First Year At The Cosmos Nursery School

8/14/2019 First Year At The Cosmos Nursery School

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First year at the Cosmos Nursery School

I just got back from my latest foraging.

There's not much left of the discount retail store other than useless TV's andradios, and no one wants those. The clothes and shoes and tools from the gardeningsection and blankets and sheets are all long gone. There's still some loose lumber

from the home improvement section and most hand held computer like devices arestill sitting on the shelves, at least those that weren't grabbed in the beginningwhen the TRIP happened.

There's no electricity anymore and the batteries won't last long enough to justifytaking the risk for the extra weight and danger on slowing me down with my stashas I make my run into Merriman junction and then back to my hideout in the hills.

Two months ago, Merriman Junction was a nice small town of 4,000 or so people andI was making a steady but not spectacular living as the local handyman.

You know, I still am a handyman but now, my only customer is Jerod Perman thatsme.

The town is somewhere down to 600 people or so. Were the only somewhat sanesurvivors left and every one of us is waiting for the damn other shoe to bedropped.

As I was telling Clem and Cecy the other day when I visited their home, you guysought to take some precautions and squirrel away like I have so at least when THEYcome, you won't be easy hunting."

That's what I said and it sure makes sense to me but Cecy just tossed back thatpretty mop of red hair and looked at me with a squint, as she had long ago losther last pair of glasses, and now she just kind of squeezes those pretty sunnyblue eyes shut when she's looking down her freckled nose at me lately with her 18

years of wisdom.

Of course, who am I to talk as I'm only topping 30 years but I have to tell youthat with the constant worry, I've been feeling closer to 90 and I'm sure thatClem, Cecy's Dad,is pushing 120 in his mind.

Actually, I'm thinking the town may be down to 598 now as I thought I saw twoGAZERS standing on a far away hill about early noon the other day, but when Ifinished my latest scavenging after a couple of hours of grabbing up some cannedmeats and fruits that had somehow been overlooked at Carols Grocery down at Longand Vine street and was heading back to my hidey hole over at the Park recreationstorage shed which is small and solid and suits my purposes just being concrete

walls and floors and all, I looked over and didn't see the GAZERS any more.

Of course, GAZERS can easily start to wander and since they have their eyes onlylooking upwards, assuming they can still see after a couple of days of staringstraight up at the sun, they can easily walk off a ledge or the wild dogs can getthem.

GAZERS are like stunned sheep with half the sense of sheep and they might as wellput a big bulls eye on their bodies, what with their drooling mindless walking andgazing and walking again until the lucky ones just collapse from no water or foodand quietly die still on their backs and still looking up for the star ship to


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arrive from the galaxy deeps.

In the first few days after the TRIP, the GAZERS were an item of news anddiscussion on TV, that is while the TVs were still working that is, and the localsocial and medicalservices would quickly scoot up to a Gazer and help them into the vans and busses,depending on how many there were, and off the GAZERS would go to be tended andcared for by society.

But that was when we still had a caring and cohesive social structure, which haslong since unraveled like everything else has.

The weird thing is that that anyone can become a Gazer at any time and at veryinopportune moments like a cop glancing up at the sky from his patrol car andwham, he crashes into a brick building because his eyes are locked on the sky andno where else.

Me personally, I'll never forget the scene on TV of forty or so GAZERS standingrigid with their eyes locked on the sky while the rain fell on their eyeballs andnone of them blinked. Catatonic shock is what the doctors called it, and thatday, a week after the TRIP, you could just see that famous news anchor trying to

keep his cool while reporting live from the national monument in Washington DCwhere the GAZERS had gathered.

You know, once I remember reading about a bunch of anthropologists who discoveredsome Stone Age tribe on a remote pacific island.

These tribes lived in peace with one another and apparently thought they were highon the totem pole until the scientists showed up with their magical gas lighters,and flashlights and video cameras.

It seems the natives just could not take the news that they were basicallyconsidered as primitives by the scientists and when the Science team came back ayear later for a follow up, they found the tribes warring with one another and in

a "social meltdown',' according to the report of the scientists.

I think that is exactly what has happened to the tribe of humanity.

We had a visit, which shocked the hell out of us, and what's worse, we never sawany aliens or ships. We only saw their power.

I'll never forget it. It was about 6AM Pacific Time and I was out working on a newswing for the Ellerbe kids and listening to KJAY, my favorite soft rock stationwhen all of a sudden this weird, and I mean weird and really strange sound startedplaying on the station.

It was as if thousands of distant bells were ringing with an overlay of a low

thrumming vibration that would raise and lower its pitch and then there was asound like rain falling on a tin roof. It was very relaxing, while at the sametime making my neck hairs raise.

Every station on the dial had this crazy sound playing, so I put down my hammerand walked back into the side door of my rental home next door, and turned on thetelevision.

And there it was.

On every station was a picture of Earth and the Moon. I kept waiting for some


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expert to come on and explain to the viewers what we were seeing, but no anchorsshowed up and no commercials or nothing. Just that peaceful and beautiful sceneof the Moon orbiting the Earth and all the while the alien sound was playing.

I think I just stood there with my mouth open for at least 10 minutes until Iremembered to sit down on the nearby coffee table.

I may be a handyman but I did take some college courses. One of them being

astronomy and I kept thinking that to pick up the moon actually orbiting the Earthmeant that the camera was at least a million miles out to be able to catch thewhole scene.

It was right about then that I began to think that maybe this wasn't our doing oranybody else in the world. Those tinkling, chiming bells backed with the lullingsound of rain on a metal roof began to put me into a very relaxed almost asleepmode and it was all I could do to occasionally wrench my eyes away to check mywrist watch for the time.

Then all at once my viewpoint began to recede away from the Earth and Moon andthat's when the incredible TRIP began.

Over the next two unforgettable hours we were given a tour of our solar system andwould swoop down on each planet at about 200 feet or so and then move along thesurface at the speed of a slow run for a few moments then wham off we'd goshooting back out and into space.

If the planet, like Saturn, had moons, then by damn, we visited every one of them.

Plunging into Jupiter's wildly tossing skies, we saw what had to be some kind ofhuge floating life form about the size of our moon which actually then flapped itsstupendous wings and flew out of our sight. Then I was staring at our sun andzooming towards it at mind awakening speed and then suddenly we were orbiting ourstar, all the while huge flickering gas jets and solar storms were raging about

us.

I could only imagine what the world's astronomers and astrophysicists werethinking as the world's hand was being held while humanity was being escortedacross the galactic street, so to speak, and we were being dropped off at thecosmos nursery school.

The stunning crescendo was reached when the sun became smaller and smaller as ourcollective eyes drew away from it until it was only a cool distant speck and thennothing could be seen of it and we were alone in a vast and humbling eternity ofstars.

Even those began to fade as we continued to draw further and further back and with

a gasp, I saw our Milky Way from above the plane of the ecliptic. I may have beendrooling by this time, I don't remember. No one does.

The final shock came as our vision kept withdrawing in what seemed to be realtime, and we watched our precious galaxy begin to fade away and with a stunningshock, found ourselves in intergalactic space where other galaxies, like nearbyneighbors, were on all sides of us.

The bells were ringing loudly and the rain on the roof was like a torrent of waterand the humming vibration began to rise and rise until wham we were back and thestunned anchor people were staring back at me and looking like fish that had been


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tossed out of the water and gasping for air.

Well, over the next two days, I can tell you that humanity, like that stone agetribe, slowly but inexorably went collectively mad, as in nuts and off the wallinsane.

Of course, everyone began to watch the skies sure that THEY were going to show up

at any time. But after a couple of weeks of a no show, it was like waiting for theother shoe to be dropped by your upstairs neighbor. You clearly heard the firstshoe hit the floor but the second just never happens and its all you can do tonot walk up the stairs and say, "drop the damn shoe would you!

I really have to hand it to THEM.

How to rattle a world. Just make an undeniable contact but don't show yourself.Make it to clear to the contactees that their technology is at the level of a logfloating across the pond and then show them around the cosmotic neighborhood.

Then just disappear and let the primitives sort it out amongst themselves.

Perhaps in another 40 years or so, we might have the other shoe dropped and findout who THEY are. By that time, all the misfits of humanity will have long sincedisappeared. At least that's the way I look at it and I think that Clem and Cecymight just agree with my conclusions.

I suppose from a viewpoint of a psychologist, watching how different peoplereacted to the reality of the TRIP might have initially proven to be a fascinatingstudy in human mentalities, but from my viewpoint, watching the microcosm ofClem's family slowly fall apart, like the macrocosm of the human family across theworld falling apart, was not a pretty sight.

Starting with Emily, Clem's wife and Edward, Cecy's younger brother, their familyoneness over a period of about 4 weeks just went to screaming hell.

I think I am safe in saying that out of 10 people, there were easily six whowanted to know" how did THEY find us?" and then figured that it was time to putout the camp fires and go dark so THEY would lose us in the vast galactic night.

That meant that television and radios, satellite uplinks. any communication toweror ground up links that gave off a frequency strong enough to emanate into spacehad to be immediately shut down.

Radio stations and television stations soon found themselves being mobbed andbombed by frantic HIDERS as the press called them.

What was worse was if you happened to have a home satellite dish or some

other proof that you were receiving incoming frequencies, local HIDER chapterswould pay you a visit, and in no uncertain terms tell you to shut off your TV orelse.

Panicked and terrified normally law abiding citizens mobbed the local power gridsand shut them down. Out on the hills, the big electric towers were being blownup, and even dams were being attacked in order to destroy the turbines and thegenerators.

Of course, governments across the world attempted to stop this but then again, alot of the government officials were secret HIDERS and the police and armies


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attempting to guard the sources of electricity and frequency origination werefilled with HIDERS and GAZERS and TRUTH BRINGERS.

Not to mention that some of the staff at the radio and television stations werealso made up of HIDERS and GAZERS and TRUTH BRINGERS.

The TRUTH BRINGERS, again named by the press, were people across the globe whobelieved that the TRIP was brought to humanity courtesy of Satan and that it was

all a big lie, for surely humanity was made in God's image and was the onlyintelligent life with a soul in the universe.

So, if the message is a lie, then destroy the messenger. That's television,radios, cell phone towers and the Internet as the TRIP was played again and againon countless web sites.

The formula was lethal and in less time then it takes to tell, the worldcommunications ceased. Period. End of story.

Police and army officers and soldiers either left outright or turned into GAZERS,orTRUTH BRINGERS or HIDERS, and mutinies and rebellions spread across the world.

People are people are people, no matter their uniform, and THEY knew that andplayed us like a terrible song.

And this atonal, screeching melody with the soul wrenching lyrics was playing atall levels right down to the nub of society, the family.

Emily, a wonderful gentle woman with a bright smile and always giving a helpinghand to those of us less fortunate, and always with an infectious laughter ringingin their homewas the first in the family to plunge into the hell pit of insanity caused by theTRIP.

It was getting towards dusk and the shadows in the kitchen were starting to gatherin svvirling pools. I vvas just about done installing a new broom closet doorwhen I asked Emily to turn on the kitchen light so I could see what I was doing.

" I don't think so Jerod,' she replied in her soft lilting voice.

About that time Clem walked into the kitchen and stopped by the refrigerator. Atfirst, he didnt notice that Emily and I were just staring at one another. All ofa sudden I had this cutting pain in my soul, as I knew what was coming next.

This was only a few days after the TRIP and the reports about the effects of theTRIP were beginning to be noted and commented on, and a few HIDERS had alreadystated their views publicly and then quickly disappeared with no follow-upinterviews, and in the case of some of the celebrity actors who had clearly madetheir Hiding cause known, they just simply backed away from work and from society.

Clem, all unknowing, opened the refrigerator for some mango juice and the lightspilled out into the shadowed kitchen like the flare of a campfire in a deepforest.

Emily whirled and slammed the refrigerator shut almost smashing Clem's arm in the


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process.

The mango bottle dropped to the floor and crashed into fragments of glass acrossthe stone tiles.

We have to keep the lights out Clem so THEY cant find us you know, whisperedEmily

Clem looked in my direction.

" Flip the light Jerod in the closet and let's get this glass cleaned up

" Don't touch that light Jerod," ordered Emily in a hissing voice that I had neverheard before.

I looked over at Clem who was now staring at his wife of 22 years with a dawningrealization sweeping his face.

About this time, Cecy waltzed into the kitchen with her sprightly walk.

" Hey everybody," she chirped in that bright sassy voice of hers, " what's

everyone doing standing around in the dark?

" Watch the glass Cecy," I called out as I noted she was wearing flip-flops.

" Jerod, why don't you head home and come back tomorrow to finish this okay?" saidClem as he slowly walked to Emily and put his arm around her and began to leadher from the room.

"How about candles Em? THEY can't see us if we only have a few candles aboutright?" soothed Clem as he opened the swinging door from the kitchen, that I hadinstalled a few months back, and walked her into the dining room.

Cecy turned to me with a sob and before I knew it she was in my arms crying away.

"Oh God Jerod is mom now a Hider?"

" I don't really know Cecy," I said as I escorted her across the floor with theglass crunching beneath my boots, " but you better light up some candles and keepthe lights turned off until you know different."

Cecy slowly nodded and then walked into the dining room and towards the center ofthe house to find some candles.

I just shook my head and turned back into the kitchen where I gathered up my toolsby touch and memory where I had left them and then I just ghosted from their

house.

It seems that if you pull the wrong thread on a sweater, then no matter how wellknitted, the whole thing will relentlessly unwind, and that is basically whathappened to the fabric of humanity.

Day by day the whirlpool of dissolution grew, and soon we were all caught up in itone way or another.

About ten days after the TRIP, radio stations stopped broadcasting, and televisionwas completely gone within another two weeks. The military and the National Guard


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were continuously riven with mutinies, and I heard that the President became aGAZER one day in the Rose Garden and that the Vice President, a closet HIDER, hadquietly replaced him and of course, she then quietly worked to cease all frequencybroadcasts.

Emily declared that their home was to remain silent as she called it, and nomore radio or television was allowed, and only candles burned dimly through thenight.

She left in the early dawn a few days later. Her note to Clem said that sheneeded to protect us and had joined the Guardians who were the most aggressiveHIDERS in the country and who had already issued flyers stating that they had shutdown the Boulder Dam turbines and generators.

Clem had stood for a long moment at the doorway that morning and just sadly stareddown the two lane paved road that Emily had walked. I offered to go with him totry to find her and bring her back but he just slowly shook his head.

Clem took one last look down that long empty view and then turned around and wentback inside. The screen door closed behind him and I could take the hint. That'swhen I decided to find a more secure place to live and to start seriously

stockpiling food and supplies.

Edward came home one day spouting about the TRIP being a tool of the devil andthat it was science and technology that enabled the great lie to be delivered tohumanity.

Of course, by that time it was a moot point, as we had no more electricity and thenasty technological devices would not run as there were no more batteries beingmade as that takes human beings and you get the picture?.

That also meant no more gas pumps functioning, which in turn took care of

those of us with internal combustion vehicles. The lucky ones with diesel engineswere able to keep their cars running a little longer on olive oil and anythingthat was made up of hydrocarbons that would burn as fuel.

I haven't seen a plane or helicopter for weeks now. News is really spotty, as noone knows what is happening outside of one of us being able to take a ride to thenext town to find out the latest.

Horses are back in demand and I broke into the County library the other day tofind a book on making carriages and buggy's.

As I said, there's more HIDERS and GAZERS and TRUTH BRINGERS then theres usregular every day people, and you can bet that they are watching us with their

keen and wildly glancing eyes, with the HIDERS making certain that no one powersup a generator to beam out a radio signal and the TRUTH BRINGERS working away totake us all back to a pre technology era, and the GAZERS just staring upwards atnothing.

At night, I lie awake in my little concrete hideaway listening to the coolstillness of the technological darkness descending like a heavy curtain over theglobe, and just wait for the other shoe to be dropped.

END


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Hughes Meanderings: Copyright 2008

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First Year At The Cosmos Nursery School