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G. O. Clark's writing has been published in Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog, Talebones Magazine, Strange Horizons, Space & Time, A Sea Of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock, Tales Of The Talisman, and many other publications. He's the author of eleven poetry collections, the two most recent, White Shift, 2012, Sam's Dot Publishing, and, Scenes Along the Zombie Highway, 2013, Dark Regions Press. His fiction collection, The Saucer Under My Bed & Other Stories, was published by Sam's Dot Publishing in 2011. He won the Asimov's Readers Award for poetry in 2001, and has been a repeat Rhysling and Stoker Award nominee. He's retired, and lives in Davis, CA.
Visit GOClarkPoet.weebly.com for more info.
On this day in February 2020, first contact was made with an alien kind. More specifically, a Volkswagen bug-sized flying saucer landed on a Little League baseball diamond, and Cupid stepped out; buck naked, pink bow and arrow clutched in his pudgy little hands; wearing an impish smile upon his pudgy pink face.
His robot co-pilot, Obay, stayed inside the saucer, instructed to monitor the encounter with the humans and keep a channel open to the home world.
Of course the saucer was surrounded by police and military personnel, there to protect and defend humankind. And as previously rehearsed in past alien invasion movies and books, they followed the script and opened fire on the pink little alien with everything they had.
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Poor Cupid's wings were shredded, his pink pudgy body filled with enough lead to sink a small boat, and his head pulverized like a watermelon after being dropped from the roof of a tall building.
As for the flying saucer and secreted robot? After a couple of missiles there wasn't enough left to even attempt an FAA reconstruction, let alone ship to Area 51. Any chance of reverse engineering died on that Little League pitching mound.
The perceived threat from the little pink man clutching a bow and arrow, the mythical messenger of love from the planet Eros, or wherever, was yet another classic example of official overkill by the trigger-happy powers that be. History and mythology are full of said encounters.
Most of the civilian onlookers were truly shocked by the violent encounter, many openly tearing up after the smoke had cleared. The police and military personnel stood around stunned and confused at first. Then a few started arguing over who actually made the kill, while the rest awaited further orders. Many left the playing field empty-hearted.
The media spun the story every which way but true. Film clips and photos where doctored to reflect the paranoia of their viewing audience when it comes to aliens and fear of the unknown in general. A made-for-TV film script was in the hands of a TV producer within a few days of the actual events.
Astrologers started posting only negative love-life horoscopes shortly after the massacre.
The world watched and waited, and waited, and waited. But to this day, there have been no more alien encounters. Nothing moves in the sky but earth-made hardware.
As the sun set on that Valentine's Day in 2020, couples both straight and gay gazed into each other's eyes--empty chocolate boxes, champagne glasses, and dying roses scattered all around them--forgot why they were there, what they were talking about, and finally went their separate ways, hearts pumping blood, nothing more.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, February 13th, 2014
Author Comments
Mashups, like those of late turning classic characters by authors like Jane Austen into werewolves, zombies, etc. seem very clever to me. But being a former English major, I couldn't bring myself to read them. That didn't stop me from trying my hand at one, though, short as it may be. Over the years, sixty-eight of them so far, that little devil Cupid has pricked my romantic side way too many times, and I decided it was comeuppance time.
So borrowing from another classic, the 1950's classic movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still", I cleverly offed him. Nothing deep here, just a little
wicked fun, which I hope readers find entertaining.
- G. O. Clark
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