XXIII
FALLING
Ralph approached the window while I considered his words.
“Oh my God,” Ralph said slowly, staring at the sky.
“Ralph?”
“Please,” he whispered, “do not speak.”
He stood at the window and pressed his helmet against the glass, his vision aimed up into the night sky. He slowly tilted his head downward, only to quickly tilt his head back up again, then gradually tilted his head back down once more. For two long minutes he repeated this motion while I stayed silent.
I stood up and walked to the slightly tinted window next to him, trying to see what he saw. I hoped he had only seen a wild animal, but he was not focusing on the ground, and I could see no birds in the sky. In fact, I saw nothing moving. It was too dark, but Ralph’s sight and hearing were much better than a human’s.
“I can see them. I can see them,” Ralph said with an intense whisper. “Markus, you have to help us. Turn off all the lights in the barracks. Do it now.”
I jumped down the stairs and raced to flick off the light switch near the front door. Then, quickly and quietly, I hustled back upstairs and turned off the upstairs light. The only light remaining was the subdued neon glow from beneath Ralph’s suit and the moonlight shining through the scattered white clouds.
I was too scared to ask what he was looking at. I considered calling Francis, but thought it was best to stay quiet and hide. Since the window glass was unidirectional, no being outside could see us. Nonetheless, it was wise to switch off the lights—with less light pollution inside, we, or at least Ralph, could better see what was outside.
I stayed crouched by the window next to him as he continued his strange head motions. Ever so slowly sloping down and then quickly angling back up again, repeating this movement continually with his helmet rubbing firm against the glass. He did this for so long without speaking a single word—I wondered if he had been hypnotized. I peeked out the window expecting to see the end of the world, but all I saw was the tiny blinking taillight of an airplane disappearing far away. Yet he was not watching that airplane.
“Ralph . . . I’m frightened.”
The repetitive motion of Ralph’s head stopped. Suddenly, Ralph swiveled his entire body toward me, and I fell backward, startled. In silence, he stood over me, looking down into my eyes. He knelt down in front of me with his helmet inching closer and closer to my face. In the dark, with the tinted visor of his helmet inches from my eyes, I could see what was inside his helmet more clearly than ever. I could see thousands, if not millions, of miniscule strands of light reaching out to me, all flowing together as a coordinated swarm of spindly tentacles.
“I’m so sorry, Markus,” he said with a voice that tightened my muscles.
Transfixed by what I saw beneath his visor, I noticed a change in the pattern of all the shimmering hairs of light, and Ralph’s usual pink glow switched to golden. As I stared, he manipulated his tiny tentacles to form a message.
“Don’t be afraid,” he wrote across his golden face.
“What are they doing?”
Ralph’s head pulled away from mine and looked away. He stood up, looked out the window again, and looked back at me. As I peered into his visor, I saw the long golden filaments rearranging themselves. There was no written message this time. Behind his visor was a golden human face, gently formed with his thin silicon tendrils. I looked closer at his new face and saw a darkened patch under the right eye. It was like looking into a golden mirror—the face he had formed was my own.
“What are they doing?” he asked, staring at me with my own face, mocking me. As if the pain of my fear wasn’t enough, Ralph unleashed a cruel laughter that shook my mind to its edge. The desire to escape possessed me.
Bewildered, I ran down the stairs in the dark. Misjudging the unfamiliar stairs precipitated a fall, and I dove to the ground floor on my knee and shouted out the pain.
I gazed back up the dark stairs at Ralph’s golden head, laughing even harder at my misfortune. The pain in my knee immobilized me. I gave up running away.
“Are they coming for us?” I shouted, not caring who might hear.
To my surprise, Ralph’s laughter calmed completely, and his golden glow turned back to pink. He turned the upstairs light back on.
“Markus, no one is outside.”
“Then why the fuck have we been hiding this whole time?”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“Then why did you want me to turn off the lights and stay silent?”
“Well, I couldn’t do it, but I tried to hear them. Weren’t you able to see them with the lights turned off? You couldn’t see them this whole time?”
“See them? See who? What the fuck are you talking about? I couldn’t see anything. What the hell have you been staring at this whole time?”
Ralph laughed.
“Your pronouns are truly confusing . . . Markus . . . I was staring at the tiny snowflakes falling . . . I’ve never seen natural snow before . . . What on Earth did you think I was looking at?”
XXIV
PROGRESS
Radically disabused, I limped outside on my aching knee while Ralph tried to stop laughing. I couldn’t see it through the tinted windows, but when I walked out the door, I discovered the exceptionally light snowfall Ralph had been gazing at with his extraordinary sight.
With no wind, the sparse and tiny snowflakes traveled straight to the ground where they melted on contact. I was amazed Ralph thought he could hear them.
I laughed aloud at myself in the dark, mentally replaying what had just happened with a corrected perspective. When Ralph said, ‘I’m so sorry, Markus,’ he was apologizing because we were sitting in the dark the whole time, and he knew I had a fear of darkness.
While I stood outside feeling silly, I heard the door open behind me. I turned around and saw a golden bright light from behind it.
“Markus, are you out there?” Ralph asked in a strange voice, deeper than usual. He was breathing oxygen, instead of his preferred helium.
“I’m here.”
“I’ve taken off my Earth suit and I want to come out. I don’t want to scare you though. You promise you won’t be scared?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want you to think I look weird.”
Almost naked, Ralph was unexpectedly shy. To prevent me from seeing his ego directly, Ralph kept his helmet on as he stepped into the darkness which he illuminated.
“You sure I don’t look like . . . some scary monster?”
Ralph looked like a five-foot tall, radioactive jellyfish wearing a helmet. This description, though reasonable, is incomplete. Ralph was beautiful, and I could have stared at him all night. His body was millions of glowing and prehensile silicon hairs, which coalesced together with inexplicable coordination. When he moved, he flowed as if under water.
“You look beautiful,” I told him, and he glowed brighter, as if blushing. He was enchanted by the snowflakes and seemed to dance among them as he bounced up and down rhythmically.
“You’ve really never seen snow before?”
“Only in the lab. It doesn’t occur naturally on my home planet; too much fire. I mean, it is too hot. It is one of the reasons I wanted to come to Earth. These tiny water crystals are so cute. They are tickling me all over.”
Viewing his floating dance amid the snowflakes, I realized how light he was without his full suit. A strong gust could’ve blown him away like a dandelion. It was a risk for him to be naked outside. But he adored it.
“Earth is so beautiful,” Ralph said.
His delight in the moment was a forgetful rest from the reality of the night. Cindy Shepherd had been assassinated, the future was uncertain, and in my morbid mind, I wondered if we deserved what was coming.
Ralph was convinced the purpose of the universe centered around one thing: humility. When I reconsidered his conviction, it angered me. In fact, I feared he was mocking me—because it see
med obvious humans have only gotten more arrogant.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about humility.”
“Does it strike you as implausible?”
“Ralph, if humility is the purpose of the universe, then the universe is doing a shitty job.”
“Oh, you don’t sense the progression? You think humans are more arrogant than, say, a thousand years ago?”
“Of course, we are. Everyone’s always complaining about how narcissistic everyone is. Do we really need to go through all the evidence?”
“Markus . . . There was a time when your culture thought Earth was the center of the universe. Every culture in the universe starts off believing their planet, their Earth, is the center of the universe. Slowly, painfully, they realize their home star, their sun, is better placed at the center. Then, just like your culture, they go further. They realize their sun is just another star. They discover there are trillions of planets, and their little solar system is just one among billions in their galaxy, and their galaxy is just one among billions of galaxies in the universe as a whole. There’s a reason why the universe has no center, and every culture realizes why, eventually. We all go through the same progression, and it is painful, but it is progress.”
“Bullshit,” I barked, annoyed with the all-too-pretty historical picture he painted. “Most humans don’t think about any of that. They don’t think about stars and galaxies. They think about food, money, and sex.” I’m not normally so cynical. In fact, I hated these words, but it felt good to say them. “Maybe it is humbling for scientists, maybe, but most humans are not scientists. They are too busy thinking about where their next paycheck is coming from. You are being way too intellectual.”
“Markus . . . Your species, like all species, will become more and more scientific; it is inevitable. Three thousand years from now, the everyday human will be a scientific genius compared to now. And more importantly, more of your population than ever will be compelled to think about the stars and galaxies.”
“Maybe . . . But in the meantime, we have religious fundamentalists who think the universe is only a few thousand years old, they deny evolution, they think their religion is the only real one, and everyone else is gonna burn in hell.”
Ralph laughed a little. “Oh yes, it is funny, isn’t it. Those same people will agree with me about how important humility is. How lucky they must feel to be born into the one true religion. It would be truly comical if only . . . Well, no, I’m sorry, it is quite amusing.”
“You’re laughing, but their arrogance convinces me you are wrong, and obviously religious fundamentalism isn’t the only type of arrogance.”
“You will move past it. Trust me. Everyone does. In the meantime, yes, you have to deal with all sorts of primitive arrogance. But there are many signs that are reassuring. For example, your people are deeply curious about the possibility of alien life. I see it in your movies and books, your NASA and your SETI. It is all very encouraging.”
“So what?” I said. “What’s that got to do with humility?”
“I’m surprised you don’t see this. Obviously, it is arrogant to believe that one’s people are the only people in the whole universe, as if the whole universe was created just for you.”
I looked up. Seeing the stars made it difficult to disagree.
“Of course, the final step will be to embrace the multiverse,” he said.
My head snapped to look at him. “The multiverse? Are you joking?”
“Markus,” he said, sounding exasperated, “just as it is arrogant to believe that one’s religion is the only real one, and just as it is arrogant to believe that one’s planet is the only one with life, the final form of arrogance is to believe that one’s universe is the only universe that is real.” He paused and said, “Though perhaps I’ve said too much.”
Right or wrong, the claim was too far-out. Instead of responding, I thought about it. Sensing my mind was full, Ralph went inside to put his Earth suit back on. When he returned, I realized how Ralph fit in his suit. He did not have humanoid limbs, but he could fashion his thinner-than-angel-hair-pasta tendrils to form arms and legs. In any case, I was more at ease to see him in it.
“Ralph, I’m not saying I’m a convert, but I’ll stop arguing with you. But I still don’t see what any of this has to do with the Kardashians . . . Do the Kardashians agree with all of this?”
“Yes, but they have different . . . tremendously different . . . ideas about how to increase humility. That’s what we really need to discuss,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
“You sound too serious, as if you are telling me some big secret.”
“Markus, so far, what I’ve told you is something we tell our children. But there is more, something we don’t tell our children—something we are forbidden by law, our law, from telling them. I was only told 2,000 years ago. Morally speaking, I can’t even tell you.”
“Don’t get mysterious with me.”
Ralph leaned back and laughed slowly. There was a great distance in his laughter, and I wondered just how long he could maintain his laugh. He touched me gently, and an image of him examining me under a large microscope flashed in my mind. I stepped back and glared at him.
“You don’t know how dangerous it is to have this many secrets,” he said in a low tone. “Markus, keep in mind, I learned how to build rockets before humans learned how to write. There are things I could tell you, right here, right now, and you would either go insane, or kill me, if you believed it. There are facts I could demonstrate, mathematical truths I could prove to you, and if you told others, it would shatter your civilization within a month.”
I was in no position to argue, but I was annoyed. “Are you going to tell me what you have in mind or not?”
“This may be unwise to discuss.”
“Then why mention it?”
“Because, Markus . . . Do I have to say it?”
“What?”
He paused.
“This has been the most disastrous event of my life. All my training, all the planning, and it all just imploded in my stupid alien face. Don’t you see that?” he said, gesticulating incomprehensibly. “If I can’t rectify my mistakes, I may go down in history as the worst xenoanthropologist ever. I thought I could do this on my own, but the president is dead, and Earth . . . I need help, Markus, your help.”
“Ralph, I’m sorry, but what can I do?”
He paused again.
“Go home, rest, and come back tomorrow night,” he said slowly. “This night is too much. Your country is in mourning. You should be with your people.” We both knew it was my job to stay, but we both knew I wanted to go home.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine, and I’ll talk to Francis,” he said.
When I drove out of the complex, I said ‘good night’ to Lieutenant Barber, who responded with no words and a glare.
XXV
DREAM
I drove home slowly, running through the night’s conversation repeatedly in my mind. Strangely, I barely thought about the assassination. As I approached my place, my mind fixated on my bedroom. When I unlocked my door, I bypassed my nightly ritual and aimed for bed, fully clothed. I lost consciousness before my head touched the sheets.
Before I awoke, I experienced an intensely vivid dream.
I was under water, unafraid, looking up at the sky. I felt slow and amazed by the world around me. I couldn’t close my eyes, but there was little to look at. I could open and close my mouth freely. I was breathing water, and I knew I was a fish.
I looked for the sun, but there was something blocking my view. Every time I moved, it moved with me, hiding the sun’s warmth from my face. The object was dark and crescent-shaped. I twisted, turned, and swam my fish body about. But, no matter how I maneuvered, the crescent-shaped object eclipsed my sight of the sun.
All I could see was this frustrating crescent, teasing me with the sun behind it. I hated the crescent-shaped object and tried to attack it.
I tried to bite it with my fish mouth. But it anticipated my moves and evaded, as if it knew my thoughts.
I gave up trying to destroy it, and I gave up trying to see the sun. I focused on the crescent-shaped object and saw it was attached to something—a fish. It was the tail of some fish.
Some rude fish used his tail to block out the sun. I swam back and forth, hunting this maddening fish, but wherever I swam, I was alone. And whenever I looked back up to see the sun, his tail blocked my view.
I was too slow to catch the mysterious fish, so I gave up trying to find him. Instead, I used the sun to focus on the tail of this infuriating fish. With my watery eyes, I slowly traced the body of the fish attached to the tail. As I woke up, I realized the crescent-shaped object, the tail, was my own.
The ceiling light above my bed was on all night.
“Oh, babe. Oh, baby. Oh, BABY,” my upstairs neighbor yelled.
“Ay, Papi. Ay,” his Hispanic wife screamed.
I remained in bed and stared at the ceiling light, wondering if their own kids had heard them. I contemplated yelling at them for being loud, but felt too good to do it.
I was abnormally awake. My eyes gawked at the ceiling light as I lay on my back. I slowly got up, drank two glasses of water, went to the bathroom, and took a shower.
I meditated on my strange dream as I went through my morning ritual, the ritual I had before the lunar advertisement. It ended with me checking the news and then my e-mail. Of course, today’s news would be different. The cable news networks, typically sensationalizing the most trivial news story, were lost in the midst of an actually sensational news story. Though I felt sick to listen, I left the TV on in the background and read the news online.
The Book of Ralph Page 13
