Last night Harold and I went to bed swearing we
would neither stay up,
nor get up for,
nor listen to
“the great debate-”
part three.
We didn’t.
But at three am,
we were awake.
Karma.
Or the neighbors downstairs listening to,
and fighting about,
the great debate.
(Germans are absolutely MAAADDD
for every little detail about Dilary.
Or Honold,
whichever way you see it.
But then they are mad for ALL kinds of politics.
In fact, I once had this idea that if we ran a kangaroo
for the socialists-
because he has deep pockets,
and a crocodile for the Christian democrat/Christian socialists-
the rightists-
because …..
So anyway,
trying to get back to sleep,
I realized that:
what had woken me was not the noise,
but the super-moon,
a giant orange and yellow pumpkiny thing in the sky
about the level of our bedroom window,
and lighting the place up like klieg lights,
and secondly that the noise wasn’t the neighbors tv,
they were on the balcony on the other side-
telephoning someone.
Probably about the debate.
Which left only one possibility:
the Sirians had landed.
In a burst of orange circulating light,
accentuated by the big pumpkin,
which definitely,
(now that I was just the tiniest bit awake,
the rational lobe of the brain started a tap dance-
to me and my shadow-
while it shoved old computer cards
into ancient pigeon holes of all the things I might have seen or done,
and….)
decided:
it wasn’t the police,
who flash blue and use bar lights,
the fire department,
ditto in red,
the emergency squad,
who use red with squealers.
No, said my overused and over-tired brain,
it was definitely aliens.
Goodnight.
And with that, brain went to sleep.
Leaving me with mere passing whiffs of thoughts of:
maybe it was something to do with the chem lab at the u-
visible from the bathroom window-
nope-
(I checked)
the physics lab?
visible from my work room?
no.
The video recorder set to record something
but with the tv left on by mistake,
thus leaving lots of room for noise?
Not a chance.
It was orange.
It was loud,
with a kind of thumping sound
ka thunk ka thunk
followed by a kind of whirring sound,
vriiiinnng …vriiiinnng …vriiiinnng
And it was definitely orange.
And had spinning lights.
And small people-like creatures,
in silver and orange suits.
It was at that moment,
that I recognized,
through the fog,
that…
the garbage truck had come on the wrong day,
and at three am, no less.
They do that sometimes,
when they want to work double shifts,
or get off early.
Or so I have been told.
I usually am ASLEEP
at that time.
So there I was.
Brain asleep.
Triffids disappearing in the fog
taking all possibility of the id joining it with them,
when…
At precisely that moment,
from the distant living room,
just past the bathroom,
with its summoning ear plugs,
and the kitchen,
with its summoning milk and cookies,
the tv recorder went on.
It was Donald and Hillary.
Aaarrrgh.
The aliens were back.
copyright Dunnasead.co 2016
Quahog on a Tightrope 