The man is leaving his apartment, and once on the concrete walkway at the bottom of the second-floor landing, begins to stroll through a wonderful, shady morning. Just as he is about to climb a short set of stairs, he confronts a swarm of gnats, and bats them away.
He’s on his way to the grocery store. He has a gnat in his teeth and spits the tiny mote into what could pass for infinity as if it’s a tiny rocket. He walks on.
However, he wonders about this swarm of gnats: Why do they always cloud exactly at head-level? Is the approximately six-foot altitude of this a matter of perfect hunting for gnats? It’s always the same. Beginning in spring, at the same spot, every single day, he meets the swarm, and ponders the whys and wherefores of these puzzling encounters.
The man, incidentally, is a doctor of astrophysics at Cosmogonic Solutions, a laboratory where scientists investigate the origins and evolution of the universe. As one identified as an evolutionist, well, yes–he’s met protesters before. Those oddballs are perfect examples of the old joke that still makes him chuckle under his breath whenever he remembers it: That the Flat Earth Society is announcing numerous new offices all around the globe.
Pesky gnats!
For nearly three decades, the man has found more than a passing interest in the notion of extraterrestrial life somewhere in the cosmos. He talks about this with his girlfriend at times, a lovely former lab assistant of his who became quite attached to him after an experience with him she affectionately calls “the big bang”. She and the astrophysicist have been “making time” ever since.
Both happen to be fans of the infamously weird History Channel TV show Ancient Aliens, the one where the host, Georgio Tsoukalos, a ufologist who may be absolutely certified, regales them both from the Idiot Box with a wild appearance that flies out in every direction, a sort of supernova explosiveness of hair. Apparently, ancient alien theorists indeed say, Yes!
Always, they say, Yes! Apparently, no is a no-no on the show.
“Did you hear about the remains of an alien the Russians supposedly found? It’s a lot more convincing from photos,” the man told his girlfriend only the evening before his walk to the grocery, “than that fake one from Mexico that was in the papers last year.”
“That’s gobsmacking, baby. Tell me more. . . “
Something about intrigue puts them both in the mood for sex. But more than that, the man has come to realize that what some describe as spurious information as seen on these shows about cryptids and aliens and mysterious events cause many to literally question authority of all kinds, authority especially as that presented by the mass media.
“The government isn’t revealing…”
“Officially, scientists question the idea of Sasquatch…”
“There may be something hidden in the Book of Exodus that could reveal how sonic vibrations known to ancient Egyptians is how they built the pyramids – that are officially only 4,500 years old at most, but are likely more than 15,000 years old…”
Nobody wants to admit that this sort of thing is one of the causes of the people who protest in front of Cosmogonic Solutions. Alternative facts that challenge the official ones lead to people who don’t know which to believe. Conspiracy theories only muck up minds more. Especially if numerous “authorities” are giving viewers and readers wildly divergent interpretations of the so-called facts.
A fopdoodle is born every instant.
The man is aware of a group of scientists who allege that what are idiomatically known as “dumb animals” may actually be sentient. That even insects have some form of sentience or consciousness that is not only unlike that of humans but is quantitatively different from human consciousness to the point that it’s even possible the brain is not the sole locus of consciousness.
•••
On the other side of the universe, near the constellation known as Serpens, another group of concerned scientists are also engaged in controversy.
“We have been sending our scouts to the small planet orbiting Star G-7504929-1 for millennia, and still we cannot seem to communicate with the otherwise intelligent beings that inhabit the planet its creatures have named Earth.”
“Such a strange name for a planet. Doesn’t “earth” mean “dirt?”
Natty laughter ensues in the far-distant alien research center in the Serpens constellation. “Sometimes I think that about our own lovely Drlis-kni-nolkiconsig, my comrade!”
More buggy laughter.
Indeed, for as long as any of the beings called Drlis-kni have been sending probes to Star G-7504929-1, the probes have been ignored.
“Are those beings dumb? Don’t they suspect that beings capable of murmuration are likely part of a hive mind?”
“Perhaps they are not ready for us.”
“We are of course tiny and seemingly inconsequential to giants, but what the heck is going on with them?”
•••
Light years away, the man slaps at the gnats. Even though he is an astrophysicist and cosmologist, he has no earthly idea he is dealing with what he’s always suspected was possible: extraterrestrial visitors from an unknown world.
Troupe after troupe of valiant researchers and diplomats from Drlis-kni-nolkiconsig have frantically been attempting a first contact with what some of the Drlis-kni have taken to calling “the ignoramuses.” Albeit in their own language, not phonetically based, more along the lines of gestures written in air.
On Earth, the gnats fly in circles around the cosmogonist’s head. Almost every day. Even when the landscapers spray for bugs, the gnats return, always as if they’re wild about the cosmogonist’s head.
“Damned bugs!”
That night, the astrophysicist and his girlfriend sit back to get a good laugh out of Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space.
Oddly, a single gnat manages to get inside the house and is swirling around the TV’s bluish light, a circling in the air that practically shrieks, “WARNING!!! HYPNOTIC LIGHT WEAPON!!! ABORT!! MISSION!! NOW!!”