BREAKING NEWS!
BREAKING NEWS!!!
To the untrained eye, the landing of that little speck on a teenager infested coffee table might have gone completely unnoticed. And true to form, no one really paid any attention whatsoever, as lattes and the like continued to be consumed at rates that encouraged a more exhaustive understanding of the concept of geometric proportion
Geometrically speaking of course, the speck was hexagonally shaped. This being identified in that part of the universe, as the ideal close pack formation for spacecraft to fly, such that community values were promoted. But such noble social intentions were not really the driving purpose behind which this speck had made a momentous journey of over a billion light years. Beneath the microscopic exterior there lurked a technology that would make earths finest seem almost Jurassic.
The First Officer O1 activated the systems that sampled the immediate environment. The sensors threw up large cups, cookies and cuties.
“Hmm, they do seem to indulge in a lot of pointless banter, “began Them, the commanding officer, “and they still seem to have separate forms for male and female organisms, how primitive!” it concluded with an emphatic cosmic equivalent of a snort, “We have much work to do to restore this planet to any semblance of order. Lets begin by finding out how should we announce our impending takeover?”
First Officer O1, expertly set up the system to analyze the communication mediums in use, as the visuals flashed across the flight deck’s sensor screen, Them perused the plethora of seemingly mindless images that were being relayed, and the analysis expectantly was lightning fast.
“They seem to believe a lot in what gets classified as ‘breaking news’ happening on ‘news channels’, but what is really amazing is what this species seems to classify as news, they really seem to have no regard for the rules of the cosmos”
First Officer O1 grunted in agreement and continued to sift through humongous amounts of patterns, it seemed to be juggling numbers with a ferocity that was both random and chaotic, and those were the very mathematical principles at the core of interpreting everything that came up
“Hmm these seem to be the top three channels that we might consider”, remarked Them, as the screen neatly was divided into three triangles that seemed to magically fit together, even as a Fibonacci sequence started doing a round about their borders
“But let’s just pick on top one, the others merely seem to be aping it, by the way ‘aping’ seems to have an evolutionary context here,” grinned Them, First Officer O1, sported the cursory ‘boss has made a funny crack’ smile that seemed to stretch to other dimensions and galaxies as well.
“Permission to pull in the anchor, sir, ma’m?” quipped the ever diligent First Officer O1, as it began to pause the cursor on a rather comely anchor who seemed to be in the middle of a profoundly important revelation.
“In breaking news, two super stars had a fight at a party over who had more six packs….”
Tanya Sharma, felt like she was abducted mid sentence, hurtled through space, time and dimension at a mind boggling rate, and ended up feeling much the smaller for it all.
“They have decided to settle their scores by having a race to the fourteen pack abdomen…” That was from the inertia of having begun the next sentence. She glanced around and saw nothing like anything she had ever seen before. There were two creatures in front of her that seemed to be changing shapes every other second.
—
“Greetings, earth lady, hope your experience of our drag and drop feature was memorable!” First Officer O1, started in its best baritone, there was something in her form that had disturbed the alignment of its molecules
“Hell, I’ve had better rides on roller coasters before,” replied Tanya, still a little groggy from the entire escapade
“I think, we should add meals on the way, this species is habituated to eating when traveling.” The First Officer’s suggestion was met with a polite nod from its commander.
“Tanya Sharma, you are the top newsperson in this world?”
Tanya’s face lit up with a smile, “I would like to thank my producers, my channel, my millions of dedicated listeners, even those psychopaths who wrote me those blood inked letters, my sponsors, my parents, ‘I love you guys’, my neighbor’s dog who always takes a fancy for my leg, my….”
“I was asking to check” interjected Them, “as I had suspected this species does not need very much stimulation to trouble the airwaves.”
“Shall I mask her frequency range, sir, ma’m?” asked First Officer O1
“That won’t be necessary, let us first impress upon her why we are here,” replied Them, and motioned invisible sensors to act and ‘disinfect’ this primitive hostage on their space craft
“Where is the woman?” asked Tanya, “Who is he calling ma’m?”
Them and First Officer O1 exchanged glances, it was going to take a super ‘human’ effort to stoop to this human intellectual level
“We have both female and male sides in every corpus,” began Them, “this is probably the highest stage in evolution in the known universe.”
Tanya stared at Them, then broke into a smile
“Ok guys, where is the hidden camera? C’mon I’m in the media business as well, you can’t con me with all this?” Tanya began looking around
“She seems to think this is like one of those primitive shows where they pull wool over innocent unsuspecting people’s eyes and everyone for some reason finds it funny,” First Officer O1 offered the explanation that Them had already thought of, they helplessly shrugged at each other
“Earth lady, you are on a space craft, we have landed to take control of the earth?” began Them in a markedly impressive tone
Tanya’s brain suddenly kicked in, the reporter’s instinct began to survey her surroundings; maybe there could be something here because the ship was way beyond anything ever seen, even by science fiction movie standards
“If you landed a space ship why didn’t anyone see it?”
“That’s because we are on a coffee table, and your species is just too involved in pointless conversation.” Them answered with the increasing feeling that this was going to be a difficult point to get across
“Show me!” demanded Tanya with typical ‘anchors disdain’
First Officer O1 clicked the flight deck screen; it showed what seemed to be the outer surface of a distant hostile planet.
“Whoa! You have kidnapped me, and we are in space, which planet is that?” screamed a jittery Tanya
First Officer O1 clicked his fingers again and the planet seemed to zoom out to what it was, a rather messy coffee cup
“We are on a coffee table as the commander said,” explained First Officer O1, “you have now been scaled down to our size.”
Tanya let that sink in for a full minute, the official record for silence for any television anchor anywhere across the world.
Then she started laughing. Both the aliens looked at each other with some surprise.
“Even if I believe that there is no trickery involved and you are the real thing, who will believe something so small can actually threaten the earth?”
—
“When will you earthlings realize that the real threats are from quarters that you can’t see?” questioned a rather philosophical Them, “do you know that the micro organisms on your planet have always held the upper hand against the human species? That whenever you thought you had conquered all known disease, a new one always emerged. Don’t you people spend time studying anything?”
Tanya’s mind had already jumped somewhere else
“How is it that you know English?”
First Officer O1 chuckled “it’s all what you call about numbers and symbols, you only think we are speaking in English, this has to do more with the universal nature of thoughts.”
But Tanya’s fertile mind ha already moved ahead again.
“So you want to address the world, but we already have so much to pack in today, I was doing this fantastic story on the two super stars of our film industry and we have enough footage for three hours there. And then…”
“Are you seriously telling me that fight is more important than what we have to say?” Them asked with absolute amazement
“Frankly yes, we don’t have that much of an audience for things related to space, you know people just blank out, besides anything about actors always gets people watching, but maybe I could fit you in some time later.”
“What is the next slot?” First Officer O1wanted to know
“Well after that segment, we have a section on how rains are paralyzing life in most of our cities, that’s kind of mandatory because the public expects it.”
“But it isn’t even raining.”
“All the more reason, we debate on when it will and what traffic and other problems will arise because of torrential rains, everyone tunes in to that before leaving home, hell we scare people so much that even at the slightest trickle they call in sick, office attendances are down by 41% because of our erudite analysis.”
Them and First Officer O1 looked at each other again; this species seemed to be getting beyond even their vastly superior intelligence
“After that?” both asked perfunctorily
“And then yes, there are large sections we will be doing on what the high society types will be wearing for the weekend party,” chirped Tanya
“What happens after that?”
“We then need to look at regular news, what happened in the day, in politics, business, sports, you know regular stuff, and yes there is this crisis because the toilet paper in one really large company ran out and so there is going to be a three hour panel discussion on basic amenities and how the entire corporate toilet experience can be made more productive in terms of organizational efficiency and profits, that just about is the whole day. I really can’t fit you in”
“Which means?” asked Them, his thirst for conquest already sinking
“Maybe we have space a week later, you know that’s not really bad, because we can work on your appearances and make you a little more ‘earth presentable’, I know these really good make up artists that can do wonders…”
“Zap her back” boomed Them and instantly First Officer O1 hit the right controls to transport Tanya back to her studio
“Any more anchors to be pulled in?” enquired First Officer O1
“No, she was the best and brightest, maybe this isn’t the place for us to do anything.” Mused a phlegmatic Them, “Lets go somewhere else”
In the blink of an eye, the speck zipped off, the high speed thrust coming close to speed of light or thereabouts, but the people on the table only were able to appreciate the manner in which it evenly stirred all their coffees
“Really primitive race, sir, ma’m” remarked First Officer O1
“I’m not really sure, maybe they have discovered secrets that we haven’t, maybe there is more to this ‘ignorance is bliss’ thing that we can think of, perhaps this is their defense mechanism to any threat,” pondered Them as the hexagonal speck bolted out of the solar system in pursuit of more amenable targets
Back at the office Tanya, stirred in her chair. The producer walked into the room, and put a coffee cup in front of her
“I think you dozed off after the last newscast, you are on again in five minutes we are doing that fourteen packs bit, here the coffee, drink up and let’s go.”
Tanya held the cup in her hand for a minute, there seemed something about it which she couldn’t quite place
“Is everything ok?”
Tanya smiled back slowly
“I think I had a really wild dream, problem is all I remember is that it had a lot to do with coffee cups.”
