Emily rolled her eyes. “Give it a break, Tracey.”
Almost inaudibly Aaron breathed, “Independence Day.”
“What?” snapped Emily.
“A movie. Shh.”
“The Pope and the leaders of all major countries have called for calm. As the alien ship moves closer, we are all wondering if this will be the greatest event in Earth’s history or perhaps the most tragic. It seems we are fated to find out. For more background—”
Emily muted the television, prompting protests from the other two. “Be quiet, both of you. We should really get on the air with this.”
There was a moment of silence as Emily’s suggestion worked its way into their cerebral cortices.
Tracey was deep in her own political meltdown. “Did you hear what they’re calling it? ‘Contact.’ Does that sound familiar to either of you? Man, I bet both sides already have people drawing up treaties.” She was practically yelling. “But now the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it? The more things change, the more they stay the same. That should be our lead story!”
Aaron gesticulated wildly at the television. “Spaceships! Spaceships?! Turn it back on!”
Emily would not be deterred. “Don’t you see? This is our chance to shine. Let’s take this story and run with it!”
Tracey was nodding vigorously. “I agree. I think one ‘contact’ is enough in any culture’s existence, don’t you? Let’s get a panel together of clan elders and—
Once again, Aaron felt the need to contribute his two cents. “Shut up! Spaceships! Spaceships!”
He lunged for the remote, but Emily kept it just out of reach. He felt the need to pull his hair out in frustration, but unfortunately he had taken to sporting a brush cut.
Moving quickly and ignoring Aaron, Emily entered the broadcast booth. “Tracey, you want a panel discussion, then you put one together. Hurry. I’m going to go on the air with this right now.”
“But you never go on the air!”
“I do when Earth is welcoming aliens from…” The news crawl at the bottom of the television screen revealed the ship had come from the direction of the Pleiades cluster. “Pleiades… Where the hell is that? Sounds Greek. Besides, our news announcer hasn’t shown up today. He’s probably at home watching this. I guess he’d prefer to watch history rather than be a part of it. And where is Pat? I need him to write me up some copy.”
Emily was on fire now. There had been rumblings from the board about the station taking a new direction, exploring different options. Emily knew this was just board-speak for getting a new station manager. She had rolled with all the new technologies over the years that had transformed the once small and humble radio station into a slightly larger organization, one of the only independent broadcasters left in the province. After twenty-seven years with her at the helm, maybe those fine listeners who owned the smoke shacks, gas stations and an arts and crafts store felt the pot known as C-RES needed to be stirred a bit. Emily was desperate to keep this job she so loved and hated at the same time. This just might be the way.
“Come on, work with me. Can we give this thing an Aboriginal spin?”
Tracey seemed animated by Emily’s question. While everybody in the world was dealing with the scientific and social implications of this so-called “contact,” Tracey saw a plethora of Kanienké’hà:ka and Haudenosaunee connections. She adjusted the purple dress and scarf she was wearing and smiled.
“I have a few ideas.” Seldom, Tracey felt, had she said so much with so few words.
“Like what?” For the first time in a long time, Emily felt adrenalin coursing through her veins.
“The return of Sky Woman, for example.”
Emily nodded, immediately understanding. In their nation’s creation story, a pregnant woman fell through a hole in the sky and, with the assistance of some geese, landed on the back of a giant turtle. From there, she and a variety of aquatic animals created Turtle Island, otherwise known as North America, and all life sprang forth.
“I love it. What else?”
Barely half a second had passed before the increasingly excited Tracey managed to get her next suggestion out. “You said they were coming from the… the… What did you call them? That group of stars?”
Emily checked her computer. “The Pleiades. Why?”
“Why does that name sound familiar? Aaron?”
Finally managing to tear his eyes away from the screen, Aaron spoke. He was well versed in two subjects: how to fix and set up broadcasting and audio equipment, and anything to do with science fiction or facts about the universe. “Pleiades. A star cluster consisting of seven fairly young stars, often referred to as the Seven Sisters. But in our culture they are referred to as—”
It came to Tracey in a flash. “The Seven Dancers.”
Emily smiled, making the connection to the well-known tale of seven children who danced so long and so hard, ignoring their responsibilities to prepare for the coming winter, that eventually they rose up into the sky and became part of the cosmos. “Wow, this event almost seems tailor-made for us. This all sounds fabulous. Let’s get to work.”
Motivated and mutually animated, the women huddled together, concocting a battle plan. For once, Emily’s fists were clenched in enthusiasm instead of frustration.
Seizing the opportunity, Aaron grabbed the remote and turned the sound back on. Once more, the calming voice of Peter Mansbridge filled the room.
“It’s estimated this extraterrestrial craft will enter the Earth’s orbit by…”
Aaron mused aloud, “You two get this, right? This could be either Contact or The Day the Earth Stood Still, or like I said earlier, Independence Day.” Aaron drained his big mug of coffee, not noticing the lack of response from the room. “This could end one of three ways. It could turn out that they’ve come to just say, ‘How’s it going? Nice to meet you, neighbours. Can we borrow a cup of oxygen?’
“Or they could have a message to give us. Like ‘Quit polluting the electromagnetic spectrum with reruns of Friends.’ Or ‘Watch it, that Voyager thing you sent off into space a couple decades ago scraped the side of my new ship. I hope you have insurance.’” Aaron was uncharacteristically grave.
He took a deep breath. “And then of course, there’s the third option: food, slaves or target practice.” Looking around, he noticed he had been talking to himself.
Emily had shut the door between Aaron and them.
February 14, 2019
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Aaron said as he scratched his bald head, seeing the flakes from his scalp float to the ground like dermatological snow. “Radiation poisoning sucks,” he added as an afterthought, though briefly admiring the irony of the situation. With the recent scorching the Earth’s surface had received, his skin flecks were the only snow to fall that winter.
Emily, Tracey and Aaron huddled miserably under a cement overpass beside the now torn and shattered highway leading into the reserve. There, partially protected from the damaged and damaging elements by several feet of cement, debris and earth, they were trying to make the best of their situation. This was pretty much all that was left of North American civilization, give or take a few thousand, down from a worldwide population high of six billion or so. Unlike the famous quote, the world had ended not with a whimper but with a series of loud and genocidal bangs.
Communication had been remarkably limited. It seems once the Zsxdcf had taken note of the international space station orbiting this big blue marble called Turtle Island, and the variety of satellites in orbit and probes spreading throughout the solar system, the decision had pretty much been made. This civilization was sticking its big toe into space travel. Orbital bombardment was followed by several high-energy wave sweeps. Evolution would have to start all over again. A lucky few hundred thousand in North America had managed to survive the first onslaught, living hand to mouth off th
e land, hiding in holes in the ground or caves like their furry little ancestors had during the time of the dinosaurs.
Aaron had managed to build a small fire, and Emily was busy roasting a raccoon over it. So much for job security, she thought bitterly. Everybody on the C-RES board of directors was either dead or working in the limestone mines for the Zsxdcf overlords. Who would have guessed limestone was such a valuable commodity on the galactic market? So far, the trio had managed to escape, scurrying from hole to hole, but at the moment they were not revelling in their freedom.
Eager to sample some of Emily’s raccoon, Tracey smoothed out her pantsuit. It was mostly earth tones, the majority of the colour coming from the actual earth and dirt encrusting her clothes. “Can I have a drumstick? If you can call a raccoon limb a drumstick.” That was definitely a question she thought she would never have to ask.
“Call it whatever you want. I managed to salvage some ketchup from a crater that used to be Smith’s convenience store yesterday.”
“Always looking after your employees. You were a good boss, Emily.” Aaron let loose a series of phlegmy coughs after his compliment.
It was nice of him to say that, she thought, especially since he had kicked up such a fuss after she had suspended the Christmas bonuses on account of the destruction of Earth.
“Personally, I blame Albert Einstein. He’s just another white guy who lied to us Indians.”
Neither Tracey nor Emily had the energy or interest to respond, so they let him rant.
“I mean it. Him and his precious theory of relativity. He told everybody nothing could travel faster than the speed of light—it was the intergalactic speed limit. It was supposed to be absolute but, you know, in almost every science fiction movie and story that never seems to be a problem. Warp speed, wormholes, stuff like that. People—I mean, aliens—found a way around it. It should have taken that ship four hundred years to get here, if—and I repeat if—it could travel anywhere near the speed of light, which in itself was unlikely. But no, somehow it got our signal in just a few years and managed to come knocking on our door in a ridiculously short period of time. See? It doesn’t make sense. Einstein’s such a liar.”
Exhausted by his outburst and radiation sickness, Aaron leaned back against the wall. Just over his head and to the left a bit, faded after so many years, “Aaron + Emily forever” sat amid the other graffiti.
Catching his second wind, Aaron noticed Tracey, the weight of the remaining world on her shoulders. She was staring into the fire, lost in thought. She looked kind of… down.
“Hey Emily, Tracey can have my drumstick.”
Tracey smiled weakly in his direction. “So much for calorie counting now,” she muttered.
Using a slightly bent steak knife she had found, Emily started to cut up the roast beast. Luckily the thing was still fat, despite the razing of the planet, so it glistened as she sliced pieces off onto a hubcap. All things considered, it looked tasty.
The wind was picking up, but an overturned bus at one end of the overpass acted as a windbreak. They watched Emily carve for a few minutes before Tracey spoke, more to herself than either of the other two survivors.
“I can’t believe it. The Haudenosaunee are responsible for the destruction of the Earth.” She took a deep breath. “I feel so embarrassed.”
Another spasm of coughing preceded Aaron’s response. He felt a piece of lung come up. He spit it out, as he had done with the others. “Yeah, but you didn’t know. Nobody did. Nobody could. It’s quite clever, actually.”
“Only you could be amazed during a time like this. Hand me your Frisbee,” Emily said. Aaron watched weakly as his former girlfriend and boss slid several choice pieces of barbecued raccoon off the hubcap and onto his Frisbee.
“It was like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Only more clever.”
“So you keep saying.” Emily gave Tracey the four drumsticks and kept the remaining torso and head for herself. She knew what Aaron was talking about. The breakthrough in understanding what was motivating the Zsxdcf had come too late to stop them, but it always helps to understand why you’re being destroyed.
The seeds of Earth’s annihilation had been sown thousands of years earlier, during a devastating interstellar war between the Zsxdcf and another civilization long forgotten. After many protracted and costly battles, victory finally belonged to the Zsxdcf. To ensure such a conflict never arose again, members of the Zsxdcf spread across the known galaxy seeding potential new civilizations with hidden coded messages that would reveal themselves in, of all things, music. Music, after all, is the logical progression of communication and ritual, involving an evolved sense of imagination. And an evolved sense of imagination can create beauty, or mass destruction.
“The Calling Song” was a sort of intergalactic insurance policy. The visitors from the direction of the Pleiades had peppered a handful of cultures across the planet with such songs, buried deep in their genetic code. The Haudenosaunee had been one such people. Several weeks ago, as they cowered in an abandoned Tim Hortons, stuffing their faces with five-week-old doughnuts, Tracey had pointed out how the Haudenosaunee tongue was so different from all the other languages surrounding it. Almost like it had been planted arbitrarily, smack in the middle of the Great Lakes region.
“I always knew we were out of this world,” noted Aaron with a laugh.
Various other languages around the world had been infused with a similar hidden genomic blueprint, but as is the nature of human development and evolution, some societies rise to dominance and others disappear from the pages of history. The Haudenosaunee had survived and prospered to broadcast one such implanted song, a message Tracey, Emily and Aaron sent out to the universe basically saying, “Hey, remember us? This planet has the technology to broadcast now. Better come and take care of business before the people on this hunk of rock decide to come knocking at your door.”
All three ate their raccoon in silence, lost in their own thoughts and memories. Aaron coughed some more. Tracey looked in the direction of the crater that had been their radio station. And Emily bitterly remembered thinking, all those years ago, how much she had wanted to change the world.
A Culturally Inappropriate Armageddon
Part 2
Old Men and Old Sayings
Just a couple of months earlier and half a province away, on a small Anishinabe reserve named Otter Lake, there lived a small man in a small room.
His name was Willie Whitefish. It had been many years since this ancient man had done much of anything noteworthy. Mostly, he watched television, listened to the radio and read. Having been forced to master the art of Western literacy sixty-odd years earlier in a residential school, the man had developed a fondness for the dominant culture’s literature. He was not well educated in the conventional sense, but he was well read. His legs had long ago abandoned the concept of being useful, and with practically no family, Willie lived a quiet, uneventful life in his little room at the seniors home.
But outside his diminutive domicile, the world was abuzz. A spaceship was coming from some place farther away than he could see. It would arrive any day, and the whole planet was going crazy about it. Most of the world was frightened, excited, perhaps fearful that this might be an emissary from God. Willie, however, had other thoughts. And those thoughts made him smile. Not the pleasant or jovial kind of smiling, more like the “I know something you don’t know” kind.
“Aliens… people from outer space! These are strange times.”
Willie could hear Angela’s voice outside his door, talking with whoever was on shift with her at the seniors home. Willie liked Angela, as much as you can like somebody who touched you way too much. Whether it was to smooth back a lock of hair falling over his forehead, fasten an undone button, brush some dandruff off his shoulder or just give a reassuring pat on the hand, she never passed on a chance to engage in physica
l contact. It wasn’t that Willie was afraid of germs or people touching him; it was just that person-to-person interaction, like money, should be used economically and with purpose, not willy-nilly. But what can you do, he thought, I’m just an old man who doesn’t matter anymore. Still, he was sad to know she was going to die.
“I don’t believe it. That’s just silliness.”
Outside the door, Angela’s voice rose a level. “What do you mean you don’t believe it? It’s true. They got all those scientists and their scientific equipment proving it. There is a big spaceship that’s supposed to be here in a couple days.”
“Nah, I don’t believe it. It’s just somebody playing games, trying to pull one over on us. I betcha it’s the government trying to get our minds off all the terrible things they’ve been doing.”
Now Willie recognized the voice. Bernice. In a world populated by conspiracy theorists, Bernice was of the Indigenous variety. Simple, logical explanations of a bureaucratic nature were a lot easier to swallow than people from another planet flying through space to Earth. As is the Aboriginal philosophy, when in doubt, blame the government.
Both women had worked at the seniors home for a number of years, looking after the dozen patients, and they would do so until their own time came to become residents.
Smiling his secret smile, Willie took a sizable book from the stack by his bed and thumbed through it, looking up occasionally at the television screen. There had been practically nothing else on any of the channels since the ship had first been detected. People weren’t interested in sitcoms or crime dramas or game shows anymore. This was the ultimate reality show. Once again, sitting across from Peter Mansbridge was some expert, talking about a topic he couldn’t possibly know much about.
On his night table, Willie had piled a collection of books about the colonization of North America—everything from Columbus straight through the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, to the Trail of Tears, to the impact of the sale of Alaska on the Inuit and the Aleutians. He had watched documentaries about the Beothuk and the Carib people, nations destroyed because of the arrival of new people with new ways of killing. It was a tough and sordid history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal conflict. Part of him had become permanently angry the more he read, cursing the fact he’d learned to read. But another part of his soul just shook its head in disbelief at what evil humans do to others, and what others let be done to them. Montezuma and that king of the Incas were way too trusting. They should have known better.
Take Us to Your Chief Page 3