Becoming the Story (12 page)

It was a quote from a six year old girl
named Tina who, in an interview, was asked why she thought the
aliens did not respond.

She scrunched her forehead and appeared to
think deeply. “The aliens,” she said, “must be doing their
laundry.” No one knew why she said it. No one asked. But her answer
embedded itself deeply into the human psyche. It perfectly
encapsulated the absurdity of discovering intelligent
extraterrestrials that were too busy, too coy, or too uppity to
communicate

The saying went viral. A line of commercial
products including coffee mugs and lunch boxes appeared on shelves,
portraying grey aliens with big glassy eyes and antennae who were
hanging shirts, towels, and underwear on clothes lines.

The White House, having been overjoyed to
claim credit for contact, appointed a committee to discuss possible
reasons that the aliens refused to pursue a relationship. The
committee did not have to convene for long before concluding the
obvious: Earth had a brutal history; humans were a wicked species;
the aliens were afraid of us.

The White House publicly congratulated the
committee on their savvy conclusion in a speech in which the
president resolved, on the behalf of all humans to be a better
planet, less violent, more compassionate, and wiser. “We now have
the ultimate incentive to do what our greatest thinkers have wanted
us to do all along: end war and irrational violence and replace
them with love, pity, and overall niceness.”

The “evil earth” explanation was wildly
popular, because it made everyone feel dangerous and important. A
line of best-selling t-shirts featured sayings such as, “The aliens
just can’t handle us. We’re too damn scary.”

Meanwhile, the committee, deciding to “come
clean” made a list of the cruelest people who ever lived, trotting
out Hitler as the crowning achievement. In addition were a list of
historically evil deeds: slaughters and repressions and imperial
invasions. The committee sent videos to the extraterrestrials with
a repentant statement which included a sorrowful resolution to be a
nicer species.

The earth basked in self-importance,
prepared, in case the aliens did not reply, to bear the cross of
its tragic and intimidating moral turpitude.

The strategy seemed to work, because this
time the aliens did reply. “Our apologies. You certainly are an
evil species. We will do further research. Perhaps your history
will add valuable insights to the cosmic annals of violence.” The
world was ecstatic to bear the tragic distinction of unfathomable
depravity.

The world held its breath in happy
anticipation. This was really happening. Earth was going to impress
the aliens after all. It did not have to wait long. Weeks later the
verdict returned.

“Though your bloody history indicates that
you are capable of carrying out mass destruction on a cosmic scale,
you lack the technology to demonstrate it. It is therefore
impossible for your villains to compete with iniquitous luminaries
such as Zarg 5 of the planet Apop, who decimated a densely
populated galaxy by inducing a double supernova. On an evil scale
of 1 to 10, according to our computer estimations, you have scored
about a 3.”

The earth released a collective groan. It
had endured many strikes against its self-esteem in the last few
hundred years, such as the knowledge that the earth was not the
center of the universe, as it had once thought; and that the sun
itself was only a medium size star, one of countless billions.

But if there was anything the earth had been
sure of, it was its incontestable superiority in the realm of evil.
To be outdone in moral turpitude, not by one planet, but by many,
was unbearable. The meager score of 3 was the coup de gras against
terrestrial self-importance.

Psychiatric visits quadrupled in the months
that followed, but the psychiatrists were not there because they,
too, were depressed.

Meanwhile, the conspiracy theorists
theorized. Protesters protested. Ministers shook their fists from
the pulpit saying that Satan had been the source of all the
madness, because he wanted to make it seem like God was “seeing
another planetary species on the side.”

Despite the widespread rebellion and
insanity, life on earth somehow went on. The sun continued to
blithely trace its daily arc across the sky, which was as
annoyingly blue as it had ever been.

But beneath the appearance of sameness raged
all the chaos of a child throwing a temper tantrum because a
sibling had been born.

However a small and pensive part of the
world looked inward. Writers wrote about what the discovery of
extra-terrestrial life had really meant for Earth. They argued that
the discovery was a challenge for earth-people to become more
rational and compassionate toward fellow earthlings.

One writer speculated that the world had
been lonely because it saw itself as alone and apart from the rest
of the universe, dwarfed by its unfathomable size. But perhaps the
universe was all one thing, and separateness an illusion. Instead
of being alone and apart, humans were part of all the vastness.
Therefore, getting a low score on evil was not nearly as shameful
as it had appeared.

Meanwhile, creativity flourished. Songs were
written. Art was made. They were like cave paintings rendered on a
cosmic wall that would serve as messages to those who would not
remember the momentous day of first contact and the return to
loneliness after being snubbed.

Years passed. And with each new day, the
memory of the aliens was a little less intense than the day
before.

Recovery was painfully slow the way it
sometimes is for someone getting over a crush, and the loved object
gets a little less lovable over time, and the memory, almost
imperceptibly, fades, until one day the world settles, food becomes
enjoyable again, and life does not seem so bad.

There was certainly no going back. The
short-lived encounter with alien life had forever altered how the
earth saw itself in relationship to the universe.

But for a while, those who had lifted their
eyes to the skies lowered them to look, really look, at their
surroundings. They were more likely to notice the way the sunlight
struck a pond, or the way the silken fur of a cat felt beneath
their palms. They noticed each other, and they observed
themselves.

They even began to wonder again, the way
humans have done from the beginning. Why were they here? What all
was out there in the unexplored reaches of space? Only one question
had been answered: Is there intelligent life on other planets?

But there were many other mysteries worth
pondering. The riddle of life had not been solved. And if one
intelligent species existed, maybe there were others out there,
nicer ones who did not have so much laundry to do.

Babies were born, and they grew up without
any memories of the excitement and disappointment the aliens had
caused. But earth was never quite the same again.

The universe seemed like a great and
unexplored ocean with countless islands of which the earth was only
one.

And inside the vast reaches of the unknown
were questions without end. Amid all its uncertainty and confusion,
humanity lifted its head and poised itself on the brink of the
future, waiting, wondering, and exploring, as it always has.

Earth, it turned out, had its own laundry to
do, problems and interests that had nothing to do with making
extraterrestrials like them. And Earth decided that, after it had
folded most of its towels and hung up its shirts, it could once
again cast its gaze upon the stars and find itself, a small but
beautiful expression of the cosmic mystery, a single note in the
music of existence that, though tiny, deserved to be heard and,
perhaps, even loved.

Walls evaporate sometimes, the note
said. Soon yours will be gone for good. Leave.

She held the note against her chest. The
problem was that she had no other place to go. But she knew the
warning — whoever had sent it — was true.

It was happening all around her, to people
everywhere. It started slowly, with walls that cracked from
pressure or buckled from rain. The floors thinned, too, and sagged.
In the final stages, the walls became papery and useless.

Then, incredibly, magically, it all went
away; the house, what was left of it, just blinked out of sight –
vanished.

It was happening to her, too. All the signs
were there: the cracks, the easily bruised walls, the straining
moan of buckling floors afflicted by heavy furniture, keeping her
awake at night. She knew if she stayed, the floor would collapse
with her on it, or the ceiling would crash on her head.

There was no place in her area where the
House Blight was not happening. Even many of the shelters had
succumbed. Some flocked to unsanitary tent encampments. To get away
from it, she was told, she would have to move far away.

There were rumors of a distant place where
the House Blight could not live. The climate, they said, was too
hot for it. They said it was a place of lush beauty near the sea
with dense forests and oak trees that drooped with strange playful
tufts.

Because the House Blight hated the sun and
its heat, she did as she had been advised; she packed up her
things, everything she could take, and prepared to move.

It was not easy. She felt too much
while she packed. She had grown attached to the house over the
decade she had lived there, and now it was going away.

She also fretted over what to take or leave.
She thought maybe she should box up her mind with everything else,
and take it out again only after she had moved.

She packed everything she could not live
without. And her cat. She had to take her cat. A cat was
what made a place a home.

She left everything else in her house to her
neighbor, whom the House Blight had not touched. “Take it all. Just
pay whatever you can.” she said. Seeing her desperation, he
wrinkled his forehead and shook his head, as if making a huge
sacrifice, and gave her three dollars for most of her belongings,
while secretly rejoicing about the profit he would make at his
upcoming garage sale.

She spent all the savings she had to buy a
used car in good enough condition to make the trip and still had to
borrow for other expenses. By moving day her walls were so thin,
she could almost see through them.

Unable to afford a moving truck, she spent
the morning packing all she could into her new car until at last
she got inside and drove away. It was night when she and her cat
arrived at her new town.

She found an affordable place to stay in the
upper floor of an old inn. The first thing she noticed was how
solid everything was. Even before the Blight, her walls had been
thin. When the wind blew, the floor rattled and the house
shook.

Here, it was different. Only the strongest
materials had been used. The floor was solid granite. The walls and
doors were heavy and massive. A wind would be no threat to them.
Even the Blight would take a while to burrow through the solid
material.

She also noticed how quiet it was: no more
crumbling, groaning, creaking things in the night. In the backyard
was a pretty lake, with an inviting bench in front.

A neighbor, an elderly woman, was sitting
there the first day, and asked her why she had come from so far
away. The girl said, “Walls evaporate sometimes. You know how it
is.” This was such a common saying in her home town that she was
surprised when the neighbor looked at her strangely. “Come
again?”

“They evaporate. The walls. They go away. At
least where I come from, they do.” The lady shook her head, pursed
her lips, pulled her purse into her lap and rose. As the lady
shambled away, the girl tried again: “Not all at once.” But the
lady did not turn, only hurried her steps. “The Blight eats them
slowly,” she whispered, the words trailing away.

Unheard, she went to her new home.

Her new home had a fireplace and big closets
and a high window so that she could sit in her living room and
watch the clouds, just as if she were outside.

Despite these luxuries, she had no bed at
first, so she slept on the hard floor for the first few weeks until
she could afford one.

Money was tight. To make matters worse, a
nasty note appeared in her mailbox from the person who had sold her
old house to her, demanding that she continue the high monthly
payment. She called and told him she could not afford to pay for an
evaporating house plus rent. He said, “Well you should have bought
the House Evaporation Insurance.”

He had a point; she had to grant him
that.

She unpacked her things. The cat began to
sniff everything and decreed the new place worthy by rubbing
against the door posts and scraping its claws against the
carpet.

After finding a new job, a temporary one,
she bought some bargain furniture and had it all moved inside.

She felt a click of satisfaction as they
days went by. There was nothing she could have done at her old
place she could not do here. Caught up in her routine, she barely
saw her surroundings anymore, the lake or the fireplace or the
clouds.

She wondered if anything had really changed,
except the walls.

One day while reading, she shut her book,
put it down, and left the inn. She wanted to see more of her new
town. She had heard there was a beach nearby. She bought a map and
set off in search of the ocean, which would show her once and for
all that she really was in a new place.

As she neared the beach, she began to see
more palm trees. The wind rushed against them, and they leaned away
from it. The buildings were scattered far apart, allowing her the
first glimpse of the sea.

Far away, it was quiet, but on the beach,
she neared the ocean and its sounds opened up. The waves roared and
splashed and pulled away. The wind grabbed her long hair and pulled
and whipped it against her face.