Some Short Fiction Fer Ye
Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on September 9, 1956. Radio waves transmitted that night have traveled roughly 316,747,584,000,000 miles into space. Elvis has so far reached 133 stars. Eventually, inevitably, Elvis will appear on the television screens of a distant alien world. The inhabitants of this world will communicate through movement. His dancing will take on meaning there. His pelvis will thrust and hips will gyrate anew. It will be, at first, obscene. It will be a message of rebellion that appeals to their pupae and larvae, which the imago will despise. It will challenge the old religions and social mores. They will celebrate the wisdom in our accidental philosophy, and their linguists will argue that we must have been observing them for some time in order to have learned and mastered their language.
They will send their questions into the sky, toward Elvis: Antennae straightened, thorax bent forward, feet 1, 3 and 6 tapping aggressively, which translates roughly into English as, "Why do we exist? Why do we die? Is there an afterlife?" And Elvis, unlike our God, will answer them. He will answer them in disco.
John Travolta's hand travels back and forth with the cadence of the Bee Gees, knee wobbling in fulfillment of the Elvis prophecies, but brimming with new revelations in every consonant and vowel of his vibrating body. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother," and so on.
Some will say that John Travolta is the only begotten son of Elvis, sent to Rydell High School to date Sandy Olsen that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life. Others will keep to the old ways, convinced that Travolta's dance moves are too disparate from Elvis' to be reconciled. Mandibles snapping open and shut, pedipalp swaying, telson slapping the ground. "He is a great man, but he is only a man."
The wars will be inevitable. Forgetting that at the core of both doctrines lies a message of peace, love and forgiveness, the creatures will begin to destroy one another. Apocryphal VHS bootlegs will surface, criticized as fakes by the opposing sides. Elvis kissing his cousin. John Travolta trading faces with Nicholas Cage, then trying to murder him.
In the final moments of the last war, some desperate affiliation of peace activists will broadcast a new transmission received that day, fifty years after the Ed Sullivan show first came down from on high. And every soldier will drop his rifle, and rise up from the filthy trenches to stand beside his brother. And every segment of every compound eye will fall upon Dancing With the Stars, where Kate Gosselin completes the Holy Trinity. She spins, one leg lifted and cradled by Tony Dovolani.
But how? Women can't even talk. Their egg sacks are too heavy and their legs shrivel and rot once they are settled into the hive. Do they have a part in Elvis' divine plan? Tony lifts Kate into the air. Her arm rests across his shoulders. She turns away, but their fingers lock to pull them toward one another again. Together, their movements translate in a woman's voice: "Eight larvae have spilled from my eggs, and so you think me a husk. But I have a soul, an interiority which can't be expressed on my power alone. Be the legs of your queen, that she might speak her silenced wisdom."
And they will go to the queen. And they will lift her up. And they will dance with her. And she will speak through them. "Feed me," she will say. "Feed me. I am hungry."
They will send their questions into the sky, toward Elvis: Antennae straightened, thorax bent forward, feet 1, 3 and 6 tapping aggressively, which translates roughly into English as, "Why do we exist? Why do we die? Is there an afterlife?" And Elvis, unlike our God, will answer them. He will answer them in disco.
John Travolta's hand travels back and forth with the cadence of the Bee Gees, knee wobbling in fulfillment of the Elvis prophecies, but brimming with new revelations in every consonant and vowel of his vibrating body. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother," and so on.
Some will say that John Travolta is the only begotten son of Elvis, sent to Rydell High School to date Sandy Olsen that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life. Others will keep to the old ways, convinced that Travolta's dance moves are too disparate from Elvis' to be reconciled. Mandibles snapping open and shut, pedipalp swaying, telson slapping the ground. "He is a great man, but he is only a man."
The wars will be inevitable. Forgetting that at the core of both doctrines lies a message of peace, love and forgiveness, the creatures will begin to destroy one another. Apocryphal VHS bootlegs will surface, criticized as fakes by the opposing sides. Elvis kissing his cousin. John Travolta trading faces with Nicholas Cage, then trying to murder him.
In the final moments of the last war, some desperate affiliation of peace activists will broadcast a new transmission received that day, fifty years after the Ed Sullivan show first came down from on high. And every soldier will drop his rifle, and rise up from the filthy trenches to stand beside his brother. And every segment of every compound eye will fall upon Dancing With the Stars, where Kate Gosselin completes the Holy Trinity. She spins, one leg lifted and cradled by Tony Dovolani.
But how? Women can't even talk. Their egg sacks are too heavy and their legs shrivel and rot once they are settled into the hive. Do they have a part in Elvis' divine plan? Tony lifts Kate into the air. Her arm rests across his shoulders. She turns away, but their fingers lock to pull them toward one another again. Together, their movements translate in a woman's voice: "Eight larvae have spilled from my eggs, and so you think me a husk. But I have a soul, an interiority which can't be expressed on my power alone. Be the legs of your queen, that she might speak her silenced wisdom."
And they will go to the queen. And they will lift her up. And they will dance with her. And she will speak through them. "Feed me," she will say. "Feed me. I am hungry."