“Now we are getting somewhere.”
“I’m sorry, Ralph, really, but that’s obvious. Of course, you can learn from mistakes; of course, mistakes can be humbling. What are you trying to say?”
“I wish you said it. If mistakes can be humbling, then what should we do?”
“Stop avoiding them?”
“. . . You need to go further . . .”
He did not want to preach. He wanted to talk. I was less argumentative than the previous night, but I was just as lost. Instead of thinking aloud, I shut my mouth and thought.
A minute passed while I searched my mind and Ralph waited patiently. When someone lives thousands of years, waiting a few minutes for another to think is nothing. But it did me no good. I tried to think like Ralph and failed.
I stopped thinking and looked at Ralph lying calm in the grass. His whole being seemed to smile and pulsate, like a rolling silent wave headed toward me.
We were motionless, but I felt guided, and I noticed I was holding his hand. I closed my eyes and saw a black tsunami silently rushing toward me. When it hit, a hot flash of pleasure gripped me tight, then released and washed over me.
“Are you saying we should purposefully make mistakes?” I asked, laughing.
“Ah,” Ralph said, pinker and sharper than before, “the primitive mind awakens.”
The claim seemed odder than anything. And since it was Ralph, I had to wonder if he was joking. Of course, he wanted to be doubted. He wanted me to think.
“We should purposefully make mistakes?” I repeated, resisting a smile and trying to comprehend. “That’s not obvious.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“So . . . Should I ram my head into a wall, over and over again? Or deliberately become a heroin addict?” I said.
“No,” Ralph said with strength. “Making the same mistake over and over again, like an addiction, means you’re avoiding a more important mistake that needs to be made.”
“Okay, so you don’t mean just any mistake.”
“Of course not. What’s difficult is to make the right mistakes.”
“Wait,” I said, “what do you even mean by a ‘mistake’?”
“I mean it loose: when you become what you don’t like.”
“So then . . . Should I become what I hate?” I asked, wondering if I had gone too far. “Should we become what we hate? To try to become more humble?”
Ralph grasped my hand, and I waited, but he said nothing.
“. . . That’s just perverse,” I said.
Ralph’s pink glow brightened.
I took a pause without interruption from Ralph. We stayed silent, both focused upward at the sky. I found myself staring at a particular star in the sky, isolated from the others. I kept a soft focus on it and imagined Ralph looking at the same star. Then, something unexpected happened.
The star blinked and disappeared. With wider eyes, I stared at the spot where it had been, but it didn’t return. There are many reasons why a star might disappear, but I imagined the star had collapsed and turned into a black hole. I envisaged the star becoming the complete opposite of what it once was, and by ridiculous chance, I saw its last light after traveling thousands of light-years to Earth.
I thought about the eclipse and the lunar ad, and then Ralph made a bunch of variously pitched hissing sounds. Apparently, it was whistling, or he thought it was.
“Can you stop making that noise?” I said.
He laughed. “On Earth, if someone’s whistling annoys you, you ask them to stop or move away from them. On my planet, we are taught to join them.”
“I couldn’t make those sounds if I wanted to.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Oh.”
“On my planet, if a youngster has a problem with authority, we give them a position of authority. One’s hatred of authority melts rather quickly when one sees how difficult it is.”
“I’m not sure that would work on Earth.”
“It works well enough,” he said with a sigh. “As children, we all hate our parents, to some degree. The best way to get over it? Have kids and become a parent yourself, to see how difficult it is. You probably think the point of having and raising children is to prolong the survival of your species, but that is merely a beneficial side effect. The deeper reason is to humble yourselves, because there are few things more humbling than raising kids.”
I laughed a little.
“My point is, becoming what you hate,” he said, “can help you to forgive those you hate.”
“How far are you taking this?” I asked.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, if I hate Nazis, should I become a Nazi? If I hate murder, should I become a murderer in order to understand them? You’re not saying that, are you? That’s . . . insane.”
He laughed as he rolled over and hugged me, straddling me, his glow pinker than ever. He tried to tickle me unsuccessfully as I pushed him, and he bounced horizontally across the dark grass.
“Ralph, tell me you think that is crazy.”
“I love you so much, Markus.”
“Answer the question.”
With his strange joy, Ralph inched closer. Again, I pushed him away with force. His glow dimmed as he bounced.
“I’m feeling very weary of all things alien right now.”
“Of course, that’s crazy,” he said.
“So why are you so excited?”
“Now you know the difference between my people and the Kardashians.”
“You mean . . .”
“Yes.”
“Oh God.”
“Yes. My people do all sorts of things for humility. We risk becoming what we hate in all types of ways to embarrass ourselves and gain humility. But, my people are not violent by nature. We would never go that far.”
“And the Kardashians . . .”
“Exactly. They believe that by becoming monsters, they can learn to be at peace with monsters. They think that by acting intolerant, they may truly understand those who are. They are coming to Earth to act as terrible as possible, just to fulfill this twisted purpose. Become evil, to overcome it, like a reductio ad absurdum of evil itself.”
“But . . . how?”
“They will take the worst of Earth’s culture and twist it back at you in force—expect the ultimate forms of mockery. They will seduce your people with great trickery and power, appealing to the worst of what you know.”
“But . . . How will they do it?”
“I . . . could only guess. We’ve tried to stay away from them. It’s too dangerous for us to track them closely, but we’ve found planets they’ve . . . visited. They always cater to the worst elements of the planets they visit and will similarly tailor their guile for earthlings.”
“How often do they do this?”
“Each Kardashian is obligated to do it at least once. For them, it is like going to Mecca.”
“I’m afraid to ask . . . but . . . Why don’t they just destroy us?”
Ralph turned away and said, “They need to leave behind witnesses . . . What they have planned is far worse than annihilation.”
Some statements deserve a silent response. Some claims need to breathe and linger in the air without question. My greatest childhood fear, which stalked me into adulthood, was creeping toward Earth. With his bizarre and unexpected ways, Ralph had extinguished my fear. He was the perfect counterexample to my phobia. But, at that moment, I needed the fear. If Ralph was afraid, I should be afraid, but I was too afraid to ask what was worse than annihilation.
Now I know.
XXVIII
STARTING
Lost in thought, I barely felt my pink cell phone vibrating against my thigh.
“Francis is calling,” Ralph said, pointing to my pocket.
I answered reluctantly.
“Turn on the TV,” Francis yelled.
“What channel?”
“Any channel.”
I stood up and told Ral
ph to follow. He waved his arm, motioning me to go on.
“It’s starting,” Ralph said.
I left him on the grass and rushed upstairs. Turning on the TV revealed the same blankness I had seen on the Internet earlier—a steady image of unpolluted white. I clicked through channels and saw the same bright white nothingness without sound.
“How long has it been like this?” I asked Francis.
“Four minutes.”
I turned on the radio. On each station I checked, FM and AM, there were no sounds, not even noise, only fresh silence. Satellite radio had the same silence on every channel.
“Did Ralph say this would happen?” I asked.
“I was going to ask you the same,” Francis said and sighed. “He’s been giving great intel on the Kardashians, but never mentioned this. Let me talk to him.”
“He’s still outside,” I said, glancing out the window. “Pluto is around four billion miles away. Am I naïve . . . How can they do this from so far?”
“You’re not entirely naïve . . . but I’m guessing Ralph didn’t tell you,” Francis said.
“Tell me what?”
He inhaled and exhaled. “I need you not to panic. I can’t lose you right now, do you understand? You’re one of the few people I can talk to about this.”
“Whatever it is, just say it.”
“Markus, I’m trying to be gentle here. Ralph told me you have some . . . phobia of aliens. Was he wrong?”
“Just fucking tell me.”
“Markus, they’re already here.”
My mouth froze. My right hand started to shake and I steadied it with my left.
He continued, “Most of them, I mean the one’s we’ve observed, are the smaller ships I had mentioned earlier today.”
“What do you mean ‘most’ of them? How many are there?”
“My resources at NASA are limited. I don’t have much authority over there, and it’s been hard to coordinate and contain—”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“They seem to be . . . everywhere, but we can’t check everywhere all at once. I only have access to one satellite. It’s designed to see into deep space, not locally. It works, but it’s the opposite of being myopic. Extrapolating from what we’ve seen so far . . . There’s at least a thousand ships.”
For a moment, I couldn’t talk. A tear came to my eye and I let it run down my cheek. My emotions seemed to give up, but my mind kept moving.
“How could no one notice until now?” I asked, but I knew the answer.
“No one was looking. Barely anyone studies the empty space right around Earth, because . . . Well, most of the time it’s empty. It’s a blind spot. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re asking. Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Markus, it doesn’t matter. Even if someone had seen them, they wouldn’t know what they were looking at. We can’t see them directly, but I’ve been working with a few people at NASA, and they’re there. The ships barely reflect visible light. But they show up on thermal infrared easily, just as Ralph said they would.”
I sat down and stared at the blank television, dizzy with questions.
“Ralph tells you all this, but not about what they are doing to our TV?” I said.
“They want our attention. It’s probably why our phones aren’t knocked out, so people can call and tell others . . . And there’s more. The top 1,000 most popular websites are all blank, total whiteout. All other sites are normal. It’s good to know they have limits, but still . . . This is overwhelming.”
“Is there any way to stop it?”
“Nothing short of shutting down the national grid or pulling the plug on the goddamn Internet. We can’t even get the Emergency Broadcast System to work. Can you please get our resident alien on the line?”
“Hold on,” I said as I cracked the tiny attic window an inch. “Ralph, get up here. We need to talk to you.”
Ralph did not respond.
“Markus,” Francis shouted in my ear. I looked at the TV.
In black numerals, ‘1:00:00’ appeared on the white screen.
00:59:59
00:59:58
00:59:57
Every channel was the same.
They wanted our attention—and they got it. For the next hour, anyone awake told somebody else. North Korea was on high alert, but most countries relaxed their defenses when they understood this was happening all over the planet. The accessible Internet raged with speculation about elite rogue hackers disabling the world’s communications infrastructure, and, of course, aliens.
By this time, the image of the Kardashian mothership near Pluto from the Keck Observatory had gone viral. Keck had posted it on their own website, stating the image was genuine. Following up on Keck, five other observatories had recalibrated their telescopes, produced similar images, and were freely sharing and discussing them.
Francis was furious at Ralph’s silence and even angrier Ralph hadn’t warned him. He ordered me to “interrogate” Ralph and hung up. I went back outside and stood over him, supine and relaxed on the grass.
“Why the fuck would you tell Francis but not me that the Kardashians are already here?” I asked.
“I hoped Francis would tell you. I was afraid how you’d react.”
He was terrible at delivering bad news.
“How much time is there on the countdown?” he asked.
“. . . You knew this would happen.”
“This is standard engagement protocol for the Kardashians.”
“What happens when the countdown reaches zero?”
“They will broadcast their transmission, a message.”
“Ralph, Francis is suspicious. Why not warn us they’d take over our communications?”
“Because then you would’ve tried to prevent it, and you’d fail. Waste of time.”
“But you know how to prevent it?”
“Well, yes. But, then, they’d know I’m here, and that can’t happen.”
“You just have an answer for everything.”
“Markus, be serious. How much time is left on the countdown?”
“Less than an hour.”
“That’s not enough time.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I asked.
He paused, looked at the moon, and said, “There is something special about you . . . between us . . . I can’t explain it without sounding like some kook. Your language is so . . . impoverished. I need to think. Please, sit down. It will make me more at ease. My people are not good in stressful situations.”
I sat and stayed silent in the cold grass waiting for Ralph’s thoughts. I looked for that vanished star, but the light was still gone. I stared at the empty space where it was, wondering if the starlight had been blocked by one of the thousands of alien spacecraft surrounding Earth.
The pink cell phone Francis gave Ralph vibrated in his chest pocket. He took it out, looked at it, and shut it off.
“On second thought,” he said, looking over at the barracks, “let’s take a walk.”
He ended our path at a lonely tree twenty meters away and turned to me, the visor of his helmet inches from my face.
“What would you sacrifice to save Earth?” he asked.
I stared at him.
“Would you sacrifice your life?” he pressed.
“Yes.”
Ralph’s glow brightened.
“There are things I want to tell you. But you cannot tell another human. So we need to make an agreement—right now.”
“Tell me.”
“If you survive what’s coming, you must go to ****.”
The last word was a melodic hiss.
My eyebrows rose.
“My home,” he said.
XXIX
LAWS
The rational side of me needed more time, but there was none.
“I agree,” I said. Then, questions I had ignored raced to consciousness
. What will happen when I get there? How would we get there?
“I must ask again. You sure about this? You may never return.”
“Am I sure? No. I’m agreeing anyway.”
“Markus, even if I die, you must try to find a way there.”
“How on Earth would I do that?”
“Just promise.”
I reaffirmed my promise, and Ralph hugged me as tightly as possible.
“And don’t worry about how we get there or where you’ll stay. You’ll be a celebrity and everyone will have sex with you. So don’t worry about any of that; it’s taken care of. Trust me.”
I trusted him. It was the biggest, strangest promise I ever made, and I only considered it for a minute. The promise was a gateway. Ralph had secrets, and he wouldn’t have told me otherwise. It was far from clear, at first, why Ralph told me these things, but I was about to get a crash course in what he called ‘universal psychology.’
“You need to understand how the Kardashians think,” he said. “For this, you must understand some basic psychology. There are psychological laws obeyed by all species in the universe. In fact, these laws hold in all possible universes—”
“Ralph, slow down. Let’s stick to this universe, okay?”
“You’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll start with the second law.”
“Wait . . . What’s the first?”
“You’re not ready for the first law, and we don’t have time. The second is more important right now,” he started. “This second law relates to envy, a phenomena underdiscussed by your psychologists. So that we are clear, when I say ‘envy,’ what does that mean to you?”
“It’s when you have a . . . negative emotion toward someone who has something you want or is something you want to be.”
“Exactly. Envy is when you hate someone, and at the same time, want to become them.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Why not?”
“That sounds too strong. ‘Hate’ is a strong word for humans.”
“Markus, don’t make me a philosophical nit who qualifies everything he says—there’s no time. When I say ‘hate,’ I mean the whole spectrum of dislike, irritation, fury, alienation, and all those negative feelings. Whether it is pure rage or minor annoyance, this is what I’m talking about. Envy is when you hate someone and you want to be like them, either because they have something or are something. Any other way of looking at it is primitive sugarcoating.”
The Book of Ralph Page 15