Amos, Ceres, and Tabora, land in the middle of a desert and look around. They see nothing, only barren, empty land as far as is visually possible to see. They have only 30 minutes to assess the situation before they need to return. Not much time, but they hope to learn a lot within those 30 minutes.
As they near the edge of the desert, they see three teenage girls quarreling about a boy. Two men, obviously drunk, smash empty beer cans together and reach in their giant cooler to grab more, as their friends, a mother and her boyfriend, argue dangerously close to the curb. Their baby crawls into the street unnoticed.
Across the street, one boy pummels another boy because the pummeled boy is gay. A woman thrashes her head upward in a snoot because none of these “stupid idiots” go to Church on Sunday and everyone knows that if you don’t go to church on Sunday, you are destined for Hell. She is happy to see that Hell has already visited itself upon them. She throws a couple of Vicodin into her mouth and washes them down with a bottle of Chablis as she shakes her head and gnarls her lips.
Several football players cash million dollar checks at the bank while adoring sports enthusiasts smile and ask for autographs. Next door to the bank, teachers stand in grocery lines holding food assistance cards in their hands.
A white Prius drives by at 5 miles above the speed limit. A black SUV, driving behind the Prius at 20 miles over the speed limit, smashes into the Prius driver, who has suddenly stopped.
Down the street, a lawyer, who had been hanging out by the emergency room of the local hospital, races to the scene.
A homeless man runs into the street and rescues the baby, and the lawyer recommends that the mother hire the attorney on the spot. So the mother reports the homeless man for child snatching.
The SUV driver jumps out of his car and flails a gun at the Prius driver. He doesn’t notice the baby, the homeless man, or the crowd gathering around him, but he knows enough to jump in his car and race away.
Police arrest the homeless man and bring him to jail, where he receives his first meal in a week. The guy in the cell next to his just got a sentence of life for taking one, but he’ll get to live his and be out on probation within a couple of years.
In a home near where the three visitors now stand, a man flips through a couple of hundred channels on his 50” flatscreen TV and complains that nothing is on, while a woman shopping at a nearby 5-story shop with racks of items lining the sidewalk, comes out grief-stricken because, “they have nothing!”
The three teenage girls have stopped fighting. They have found the boy they were arguing about and all vie for his attention, but he wants the one who doesn’t want him, the one who is dragging the gay guy home in hopes that her gay friend will become straight due to her diligent, loving care.
Amos, Ceres, and Tabora, on their way home, write on their assessment sheet, “As we suspected, no intelligent life on Earth.”
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While I usually write nonfiction, I thought I’d try my hand at fiction here. A little background on the names I chose – they’re Asteroids. Tabora’s number matches my birthday, so I chose that one for that reason.
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Just so you know, by the way, I know a LOT of intelligent people, and they live on Earth. If you’re reading this post, you’re probably one of them 😉
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