Unleashed

This is the fourteenth entry in the satirical series at https://www.abctales.com/collection/pandemic-tales-bojo-and-co

Unleashed

The planet looked as bleak as it ever did. The onset of autumn brought falling leaves that swirled in localised eddies, collecting in piles on the cold ground. Abington Street was hardly busy but then it was late morning and the lunchtime swell was yet to rise. Obogo floated down the pedestrian concourse hoping that nobody looked closely enough to note the effortless, suspicious glide with which the entity was navigating surroundings.

If anyone had taken the time to peer closer and analyse its appearance, they would have discovered a creature hidden inside a humanoid shell. Blending in, apparel consisted of: a hoodie (t-shirt proclaiming heavy metal band Saxon underneath), blue denim jeans and designer trainers. A human face was generated by an ingenious device masking its true visage; a sort of energy beam transmitting an indigenous exterior. The mechanism’s machinery extended to the generation of illusory human legs. In actual fact, the extra-terrestrial’s torso ended just below its waist. On its home planet, it mostly hovered inches above the surface, moving ghost-like across more familiar terrain. Obogo was how its name sounded if articulated in any of the major languages of Earth. Of course, the moniker was of alien composition with a completely different spelling in its own culture. For now, the designation of Obogo was enough to be credible.

The mission was well documented: Visit Earth and prove to the home-world that there was intelligent life there. Proof would result in continued peaceful co-existence across the two planets despite them being light years apart (4.37 to be precise from obscure rocky sphere in the Alpha Centauri system to Northampton town centre). Failure to provide acceptable evidence would lead to the use of a death ray obliterating all life that had evolved over 4.5billion years of planetary existence.

Obogo drifted serenely into an O2 shop, yet another store selling mobile phones. The only things humans seem prepared to buy were vaping equipment and hand-held devices. The proliferation of charity outlets had also been noted over the course of the last day. Oblivious to the fact that large chains like British Home Stores, Littlewoods and Marks & Spencer had, in recent times, all relocated away from the town, the curious alien concluded that it was only chain smoking without producing noxious fumes and perpetual doom scrolling on phones that seemed to be of any interest to the population. And cats. Earthlings liked cats.

****

The shaggy-haired politician stared self-lovingly in the mirror. Like a neo-Narcissus. Shaking his head, sawdust streamed in all directions. Gosh darn, that was a handsome face. Cherubic. The ladies couldn’t get enough of him and why not with looks like that. Unleashed told the world of Churchillianesque achievements through his latest memoir. Unrestrained, revealing and powerful. Time spent in political power when the going got tough and the tough got going. It was unashamedly self-congratulatory. Die in a ditch rather than get Brexit done? The ditch could wait, he had smashed it and left the EU in his rear-view mirror. Bold with big bollocks – that was Boris!

He peeped around the edge of the door to spy on the crowd that would be building in anticipation of his presentation. Waterstones in Northampton would NOT know what had hit it. Out front, two employees stood patiently behind a counter area with piles of the former-PM’s book stacked ready to sell. Rummaging amongst autobiographies, novels, dictionaries, thesauruses and other tomes was a curly-haired little old lady sporting a recently renewed blue rinse pulling a tartan-plaid shopping cart on wheels behind her. She let out a tiny shriek on discovering a cookery book adorned with the aging-gracefully face of Mary Berry.  Otherwise, the place was empty. The blond-haired ex-mandarin pursed his lips in annoyance. “Early yet” he told himself.

****

Obogo had bought a new Nokia. Notwithstanding a cursory understanding of English, the purchase had been conducted through pointing and gestures. It was one thing comprehending an alien language, it was quite another speaking it. Not that anyone would be able to interpret its otherworldly speech patterns or even decipher its attempts at linguistics. It would be like an over enthusiastic English tourist trying to speak Spanish for the first time whilst trying to order a meal on the Costa Blanca to an eye-rolling waiter. And no one wanted that.

There was a certain thrill at paying via a credit card manufactured by the techies back home. Leaning against a wall, frantic fingers quickly negotiated setup instructions and within seconds the languid creature was trawling the internet. A news item flashed up with a video to watch; it was of two prominent politicians in a country called the USA. They were arguing with each other, firing off cruel barbs. A man of seemingly orange hue and wearing what appeared to be an ill-fitting wig was animatedly talking about swarms of migrants eating pets. The woman he was debating with was staring back with consternation, a brief break from her repetitious grinning and head-thrown-back laughter. This wasn’t the evidence of intelligent life it was looking for even if the people involved seemed to be vying to control the most powerful force on Earth.

Obogo continued in the direction of a shopping mall. The Grosvenor Centre was a civilised arrangement of stores under cover, away from the elements. To its left, a sign proclaimed Waterstones. Through the glass frontage could be seen shelves and more shelves of books for sale. Surely this would be a site for intelligentsia to meet and discuss the loftier subjects of the day. Inside a small crowd had gathered, (perhaps a dozen people) and was milling as though waiting for something to start. The alien wondered how the gathering would react if, instead of seeing the face of a middle-aged male with a goatee beard, blue eyes and straggly long hair, they saw instead its real form of antennae, green ovoid head with two huge pupil-filled eyes, large nasal features and a mouth that ran from ear to ear full of sharp needle-like teeth. A reverie turned to images of screaming and mass panic. Self-revelation was not a good idea.

As it crossed the threshold, a polite round of applause rippled and, just for a moment, Obogo thought it had drawn some sort of welcome. Instead, a rotund man with unkempt blond hair was walking slowly yet theatrically to the upper tier of the unit. He wore a pin-striped suit, jacket tied by a button around his bulging midriff, white shirt, paisley tie and shiny black brogues on his feet. Perhaps this debonair individual was a celebrity. At last, the proof of intelligent life was just a few feet away.

Obogo looked on as the politician-cum-author bumbled and bored his way through the entire contents of his literary creation. There was a conspicuous drip drip of attendees drifting away as time creaked on. One by one the audience left, quietly trying to avoid eye contact with the parliamentarian on the way out. After twenty minutes, the speech ended to a spontaneous yet strained appreciation from the little old lady with her shopping trolley with wheels. Everyone else had gone. Obogo decided it had seen enough and serenely ghosted back out into the mall. Symbols and equations, odd hieroglyphics streamed inside its head, computations and calculations made to ensure the interplanetary astronaut remained on track. Eyes latched on to clouds of minute particles that appeared to be following shoppers into various stores. Processing confirmed the presence of a virus; known colloquially as Covid19 and widespread since spawning a few years ago. Reaching into a trouser pocket, a tiny communicator was withdrawn. Pausing for reflection, the visitor from outer space tapped out a message:

Mission failed. No sign of intelligent life. Destruction recommended.

Shuffling out into the street, Obogo spotted more youths making O shapes with their mouths as they vaped whilst gawping at mobile phone screens. There was thirty minutes before the death ray was due to be fired. Unleashed. Its spacecraft was twenty-nine minutes away by number ten bus. A departure board at the terminus in town flashed up a delayed notification under the schedule for the number 10 service. Unbeknown to those waiting, the driver was late after being waylaid watching ET – The Extra Terrestrial with his children. He would make up those few minutes over the course of the day. No harm done; it wasn’t like it was the end of the world.

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents
are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

Image free to use via WikiCommons at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alien_in_a_UFO_Cartoon.jpg