Uplift Downturn

Uplift Downturn

By Mantis

I'd been intrigued from day one. Although, day one, in this instance, was not the day that they'd arrived. It was the day when I learned of the marvel they'd built here not long after.

Beings from outer space, they were. They had journeyed across the vastness of space, as I understand it, searching far and wide into the most remote corners of the galaxy. A search for life, they'd said.

On their ubiquitous scopes and instruments, they explained how they'd detected the brilliance of human sentience emanating from glorious Earth; had picked up a richness of wavelengths and prodigious broadcasts radiating from our direction; and as they drew closer, spied the myriad metallic orbitals of satellites and space refuse swirling about Earth's vicinity like so many bees around a hive. And with rapt excitement, they had set course for our fertile little planet so that they could meet us.

***

I am a man down on my luck. It shames me to tell you that I have been living on the streets, sleeping in back alleys or atop subway vents gusting hot steam to warm my bones, and scavenging for meals for nearly a decade now.

I have decayed as a human, grown long in tasseled locks of greasy hair and tangles of unruly beard, and have become uncaring to the perpetual state of dirt and filth which covers the rags that I wear.

But the shame comes only now, as I tell you of my station in life, for to tell these things, one must face one's self, must look in the mirror, and it is no proud thing to make you aware of what I've become.

But I've also grown in apathy. Long since have the rigors of self blame, the drunken searches for explanations of what has led me here, withered away, where now all that remains is a shell of a man, a broken creature who wonders at nothing more profound than simply why he hasn't died yet.

But such a man, low and far removed from society as I am, is not without means to know of the world around him. Discarded newspapers used as sleeping covers and old magazines found in dumpsters still contain their reports, as do news scrolls on grand marquees in Times Square and news casts running on TVs in electronic store windows. I've become a savage, I admit, one concerned only with basic survival - but I am a man, nonetheless, still able to be aware of current events.

And so I followed the alien intrigue.

Then came day one. That was the day that I read a story concerning the alien's new structure, amazingly built in three days, yet rivaling in magnificence structures such as the Empire State building or the once grandeur of the now horribly tortured and deceased World Trade Center.

They had built this structure, this building, not only as a base of operations, a living space and a research lab for their study of us, but also as a museum for us, a place were we could wander high-ceilinged halls and marvel at exhibits featuring the wonders of their culture, take a virtual stroll through their proud, ancient civilization.

Perhaps most interesting of all, they'd reported to us that within this building was an amusement park of sorts, and particularly, up on the 17th floor, a construct of magnificent wonder was housed, the pride of their achievement, utilizing their most sophisticated and advanced technologies. The Portal, they called it.

From day one, the day I learned of this 17th floor attraction, this Portal, no more was my goal in life to simply survive another day. No longer was the apathy - until then, so firmly rooted in me - to be left unchecked, to be allowed to continue festering and squashing all ambition.

I dredged my tired bones up out of the gutter, brushed off the guilt and self loathing, and strode with purpose to that shining beacon of wonderment, that alien construct on the 17th floor which had seized my fancy.

With gray-toned skin and spindly arms and legs, these aliens accepted me with expressions on their thin, elongated faces that bespoke kindness and mirth, and never once did they scorn me for my wretched appearance or the fetid stench that wafted from my body. It was only the five others who I'd joined on the elevator who did so. But I must say that with the recent shedding of my apathy, I experienced an emotion long forgotten, was weighed upon by a sense of shame. I felt sorry for them - that they had to share that elevator with one such as myself.

As it turned out, the elevator itself was actually part of the Portal. It opened on the 17th floor, and out into a red-skyed world we deployed. It was a meadow of sorts covered with tall black grass bending back and forth against a stiff, strangely fragranced wind.

We were met by more aliens there who greeted us kindly. The juxtaposition between their kindly nature and their being armed to the teeth with hideously powerful and advanced looking weaponry did not quite register on us in the face of finding ourselves suddenly in such strange, alien environs. They led us through that morose yet enchanting meadow, and I could smell petroleum upon the air when we neared a stream flowing thick, black-ish brown.

***

I sit here now writing this journal, in a cage littered with a flooring of damp, rotting black straw, me and the five others. They are getting along worse than me, much worse, ambitious and vital and alive as they were in their lives on Earth before stepping into the Portal.

For me, the squalor and filth of this cage is simply a return to the familiar, to that which I've known for so long now. I feel at home inside it.

But I do so wish I could be alone - to be away from the others, away from their shrieking and crying and pleading. It is not a pleasant thing to hear.

Apart from that, I'm enjoying the view from this cage, set momentarily upon this embankment overlooking a stunning, alien valley below, shimmering with foliage painted in tones of blacks and browns under a wine-colored sky, until we get under way again.

I await now for them to take me to the plant where my body is to be processed into meat snacks. I am told that my protein level is well sufficient for use in their athletic energy bars. The Portal, that fantastical marvel of engineering that on day one seized my curiosity, held for me the promise of newfound purpose in life, a new beginning devoid of apathetical drudgery, and for all its technological wonder, sadly turned out to be nothing more than one very fancy, very high-tech snare.

And I tell you all, if ever this journal is somehow to survive and pass hands: Oh, how I do so adore the return of my sweet sweet apathy.