The Fog on ERT
I was placed on planet ERT to report on their culture, which I found to be similar to our own in many ways. The aliens walked on two feet, communicated using complex meaningful sounds, had places to go and things to consume.
However, my discovery of a magical "fog" lead to one of the strangest experiences I had on planet ERT. I call it a fog since it appeared as a haze upon a polished silver wall.
I was curious, but surprisingly scared of what form of sorcery the fog might possess. An alien came up and stood beside me. He spoke into a black rectangular rock held up close to his face. Other aliens stood in front of the fog, waited in silence, seeming to admire it.
The fog stood tall and wide, seemingly impossible to move, yet a noise came from somewhere within it that sounded like a “ding” and the fog magically split open, revealing a box shaped space. The walls of the box moved as light and shadows intertwined. My suspicions that they used magic on planet ERT were confirmed. The aliens automatically reacted to the sound, walked into the box and instinctively turned to face the entrance and waited for the box doors to close. They stood in silence, fidgeting around ever so slightly. The box seemingly made the aliens nervous, even though had willingly entered it.
A few aliens placed their finger on different silver circles that were imprinted on the wall inside. A light appeared magically in each of the touched circles, as if summoned. I wanted to ask these aliens so many questions about their magic, but we spoke different languages, so I remained quiet.
When the box doors finally shut, I heard strange sounds coming from outside the fog box. And then, when the doors opened again, I found myself in a different location. There must be supernatural beings outside the box who alter the surroundings. The aliens seemed to accept this new place to live and walked out of the silver box to embrace their new home. This ritual repeated, the fog opening and closing with the same “ding” and the location changing every time.
Eventually there was one alien left in the fog with me. When he decided to pick his new location, I decided to follow him. When I stepped forward, another alien ran fast towards me and shouted, “hO'd da* eleV;ter." I was so afraid, I teleported out of the fog and re-entered my ship.
Comments
Aidan Ferguson
March 6, 2014I loved how the author deconstructed the simple act of entering an elevator and recreated it from an outside perspective. The twist on our planets technology, its name and our physiology was a nice touch too. When I first read this article, I couldn’t figure out exactly what happened. Then, upon my third read-through, I realized that the point of view was not that of a human. When I reread it for the fourth time, it clicked. That sort of ambiguity is commendable and I highly enjoyed it. The culture shock that the alien experiences and the conclusions it, he, or she draws from the experiences it goes through are quite amusing. The fact that the author chose an elevator ride to describe makes me think of the elevators here at Dawson. While we wait for the elevator to come down from the fourth floor at 8 am, we really do look like we are worshiping it.
You have to be registered and logged in in order to post comments!