Alienating SpaceJesse Tangen-Mills

Publishing Genius Chapbook Series No. 27

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Alienating Space is the 27th edition of Chapbook Genius.

© 2011 Jesse Tangen-Mills

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Alienating Space

Jesse Tangen-Mills

They had come before everyone was waiting for them to leave.

Extragalactic Arrival

“Martians”

They left the “alien” word behind. We were stuck with the others.

They were already there when space came apart. There was nowhere to go to. The future had crumbled when they were just going to leave.

Collapse

In the beginning we didn’t like them because they didn’t like themselves. So we started liking them.

Mimesis

Anywhere

They left. They came back. Everyone had changed again. They were Martians.

Exclusion Principle

They were nothing like us at first. On the contrary, we were like them. Then they started being themselves.

We thought they felt empty and alienated. They thought we had nothing between us and nothing in common. Things went nowhere.

Observation

They landed. They landed again. They took off. They took off again. They crashed. They saw a lot of Earth.

Extraterrestrial

They left us to be Martians. That left us with nothing else.

Background

‘On the Existence of Space’

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We alone?

Before them was there nothing after us?

If things couldn´t go back to how they were before were they going anywhere?

A word for space?

How could we ever, anything, anymore?

All eyes were on us. Through them we stared at the others like they were the Martians.

Parallax

It was only human that they came to sound like us, but they say it´s Martian.

Sociolinguistics

What: a word for space

Hot Universe

They thought they were close to home until they got closer.

General Relativity

They distinguish us, after sorting us out, before we sorted ourselves. We figure the rest were mistakes.

Admission

Invasion

All at once they came back. They looked at us like aliens. 

Blueshift

For a while we shared space. Nothing separated us, until they asked for some more space. We still saw each other.

Finally, we are home, we thought, but when we got there they asked us when we were going home. We told them we were never coming back, we said.

Retrograde

They thought they had us. We couldn’t think of ourselves alone. We thought of having them.

Pair Production

Deconvolution

We used to see each other, but it went nowhere. After that we only saw each other long distance. The whole time, with all that space, the only word we could find was relationship.

They called us Martians. So we left. Then, they called us lunatics. We waited to call them something, but they never left space.

Retribution

Accretion

Before the war peace talks were held again: evasion was inevitable.

Dogmas

We believed them. Things were words. Or they were just Martians.

There was a theory before they came, after that they said we were human. If we had only known so little.

Modern Science

Assimilation

They taught us how to be human. We learned nothing.

We fought until the death. No one won. Fortunately, it took forever.

Life on Other Planets

Human Beings

We depend on them to be, while they don’t depend on anyone. In fact, they aren´t like we never were.

Earthlings

We imagined they were dreaming us, but when we got closer we saw in their eyes we were very down to Earth.

We celebrated our anniversary arguing over whose it was. It was not appropriate in the least. It was ours.

Competing Theories

Things got bad. So they left. Things got bad. So we left. Things got bad. So they left. Things got bad. So we left. Things got bad for us, but somewhere there was hope.

Migration

Cool Universe

It was mostly space.

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Something which can never be any specific thing.

Robert Barry