Trash Bash

Damn it! I wish whoever is throwing their garbage on my roof would stop it! What gives them the right to do whatever they want? This is my home, my castle, my love nest, my family’s abode . . . not someone’s trash heap!

Here I was in the middle of intense love making, just about ready to give my mate all my seed and I heard a loud crash over my head. Boy, when you’re suddenly startled like that, everything shrinks pretty damn fast. I was pissed. This was not the first time something had landed onto my roof. This was not the first time something has interrupted our mating dance. Damn it, if I ever find out who the litter bug is, I’ll kick ass.

This all started more than 18 years ago. My father was outside, on the surface, looking for minerals when this light fell from the sky. He was just bending over to look at a rock and this thing whizzed over his head and fell in front of him. He was lucky it never hit him or he would have been flattened. He had always told everyone about the times he had seen strange lights in the sky. This was the first time one of these lights had landed. My father picked up the “light” with his special tongs and discovered that it was very hot and full of minerals and metals. He also noticed that it had cooled down and it was just a lump now. He decided that he had finally struck it rich. The lump was recycled into a myriad of minerals and metals. Our family was rich, really rich. No one laughed at my father’s stories anymore.

You are not going to believe what happened about seven days later. My father was almost hit again. He couldn’t believe his luck. Our family was now, not really rich, but stinking rich. My father spent some of our wealth to buy up all the land around our house for 500 kilometers and laid claim to all the mineral and metal rights. Everyone was now watching the skies for more of the precious lights. If everything happened as it had the last two times, we would have more lumps on our property soon.

Oh well, the best laid plans don’t always pan out. Nothing else fell from the sky that year. My parents decided to retire in the north country. The north had a more temperate climate and much more water. They would be able to spend their last days in luxury.

I was the oldest, so our family home and land were transferred to me. It was now my responsibility to find a mate and produce the next generation of our family. Being a rich Batchelor helped. Fathers from all over the world were knocking at my door. Of course all the fathers thought they had the most beautiful, fertile, and demure daughters for me to wed. I felt like a piece of meat.

To make the story short, I decided on accepting the daughter of the next land owner. I had known her as long as we had lived here. We had grown up together and were friends. When we both hit puberty, we were the first for each other. The decision to take her as my mate just seemed a natural progression in our relationship.

About three months into the second year of my ownership, we heard a large crash on our roof. I ran outside to see what had happened and found another lump. Damn, this one landed on our heads. Okay, we were more the rich now, but enough is enough. This lump could have killed us. We were lucky that our rood was 10 meters thick or this lump would have done serious damage. Oh, did I mention, we live underground? The surface of our world is too inhospitable for anyone to live on, so we don’t. Four days later, another lump landed in our north quadrant. Did they always come in pairs? Our scientists could not explain nor determine why the lights were falling from the sky.

Almost a one and one-half years later, on the other side of our world, there was another landing. This time our scientists learned that it was alive, sort of. The lump was giving off heat, sound, and its top part swivelled. The scientists decided to just watch and see what happened. They called it Lump A. There was an order from the high council that no one was allowed near Lump A until the order was rescinded. Sure enough, about 14 days later, another lump landed about 20 kilometers away from the first one. Again we learnt that this one was alive as well, sort of. The scientists called it Lump B. Talk about original names!

Lump B died, a little more than two years, after it landed. Our scientists could not understand what it was doing all that time, but the dead lump was taken by the high council for further study. Lump A died a year later. The world was at a loss to explain the lumps. Was it an invasion? How where we supposed to communicate with these lumps? What was their real purpose?

My family and I were just tired of the whole thing. Hey, it was great to be rich, but life went on. Let the scientists and high council worry about the lumps. I had better things to do . . . like procreation.

Nothing happened for years after that. No one was able to understand the lumps, so the high council just recycled them, gave everyone a share of the wealth, and everyone went back to daily life. You know this was not going to last.

Almost eight years after Lump A died, there was a report of another lump landing in a lake on the other side of the world. This lump was far more sophisticated than any of the previous ones. It not only gave off heat and sound, it also moved around. One of our scientists almost died of fright after he had snuck up behind the lump and it started to move away. Everyone was told to evacuate the area until further notice. The high council named this thing Lump C; gee, big surprise! On the seventy-seventh day after landing, Lump C died. Our scientists were at a loss again. No information had been gained from Lump C. It was recycled and everyone was again given a share.

The next lump landed in the south. It just landed like the first ones . . . not alive. Our high council was really getting tired of this. If these lumps were coming from someone, why didn’t they at least say hello? If they were just someone’s garbage, why use our world as a dumping ground? The high council decided to issue an edict that any lumps that fell where to be left alone, unless they posed any danger. Life went back to it languid pace.

Now it is two years after the last lump landed. Why did this one have to land on my roof? Why did this one have to disturb our mating? I wish they would just stop!

*******

Meanwhile, on a planet called Earth, a news conference was being held. The chief scientist of the European Space Agency stated: ”Since Christmas attempts to communicate with the tiny lander through NASA’’s Mars Odyssey orbiter and radio telescopes on Earth have been unsuccessful. However, Mars Express and Beagle 2 are the only systems tested end-to-end, giving ESA more confidence of establishing contact with the lander in the coming days.”

END