On a different planet

 

I’ll be sorry when our neighbour and his family leave town.

Where are you going? I said.

Back home, to Sirius, he said.

Pardon? I said.

Are you serious?

Is that a pun? He said. 

Oh, how funny...No, purely unintentional, I assure you, I said.

Sirius – that’s 8.6 million light years distant, I said.

Yes, we dart back and forth, he said.

You better come in, he said. I owe you an explanation.  I know you will understand.

There followed an absorbing hour during which I learned that our neighbour was in fact from another galaxy. I’m a hybrid, he explained.  Your weather, the air, doesn’t suit all of us. My family has begun to suffer. As for your politics!!!! You’re always fighting wars.

I asked him, why come here in the first place?

Well, we like to travel, he said. We have mining rights on what you call your moon, and your place was handy to visit when taking time off.

Are there others like you? I said.

Oh, yes, tens of thousands. We’ve been here for thousands of years. Your governments are fully aware.

We’re everywhere. The entire staff of Waitrose, or “partners” they call them, they’re all hybrid.  Even sport. Exceptional in endurance sports due to having two hearts and enormous lungs.

 A few are pro cyclists. I can think of one in particular, leaves everyone behind when he attacks. His name escapes me.

Many of the Grand Tour winners were/are hybrids, as is the entire Norwegian cross-country skiing team.

How come you look very similar to us, if rather tall, I said. 

Pure chance, he said. Your people call us the “Tall Whites”. But we’re not all that tall.

Let me ask you, I said. Why has all this been kept a secret?

Ah, well, the truth is your governments, including religious leaders wanted to tell everyone years ago, in the 1950s.

But the Federation of Galaxies forbid it. You are not ready for this. There would be a great social unrest, even revolution. I mean, in the UK alone there were 17 million who voted for Britain to leave the EU – which demonstrated a very poor grasp of reality.

There are thick people like that all over your planet.

And it isn’t for the Federation of Galaxies to tell you the Truth, although it is out there in one form or another, for those who look for it. You have been prodded often enough. The carefully crafted films and sci-fi novels, for instance.

But otherwise, our policy is of non-interference with another planet’s evolvement, he said.

So although you are here, it’s not an invasion? I said.

Oh, no. We’re not into using force. Besides, imagine the supply lines? He said. The cost of assuming control. Much better to let you children of the universe muddle along.

Oh, we’ve helped you along the way. All this new technology that has been rushed in over the past 70 years. From Velcro to Smartphones, all your IT stuff.

But not weapons systems or anti-gravity drive propulsion…Too advanced. We are after all 50,000 years ahead of you.

It would be a bit like giving Christopher Columbus the plans on how to build a Trident nuclear submarine, saying, go on, Chris, build a couple of those.

No chance.

We did interfere a little. Stopped the Cold War for instance. Demonstrated we can shut down

your nuclear missile capabilities if necessary.

Your tinkering with atomic power is worrying because setting those fireworks off would have ramifications far beyond Earth. The ripple effect would knock worm holes out of kilter for a start, sending us to, say Venus, instead of here. And you don’t want to go to Venus, take my word for it.

So don’t you worry your little heads about Putin’s military chiefs who have threatened the UK with nuclear-inspired Biblical type flood to drown you all. 

Exploding a nuclear device in the Atlantic.  Voila. Huge tsunami, so high it would race across the entire breadth of England and Wales at 500kph drowning everyone and radiating the land for 100s of years.

He knows we won’t let that happen, while we are still here.

What do you mean, while you are still here?

We're all going. Two years and we'll be gone.

That's about the time when rising sea levels will begin to take back the land.

Southern hemisphere will take a really bit hit first, and the millions of displaced people will head north, to Europe. You'll have a lot of new neighbours camping in your gardens.

Let's face it, you've will never change your polluting ways which have led to climate change.

Truth is, you're fucked. So were out of here. Waitrose will feel the brunt of it first, no staff. We're flying them out in the first wave.

Oh, dear, I said.

So will you tell the other neighbours who you are, I said, getting back to basics.

No, no. You may, if you like!  They won’t believe you. We’ll tell them we’ve gone to Bristol, he said.

Have you finished you new novel, I said.

Yes, it’s called “Life, the universe and the end of dreams” He said.

 Inspired by Douglas Adams, author of the marvellous book,  “Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

Very funny? Not bad – Adams knew. I think he may have been one of ours. He was pretty close. Touched a nerve back home, I can tell you.

We'll let you know when were off. We'll have a farewell drink down the pub, he said.

I'll look forward to it, I said.