometimes they would chase me, until their inventors got clever and programmed them to contaminate our food. Of course, it was obvious what had and had not been tainted by the way it glowed or the presence of the slime, but it didn't take long for all the food in the house to be contaminated.

Feeling desperate and out of options, I watched the news for any breakthroughs, hardly ate and slept sporadically and fitfully. A week later, my heart sank as news came of what had happened to those the bubbles had popped on and had eaten the orbs began to roll in. They would explode, their bodies overtaken by glowing, purple and blue amoeba-like creatures the size of a large man's foot. Scientists had theorized that the bubbles had been seeding and the orbs nutrients, and when put together, they were a deadly combination. They researched test groups who only ate the orbs, whom seemed fine at first but later developed aggressive, wide-spread and untreatable cancers just a short time later and died. Those the bubbles popped on seemed mostly fine, though still in pain...as long as they didn't eat the orbs. Gender and age seemed irrelevant in the victims, with the very old, sick and youngest succumbing first.

Of course, all the 'ancient astronaut theorists' and their ilk celebrated, felt vindicated. They swamped the little towns the incidents had happened in, researching, doing interviews for the local television stations, talking to 'chosen ones' and making pleas for the aliens to come back and take them. Idiots, the lot of them, I thought to myself. Camera crews and so-called experts flooded our town, scores of flunkies who wore tinfoil hats and lived in their vans swarming after them like flies on a carcass.

My roommate and I, like many others, decided that we could perhaps get lost in a city and resume normal lives. Some of our former neighbors went around the world—to places like Paris or Sydney—while others among us settled in American cities, like Los Angeles. I found myself in a cramped Manhattan apartment, malnourished, exhausted and paranoid.

And the goddamn tube followed.

It was soon apparent that I would have no options; I would either brood a host of alien larvae or I would starve to death. I walked the streets in an insomnia and hunger-induced stupor until very early in the morning, considering my predicament, and then went back to the apartment.

"Go home" I told my roommate. "Pack up, go home, and take good care of my horses." He seemed to understand and looked very sad. He gave me a hug, packed what little he had brought, and left in silence. I sat in the apartment alone, glaring at the tube, which had done its best to mimic a lava lamp this time. I slid down the wall facing it and sat heavily on the floor, sweat pouring down my face, my muscles shaking with sheer exhaustion. My eyes glittering, full of malevolence and insomnia-induced insanity, I wiped my face and then growled at it through my gritted teeth, grinning maliciously while stroking a cold, black object lain across my lap.

"Hey, you alien sumbitch. You can't have me. I'm going out on MY terms."

I then raised the object—my favorite varmint gun, a sawed off, double-barrel 20 gauge shotgun—placed it to my head, and blew my brains out.

I wouldn't be around to hear or see it, but the tube and its contents screamed and melted as if submersed in acid.