ClearView Writing

It was a calm night when it happened, I was walking my dog, an Alsatian called Don, yes named after the Godfather film, cheesy I know, but I was young at the time and more than impressionable.  I was walking down a route I had travelled a thousand times before, a small country lane that led out of my village and past the old abandoned distillery, where tales held that there was still a hidden cache of spirits.  Though if this cache of forgotten alcohol did exists then it still remain hidden, and not for want of children searching.

It seems strange how clearly I can remember wanting to escape the trapped village lifestyle I lived, every day I commuted into London a trip that added 6 hours on to my working day.  It seemed ironic therefore that soon I would crave my old English lifestyle, the boredom and the country side.

It was 5 minutes after I had passed the old distillery that I was walking down an abandoned lane, once it had led to an old hamlet, but people had abandoned it one by one till all but 3 houses remained, all populated by couples nearing the end of their lifespan, and serviced every two days by the grocer who drove his wares down to them.

It was while I was walking down this old country lane, hemmed in by the bushes in the darkness that I came upon the queerest of things.  Two miles distant I could see the old roofs of the near derelict hamlet, but between me and this view there was a large four legged creature floating in mid air.

At first I rubbed my eyes, I knew that I must be hallucinating because not 100 yards in front of me a large cow was floating in mid air.  I approached the surprisingly docile beast cautiously, at first I thought it was stationary, about 6 feet off the ground. But as I approached I could see it was being moved from left to right, backwards and forwards.  It seemed almost searching, if it were not for the fact that the beasts eyes were staring resolutely forward in a trance of boredom.

Infact the cow seemed incredibly calm, considering its legs now dangled four feet above an overgrown but stunted hawthorn hedge.  I approached it with caution, scarce believing this was more than a vivid dream caused by my over consumption of cheese and coffee late at night. I began to think back to if I had thought this before while dreaming, until I remembered that I could not infact remember any of my dreams.  Perhaps I always questioned my own sanity.

Without a doubt it would explain a lot.

Then, with a sharp rush of air the cow was gone, a black an white upwards blur the only indication that it had not just vanished, but shot upwards at incredible speed.

For nearly a minute I stood there gob smacked, unable to comprehend what I had just observed. It was then that I noticed the tugging on my hand, the lead was pulling upwards.  With a feeling of dread I turned around and saw Don floating there, four feet above the ground, swinging slowly from side to side.  After a couple of seconds he started swinging backwards and forwards, “Bugger this” I yelled.

With a grunt of effort I Yanked the lead, and was surprised when he came towards me with ease dragging the beam of light behind him.  Of course this came as nothing compared to the shock of when I felt myself being gently, but firmly held by an invisible force and lifted into the air.  Don was hovering just out of arms reach in front of me, lead hanging limply to the ground.

I felt a sudden peacefulness over take me, I was still conscious, but disconnected from the events happening around me.  I felt the swinging sensation, felt it slow down and centre and then finally there was nothing but the impression of speed.

I had some strange dreams that night, flying cows pervaded my mind while flying dogs swam through the air chasing thrown Frisbees around my subconscious.  During the dreams my mind repeatedly went over the entire day but seemed to circumnavigate the final play.  It even picked up the heavily buttered toast, dripping its golden cholesterol on to the plate below.

Hours must have passed before I awoke with a sudden start, my dream had finally settled on the nights occurrence, the speed of my ascent had not been the calm protected transit I had actually experienced, in my mind I had felt the wind tearing me apart before I hit the upper atmosphere and burned away.

My eyes adjusted to the strange light that filled the room, it seemed to emanate from the walls around me, removing shadows and giving everything a soft blue tinted glow. The room itself was sparse, with strange implements scattered over various surfaces. The room temperature was a warm comfortable, making him sleepy but content at the same time.

As I rose from the surprisingly soft featureless surface which had been my bed i spotted three things on three different tables.  One had vegetables, one had slabs of red meat and the other with fresh fish, all of them were

raw.  i staggered to my feet, the smell of fish making me just a tad nauseous in the room temperature heat.  I was hungry though, and while the meat and the fish couldn’t be eaten raw the mound of vegetables, with a few bits of fruit scattered around now looked incredibly tempting. 

As I reached over to grab some of the greenery, my mouth salivating at the thought of food, the other two tables shot into the ground, contents and all disappearing into the floor beneath.  It was weird as hell, but as I looked down I could just see the final remnants of the meat sinking below the floor, as if it was jelly.

With the care and attention of a man who seriously thinks he is starting to lose his mind I started to explore the sparse room around me.  There was most certainly a door, it was recessed into the wall and had a strange glittering control panel besides it

On some of the tables there were small heavy objects, I picked one of these up and shook it gently, my mind cracked just a little further when the black ball extended a small lens towards me before pushing itself away from me with 10 spindly legs which protruded suddenly from it’s underbelly.  With a rattle of irritation the bizarre minute thing ran into the corner of the room and retracted itself back in to the ball shape.

My eye twitched, not by much, just a little.  It was at this point that I decided to pull myself together and resolve this situation in a proper human way.

I was becoming a little tired, after 30 minutes of bashing the door control panel with the small droid my arms were becoming weak, the door panel seemed resolutely unaffected, it also seemed that the little robot had not been damaged, though it was shouting constantly in a language I did not understand,

Eventually I succumbed and dropped the robot which scurried off into a corner and returned to it’s ball like shape, muttering to itself in a quiet electronic hum.  I looked once again around the room, but seeing nothing else of interest I fell in to a deep sleep.

After god knows how long I re-awoke to find two figures standing over me. Each one was a shimmering silver and near 7 feet tall, their bodies flexed like a snakes.  The one on the left had even curled his body slightly in the middle, hiving his upper half a slight bouncing motion when he moved.  Each face, and oh god each face, had Three eyes positioned in a symmetrical triangle.  Each one also had 5 holes scattered around, with the largest one being more central and forming what could loosely be called ‘lips’

I stared in awe, there was very little chance I was still in Berkley. 

Eventually the Aliens spoke in a voice that scattered across the ears like a whisper, yet reached the brain like a crescendo.

“THIS is the superior animal on the planet?” it spoke

“The predicted IQ seems to be 300 lower than the feline specimen we picked up, and 700 lower than the bovine.”

I was, despite myself fairly annoyed by this.  According to these pumped up glistening freak shows I was less than half as intelligent as a cat. I voiced these words, quiet feverently.

All I received was a sigh an “Still using only oral communication to convey emotions, this specimen may as well be disposed of, the bovine however must be negotiated with.

“Disposed of? Disposed of?! What about my dog?!” I yelled

“Ahhh the canine, barely 230 IQ points of intelligence, and very little promise of reaching advanced science”

“Wha—“ was as far as I got before the door slid, or rather I should say oozed back into its closed state

With a near silent click I began to descend into the ground panicking slightly I struggled to remove my feet, but the substance held me firm.  The strange casing rose surprisingly quickly up my body, first encasing my body and slowly taking the rest of my torso, as it rose it pinned my arms down by my sides and continued over my head.

 “Disposed of!” I thought, my mind slipping through all the possibilities, pumped into the vacuum of space, burnt alive or entombed forever in this strange ships casing, what if the casing was dead beings!

The truth was much, much worse.  I descended through the ships interior, encased in this strange cocoon.  The limited space containing my air remained fresh, though I was not sure how.  My initial panic had subdued slightly, there was nothing I could do.  With dim terror now rolling over me I realised shame faced that I had urinated during my earlier panic, for some reason this troubled me more than my impending death.

It was not long however till the panic started to rise again though, through the casing I could see rising towards me no furnace, no space, but the lane that I had left behind some two miles below me.  The scene became clearer and clearer until finally, still in a cocoon I dropped.

This was no gentle trip to the ground, the cocoon had no streamlined features curving it’s exterior.  I was flipped and spun as I dropped at a dangerously increasing velocity.  The road rushed towards me head first, in the last split second it felt like I had nearly a minute to inspect the intricate details of the grave inches away, a somehow beautiful but deadly combination in the form of a road I had walked a thousand times before.

The next part I do not fully understand, my shell of a cocoon stretched out a further few inches, I saw it grow in front of me, this hit the ground and turned my cocoon sideways, sending it spinning down the lane.  After about 100 yards the cocoon split and I rolled out onto the dusty deserted lane.

I slowly staggered to my feet before being violently sick.

“That”  I paused for a second. 

“Was disturbing” I finished

“You can say that again” said my dog, which must have landed some seconds earlier.

I watched him shake his coat and wander off into the bushes.