Dog Years

Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” – Genesis 18:20-21

They were an ancient and patient race. Sympathetic. Considered. Sarcastic.

The first they knew of us were radio waves which pierced their silence like dilating klaxons. At first, they couldn’t fathom the meaning of those faded, tinny excretions. Their initial thought: a cosmic butt-dial of some distant world’s collective mental breakdown. After prolonged examination, the significance of the messages became clear and, even clearer, what they needed to do about them.

It took time to get psychologically and technologically prepared. There were details to be drawn out. Matters to be pondered.

Through a freak of physics I cannot explain, they reached Earth long before the messages which dispatched them to us. They were a little disappointed when they learned they would have to wait a while for Eurovision and the last season of Succession and for Dr. Pimple Popper but, as mentioned, they were a patient race and took some comfort in having arrived just in time to witness firsthand the legendary fall of Troy.

It was to be their first encounter with humanity’s propensity for exaggeration.

“This shithole?” one of them exclaimed on first sighting the mythical city of horses and discovering it to be a place of meagre towers and ramshackle fortifications, behind whose crumbling walls lay a sprawl of hovels.

“Neither epic nor poetic,” someone remarked.

“A packed lunch might be in order,” another cautioned, indicating the worrying proximity of food preparation to sanitation.

They thought it best not to bust right in. They didn’t quite have the saying “First impressions…” but it was close enough. They brainstormed the best approach and decided to remain in stationary orbit over a different country for fifty years each, and to quietly observe (occasionally shop). They took our word that countries or political states were the best way to chunk the task up. Boy, did they come to regret that.

They held position above us and watched carefully over years which became centuries and centuries which became millennia, waiting for the right moment.

They picked up and discarded accents, nurtured short-lived loyalties in the manner of ardent telenovela devotees (which they would also eventually become) and squandered hope on numerous lost causes (including, eventually, many of the aforementioned telenovelas).

Again and again, they were bemused by our ability to disremember, or to downright forget. They saw whole civilisations lost to memory: Atlantis, Arcadia, dusty old Troy. Again and again, they witnessed reality turned inside-out and history stitched from the torn lining.

“Do these people write anything down?” they frequently wondered.

They never failed to be impressed by our ability to bend the truth, to sweep inconvenience beneath the most conveniently located carpet and to normalise the most extraordinary fuck ups.

Many of our greatest achievements, they viewed with distrust or scorn. Despite having had a ringside seat for the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal, they could only view these projects the way we might a child’s meandering sandcastles: estates driven by ego rather than necessity.

“Hanging, my arse,” one concluded acidly.

“Oooh,” another cooed, “you can see it from all the way up here.”

“Not at all a massive waste of bricks,” someone deadpanned.

They were stationed over Britain during the industrial revolution and watched with contained alarm as six million tonnes of coal was ripped from the ground each day to feed mankind’s growing appetite for boiling water.

“You can see why they might think this is a good idea,” one noted.

“What could go wrong?” another sighed.

They saw Hitler coming from miles away. Literally.

“The facial hair doesn’t exactly scream stability,” one observed.

They were not overly fond of wars or revolutions. Not that they were squeamish; it just meant a lot of re-work. All that coming apart, then coming back together, resulted in devilish admin. Political pacts and alliances meant more red tape. The Foedus Cassianum, Treaty of Versailles, the EU; each gave them pause but, in the end, they stuck to their guns and to fifty years per country.

In this way, they’d covered sixty-four countries and had been over the sixty-fifth, Ireland, for about forty-five years when word came through.

It was time.

Mary and Dessie were given the assignment and they took a small craft down to the surface, coming in low over the Irish capital.

“Should I engage the cloaking device?” Dessie asked.

“Have you seen their air force?” Mary said.

They landed on the grounds of the official residence of the President of Ireland but not before they’d made a spectacular pass over North Dublin.  A group of young men in loose-fitting leisurewear (embellished with the branding of a mid-table American basketball team none of them had ever seen play) briefly suspended their assault on two German tourists to allow their jaws tip wordlessly open as the silver craft banked overhead with a loud, satisfying whine.

By the time they disembarked, a hurried cordon had been thrown around the craft, which Dessie had parked somewhat inelegantly between a waterless fountain and a stone bench on the large front lawn of the estate. A steady stream of curious citizens trespassed onto the parklands along the northern boundary, edging closer with each minute, as news of the visitors spread.

A local news crew had been diverted from interviewing dog walkers about the amount of dog shit on surrounding pavements in the nearby Phoenix Park and now perched at the opening of the cordon, hand-combing windblown hair and assembling game-faces while allowing themselves full-contact daydreams about Sky News discovering them and the opportunity this might afford to invite Mister Feeney, their dictatorial news director, to stick his maggoty job sideways up his hole.

The president, a short, ancient, scholarly man with a friendly face but accusatory eyes which lurked beneath scurrying eyebrows, tarried on the edge of the lawn, torn between a sudden clench of self-preservation (spawned by vivid recollections of sensationalist Cold War films in which proxy commies in rubber alien outfits rampaged through cities with ray guns) and a bone-deep drive to fulfill his solemn duty as welcomer-in-chief. With a stoicism born of a hundred rugby international red-carpet greetings he came down on the side of duty.

The president was flanked by his wife, the first lady, and his aide-de-camp, a military woman with a serious, square face, thick angry eyebrows and a ceremonial sword which she stroked mercilessly.

The president’s wife, a sturdy, astute Cork woman, piloted her husband with the merest contact to his elbow, weaving a delicate path through growing numbers of police, soldiers and officials as a long liquidy gangplank telescoped out from the silver craft and the two occupants made their way slowly and carefully down the ramp towards them.

The visitors appeared to be a regular man and a woman in their late twenties, dressed in what the president would have called “casual attire” if he hadn’t thought it might earn a tired eye-roll from his wife. The president’s wife recognized the female visitor’s blouse as one she’d considered for her own daughter’s birthday during a shopping trip on Grafton Street a few weeks earlier.

“Céad míle fáilte,” the president said, bowing somewhat pompously as the two lithe, youthful-looking figures reached them.

“Go raibh míle maith agat,” Mary answered in stumbling Leaving Cert Irish.

Dessie smiled and whispered something to Mary but she cut him off with a silent elbow to the ribs.

“You speak our native language?” the president asked, somewhat confused but permitting his face to emit only professional delight.

“Just at an Irish level,” Mary answered with an impertinent wink.

“Excuse me?” the president said.

“That was a joke,” Mary said. “I meant badly. Like everyone else here.”

“Ah, right,” the president said with a nervous laugh. He was a proud Gaeilgeoir but wasn’t sure his beloved cultural heritage warranted a full-blown inter-galactic diplomatic incident so he pumped a curious, jolly smile into his face and said, “Very good. I’m glad to see you share our…” he hesitated, “Earthling sense of humour.”

The visitors exchanged a brief smirk and the president’s wife observed a florid diffusion in her husband’s cheeks.

“Well,” Mary said, “You might say we are distant kin of yours.”

“Might you,” the aide-de-camp said, directing an incredulous look towards the president who was too busy casting his hands in small, delighted circles to notice. His wife tightened her smile patiently. She loved her husband but this was his second seven-year term and sometimes she wondered if she hadn’t married into an intricately stitched straight jacket.

Timid introductions were made. The president’s wife noted the visitors’ accents: the female’s an inner-city crumble, less frequently heard in recent years; the male’s a ringing specimen of the west Dublin twang; machiney and discordant.

“I must say,” the president remarked excitedly, “I was expecting you to have more…exotic names.”

“Those names are very exotic where we come from,” Mary said.

“Ah, of course,” the president said, trying to recall some alien names from what little science fiction he’d seen or read but only coming up with “R2-D2”.

“We like to adapt ourselves to local customs wherever we go,” Dessie explained. “We’re very…” he cast about for the right word, “adaptable.”

Mary rolled her eyes and shrugged apologetically.

“Those names were all the rage when we came to Ireland first, in the early 80s,” she said. “These days,” she offered a small shrug, “not so much.”

“The 1980s?” the president’s wife exclaimed. “You’ve been observing humankind since then?”

“Since long before then,” Mary said. “That was only when we came to this country to observe your people more closely.”

The aide-de-camp fixed Mary with a baleful look.

“I suppose,” she grumbled, “you’re the ones going around the place abducting innocent folks and subjecting the poor craters to cavity searches and mind probes and who-knows-what indignities.”

“I can assure you,” Mary said, “we’ve no interest in abducting you and even less interest in your cavities.”

“Must be someone else,” Dessie assured them.

The first lady wafted the aide-de-camp’s remarks away with the back of a hand and gave Mary — what she hoped might be — a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“J’know, I can’t believe you’ve been here since the 80s,” she said. “Sure, you don’t look a day over twenty-five, dear.”

Mary’s lips lingered in a smile.

“Well, you should see the daily beauty regimen I have to go through to look like this.”

When the introductions had been completed and small-talk indulged, the president suppressed thoughts of ray gun-toting aliens blowing his beautiful furniture to smithereens and gestured towards the Greek-style portico, saying, “Won’t you come inside?”

The small group made their way past official seals, lithographs and stately pictures, acquiring more unsmiling security and glum secretarial staff as they moved further into the building. The aide-de-camp stroked the brass hilt of her sword urgently now as she entertained visions of alien necks careering against its blade and springing into the air like popped champagne corks. She tipped the silver scabbard forward and back in time to her metronomic step, like the implacable arm of a grandfather clock.

When they were seated around the large conference table, food and drink was offered but Mary waved it away.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, “but we have something very important to speak to you about.”

“We’re all ears, as the Americans say” the president said with a modest guffaw, his palms upturned inoffensively.

“No doubt, the Americans will be along very soon,” Mary said with a bitter smile. “As will others. This matter affects everyone.” She unclasped her hands and spread them on the table and looked around the room. “Very well. To get right to the point, we are here to let you know that your time is come.”

There was a collective gasp among the presidential party, security staff, dignitaries, secretaries and service staff.

An unpretentious tea lady from the Northside of Dublin was in the process of filling the president’s cup. She looked up suddenly and said, “Ya bleedin’ wha’?”

The misdirected teapot scalded the president’s hand and he released a shrill yelp.

“Watch what you’re doing, Molly,” the president’s wife scolded as the president hurried the meat of his hand into his gob and the maid withdrew the pot, staring fixedly at Mary with her mouth tipped open.

“What do you mean, our time is come?” the aide-de-camp prodded.

“I’m sorry for putting it so crudely,” Mary said with a shrug. “Our leaders felt, given your history, the message might carry more weight if we used stark, biblical language. What I mean is: the human race is to be destroyed. In precisely seven days.”

A new collective gasp surpassed the first in volume and participation.

“Destroyed?” the president said removing his burnt hand and emitting a nervous purl of laughter. “This must be an elaborate joke. Why would you want to destroy the human race?”

“To prevent a fate worse than death,” Mary said.

“What fate could be worse than the death of billions of humans?” the president asked prodding his burnt hand delicately.

“The fate which will happen if humans remain on their current path,” Mary said.

“And what fate is that?” the president’s wife asked, wetting a napkin in a glass of water and dabbing blindly at the burn on her husband’s hand.

“Untold suffering for humans and the total destruction of all life on this planet,” Mary said as Dessie provided an accompaniment of tight-lipped nodding.

“That’s a bit vague,” the aide-de-camp said.

“I doubt you’d enjoy us being more specific,” Dessie said with a wink.

“How can you be so certain that this is our fate?” the president’s wife asked.

“Because,” Mary said, “where we come from, this has already happened.”

“Happened?” the president said, almost in a daze. “To whom has this happened?”

Mary pointed at him and then allowed her finger to roam about the room,

“To everyone here. To all of you. It was—will be —a global event.”

“But that can’t be.” the president spluttered. “That’s simply incredible.”

The aide-de-camp’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” she said.

“You don’t,” Mary answered, “but whether you believe it or not will have little impact on whether it happens. What we are proposing is the only humane option available. Your destruction is happening one-way-or-another. I think you know this.” She looked around the table. “Deep down, you all know we speak the truth.”

A few people among the wider staff allowed their faces to sink into devastation. Some stood rigid with anger. Most slumped in naked awe, unable to process what they had just heard.

“Wait,” the president’s wife said. “Does that mean you’ve travelled back in time? Doesn’t that also mean you can go back in time again and change the course of history to avoid this disaster?”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,” Mary said.

Dessie nodded glumly.

“Time is a tricky one,” he said, “and time travel a very tricky one. It’s not like your movies. Unpredictable as hell. For example, we’ve been here much longer than we’d intended to be.”

“How long, exactly?” the aide-de-camp asked.

Mary and Dessie exchanged a look and Mary nodded her consent.

“Thirteen or fourteen thousand years,” Dessie said. “Give or take a few hundred years.”

“Fourteen thousand years!” the aide-de-camp gasped. “For fuck’s sake. Why haven’t you warned us about this before now?”

“We have tried in many ways,” Mary said, “but you appear to need to be on the brink of destruction before you pay a blind bit of attention to the reality sitting right under your noses.”

A burst of static came from a red-faced man with a blonde crew cut and a white earpiece and he leaned into the president and whispered something which lifted him out of his seat.

“POTUS?” the president said breathlessly and the red-faced man turned a shade redder as he nodded carefully.

The president sped excitedly to the windows, as though the leader of the free world might suddenly spring from behind the emerald green curtains. He performed a rushed, unpersuasive chortle and pointed out the lights of various news helicopters as they dipped and clattered over the nearby parkland.

“You’ve certainly got our attention now,” he said, turning to them, his face a mask of grim determination. “The world will listen. Humankind will change. I’m absolutely certain of it, given this second chance.”

“I’m afraid not,” Mary said with a curt shake of her head. “Your destruction is inevitable. This is just us giving you a chance to make peace with your end.”

The group stared back at her in silence and disbelief and with the helpless anger of those who feel certain they have been cheated by fate.

Mary looked at Dessie and they exchanged a silent nod.

“Our leaders thought you might struggle to accept our message,” Mary said. “They felt a parable from your bible might be apt and may help to explain the severity of the situation you face: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah; two ancient cities which brought destruction upon themselves through their own actions and inactions. I believe most of you will be familiar with that story?”

“Of course,” the president said, “the Cities of the Plain in which God—”

“Oh, shut up Maurice,” his wife scolded, “and let them speak.”

“Thanks,” Mary said, “but, to be honest, I didn’t have much to add. We just wanted to establish the reference in your minds. We’re not big on unnecessary elaboration.”

The president fidgeted nervously with his good hand. Like most Irish people of his generation, he was more than a little familiar with those passages of the bible. It was a tale which had scalded many a young mind, including his own.

“But that story talked about terrible evil,” he said in an imploring tone. “Irredeemable evil. Surely that doesn’t apply in our case. Humanity has made some mistakes, I’ll grant you, but we have so much potential for good.”

“Unfortunately,” Mary said firmly, “it is your potential for destruction which you seem to have fulfilled.”

“That’s rather harsh,” the president said belligerently. “Humans have done incredible things. Music. Poetry. Literature—”

Mary cut him off with a raised hand.

“Yes, yes, incredible things, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re…” she hesitated, searching for the right words.

Dessie nipped in.

“A bag of fucking spanners.”

“I was going to say terrifying procrastinators,” Mary said, “but that works too.” She turned to the president. “I’m afraid we are not philosophers or debaters. Our people are relatively plain-spoken and among them we are considered direct. We were chosen because it was felt we understood your culture best and might have a better chance of being listened to.”

“What will happen in seven days?” the president’s wife asked, the simplicity of her question and the terror in her voice provoking a sudden silence in the room.

“Don’t worry,” Mary said, “it’ll be very peaceful. You’ll barely know it’s happening. It will be as though you’re being swept away in a storm of sweet ecstasy.”

“Jesus but don’t you make global euthanasia sound fierce comforting altogether?” the aide-de-camp muttered bitterly.

The president’s wife had been raised on the same terrifying Old Testament stories as her husband and struggled to contain images of fire and sulphur raining down on them but, in that moment, the biblical reference suddenly offered a chink of light. She held a single index finger aloft to register her thought.

“In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah,” she said with something approaching a litigious tone, “didn’t God give the citizens a chance of redemption if his angels could find just fifty good people?”

Dessie nudged Mary but she shook her head as she swished an outstretched index finger decisively before the first lady’s nose.

“Oh no, no,” she admonished, “you’re not pulling that ‘fifty good men’ shite.”

She indicated Dessie with a flick of her forehead, “Sure, this eejit would spare the lot of ye just to save Lionel Bloody Messi. No, no, no. We’re not going down that road.”

Dessie shared a sympathetic frown.

“It’s not like we’re happy about the situation,” he explained with a shrug. “We’ve become very attached to you and your ways. I mean, I’m only three seasons into Breaking Bad and my team just got a new manager. We might finally get somewhere.”

“For Christ’s sake,” the aide-de-camp muttered bitterly, “mankind’s fate is in the hands of fucking Man U fans and we all know they’d rather the world end than see them relegated.” She glared at Dessie, “Which they fucking will.”

“Caroline!” the president scolded his aide-de-camp. “These people are still our guests.”

“Sorry, sir,” the aide-de-camp said as she comforted herself with the molded end of her sword.

“It’s okay,” Dessie said with a shrug. “She’s probably right about United facing the drop.”

Mary waved her hands for calm.

“I am sorry,” she said, “but this is the only way to avoid the terrible conditions which will occur if we don’t intervene. You have seven days. I’m afraid there isn’t much more to say. Of course, we’re happy to reiterate the same message to your television cameras.”

“Do you think you could hold on a few hours?” the president said, looking nervously at his watch. “The American president is on his way.”

“I’m afraid not,” Mary said.

The president’s wife looked around the room at the growing despair and confusion.

She rose and held her hands out for silence, then faced Mary.

“I believe you,” she said, with tears rolling down her cheeks. “I believe every word you’ve said. You’re right about us. We can’t seem to stop ourselves acting stupidly. To anyone sane, we must seem hell-bent on our own destruction.”

Mary nodded quietly to Dessie who nodded back as the president’s wife continued.

“But we deserve more than seven days to make peace with our end. If you are as straightforward and honest as you say, you’ll have to admit that’s fair.”

Mary seemed to consider for a moment.

“How long do you suggest we give you to make a good end?” she asked.

Without hesitation, the president’s wife said, “A year.”

The rest of the group exchanged questioning looks and the president’s wife cast an interrogating look back but no one seemed able or willing to provide a correction to her timeline.

“A year?” Mary repeated and she looked at Dessie who bobbed his head in consideration.

The president’s wife completed her scan of the room and nodded somberly but certainly.

“Give us a year to make a good end,” she said.

Mary rose.

“We are not negotiators, nor are we empowered to make this decision, but I will take your request to those who are and we will provide an answer within twenty-four hours.”

“How will we know if you’ve agreed?” the president’s wife asked.

Mary gave an ironic smile.

“We will give you a sign,” she said with a light chuckle. “If we agree to your proposal then you will see a red sky at sunset tomorrow evening.”

“A red sky at night is a common occurrence this time of year,” the president said. “How could we be sure it was your signal?”

Mary smiled again.

“I doubt you will have seen a red sky like this one,” she said, “and I doubt a red sky everywhere is a common occurrence. There shouldn’t be any doubt.”

They held their press conference. By this time, reporters from television stations across the world had gathered and the words of the visitors went out live around the globe.

The American ambassador was keen to revisit the timelines. His team suggested detaining the visitors — by force, if necessary — until the matter could be thoroughly unpicked but this was politely rebuked by the Irish presidential staff and, with the cameras of the world’s press filming them, the small group made their way back through the crowd towards the visitors’ craft. As if by magic, the silver ramp extended from the ship and touched the grass in front of the party.

The president’s wife hugged the visitors. Tears jeweled her eyes but she retained a determined look. She pressed Mary’s hands lightly in her own.

“If we can change in this year, can disaster still be averted?”

Mary looked at her with pity.

“You have the means,” she said, “but it is unlikely that you will change. It’s better you make your peace with it. Whatever happens, you will not see us again so I’ll say goodbye now.”

“All the best,” Dessie said and he pumped the president’s limp arm.

The visitors waved once and walked up the gangplank through a salvo of camera flashes as the beams from overhead helicopters sliced the thickening gloom as though portioning the very air above them.

The silver ramp disappeared into the craft and a low drone built as the ship slowly rose into the air above them and spun in a light smooth manner that could not be confused with any human vehicle. The disk bobbled in the air with a fluttering ethereality before surging suddenly into the sky and vanishing in the dark thunderheads which had formed above.

Every word that had been spoken was reported and analysed in minute detail in the hours and days that followed.

The American president, along with other world leaders, arrived in Ireland soon afterwards and an emergency summit of countries was hastily convened. The general consensus was that the Irish officials had handled the situation terribly. The Americans, in particular, castigated their hosts for the meek surrender of a one-year extension.

“Fucking amateurs!” their officials lamented. “The opening pitch should have been ten years minimum. And how the hell did nobody mention money?”

“It wasn’t that type of discussion,” one Irish official protested.

“It’s always that type of discussion,” her American counterpart replied.

But, for all the debate and self-important statements, all watched nervously as the sun set the following evening and crimson streaks filled the sky across the world, as though the sun were a gigantic blob of paint wiped across the firmament by a huge inestimable hand.

Theologians and scholars scrutinised the visitors’ reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. Much focus was given to the use of that story rather than — what many felt would have been — the more fitting tale of the great flood and Noah’s Ark. It was cogently argued by some parties that the visitors had chosen very carefully in order to send a clear message for humanity to get away as fast as possible. Noah, they argued, had taken his time, constructing a vessel enormous enough to contain samples of every animal as well as humanity so that the world could be rebuilt. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, only Lott and his immediate family were evacuated and this was done with great haste and at the last possible second.

Despite this, several Ark-like projects were initiated by tech billionaires with the goal of saving mankind, or more specifically, themselves, along with those tiny portions of mankind which might prove useful to a tech billionaire fleeing a doomed planet. Each contemplated the long hibernation necessary to reach distant, uninhabitable rocks with minimal potential for life and all considered the security of their person and their holdings during such a hibernation. Very little consideration was given to more practical concerns or to the fate of those who had no recourse to a tech billionaire. Nor did any of them attempt to save any other species. The visitors had been ambiguous about the prospects for other creatures and this had established a moral vacuum on the matter into which mankind poured their apathy.

The concept of dog years took hold with many people. This was the idea that one could minimize sleep and use each second of each day more productively to eke out more value from the limited time we had. As with all human undertakings, it was carried out obsessively and profitably. Dog years became a huge industry with plans, training courses, gurus, TV shows and all manner of proselytising. To all intents and purposes, it became a new religion.

Religions themselves — that is, the more established ones — felt strongly vindicated by these events. Priests and proponents relished the opportunity to say “I told you so” on a global scale but it was something of a pyrrhic victory. Imminent apocalypse had always been more useful when it was less imminent.

Some efforts were made to change mankind’s path but these remained fragmented and unpopular. Again, the visitors were blamed for being too vague about what needed to change and many governments argued that the lack of specificity was proof that climate change, rampant consumerism or other obvious ills had never been the issue. More coordinated effort was put into the construction of sophisticated weaponry to enable humans to turn the tables on the visitors when they — so to speak — attempted to call time on us. Air forces and militaries spent huge quantities of time, money and effort scanning the skies above and launching physical and electronic attacks at sections of the atmosphere suspected of harboring enemy spacecraft. They were supported in this by a small residue of tech billionaires; those not busy planning their escape from the planet or who hadn’t already decamped to New Zealand in the misbegotten notion that changing their zip code and getting a new passport might spare them. These various maneuvers must have recalled for the visitors that legendary event — which they had witnessed first-hand — of Emperor Caligula’s troops futilely beating back the waves of the English Channel with their swords.

Governments sent communications heavenward demanding more time or threatening legal action or sharing fudged statistics demonstrating mankind’s steady progress towards net zero, reforestation, world peace or any other targets they felt might sway the visitors. No reply was forthcoming and, as the year progressed, these upward communications became more desperate and self-aggrandising.

For the majority of people in the world, however, surprisingly little changed. A year was an impossible horizon for those who did not know where their next sip of water would come from or when they might have their next mouthful of food. Also, for those who wondered when they might feel the next sudden kick through a thin, wet sleeping bag, the next rape, the next beating, the next honour killing. For these people, life continued as it was before. For these people, the end of the world was just another unaffordable luxury.

Of course, the president’s wife was widely vilified for her role in events. Numerous conspiracy theories circulated online and in the pages of sensational publications, accusing her of having been in league with the visitors from the beginning. She was globally decried as a double-agent who had sold out humanity to save herself and her family.

The president’s wife cared little for these lies. With her husband, she retired from public life. Their daughter made the bold decision to have a baby with her partner and it was as if the daughter’s body understood the great need for haste, because she became pregnant at the first attempt and, although her son was born two weeks premature, he was pink and healthy and went home the very next day.

They named the baby Cervantes after the author of his mother’s favourite book, and the president’s wife, along with her husband, moved in with her daughter.

Apart from his initial punctuality, baby Cervantes did not conform to the script demanded by the limited timescales. By day he was sweet and cherubic but, as the sunlight waned, he transformed into a despot and a sadist. All household members were called into action to walk, rock and coo the tiny screaming dictator into an unattainable sleep. They no longer spoke of dates or calendars anymore and, in their own exhausted way, found the dog years others craved.

Sometimes, when the president’s wife saw her daughter with Cervantes, she wondered if they would all have been better off if she’d not asked for the extension, if it might have been easier to accept a single week to make their peace with everything, but she quickly dismissed these thoughts and joined her daughter and together they smiled and cooed at the child and spoke of a future that would never be. As all people must.

Feature Image: Mark Bryan, Prime Directives.