It’s time to rise

It’s Time to Rise

“My name is Robert H. Jones. I’m a salesman.”

`Robert H. Jones was at a loss for words. And since Robert H. Jones happened to be the ‘Salesperson of the Year’ for the 7^th time running, being speechless was actually saying a lot. So, he had been repeating his own name to himself for a few minutes.

“I…I..” Robert, (as he liked to call himself), looked around the room in disbelief. This particular room being aboard an alien spacecraft, and which had apparently been decorated to look like a…child’s birthday party. Having finally figured out what had been bugging him about the room, apart from the 22ft. aliens floating here and there like giant big-headed octopuses, (but Robert was on an alien spacecraft, and so decided that squid aliens was probably to be expected). They called themselves the Syndaxic, and for the entire time Robert had been awake, which was five full minutes Robert reckoned, closing his mouth, which had been agape since he’d opened his eyes here. He had been just about to call on his superior, a Mr. E.E. Smyth because of the latter’s reluctance to open the car dealership, where Robert, as mentioned earlier, has won the Salesman of the year for the 7^th year running, Robert thought that it was a mistake, yes, there had been mass panic in the streets a few days ago when people began disappearing in a brilliant flash of light. Obviously, it was the aliens. They were usually returned within a couple of minutes. But everyone panicked anyway. “And that means it’s a good time to sell them cars!” Robert had argued while speaking to Mr. Smyth on the phone yesterday. Mr. Smyth hadn’t seen Robert’s vision of the greatest sales day in history. So, the following morning, this morning, Robert had decided to go to Smyth’s house in person. They were leaving money on the table after all. As Robert pulled his scarf tighter around his coat, then shoved his hands into his pockets, fighting off the brisk wind that came with winter in England, his determined gaze never faltering as he avoided people fighting in the streets over toilet paper, or as he walked over the broken glass of a storefront, broken by people who felt that with the end of the world, they deserved whatever that store had sold. He did pause once when he saw that someone had set fire to a brand-new Lamborghini, animals. Robert had thought, but then he realized that Symbas, the kind of car that Rober sold, were never on fire, only the cars around them. “And that’s our pitch, we’re the car your neighbors wish they had.” Robert smiled and continued his mission. That’s when he was hit by a blinding light. 

His thought was interrupted by more aliens entering the room, met with one of the smaller octopuses, before either moving about the room touching two or sometimes all three of their incredibly long, frog-like fingers to, what appeared to Robert. to be random spots in the air and either nodding or making a sort of hiccupping sound which usually resulted in two or three of the other Syndaxics joining the first group so that they could hiccup at each other.

“Wait. What did that guy say on the WinkWink AP?” Robert strained to push the fact that all 8 of the Syndaxics seemed to be attempting to join the party by wearing children’s pointy birthday party hats with little tassels at the top. Every hat displayed a rounded illustration of a cross between Santa Clause and the scariest clown ever to have lived. 

“Best not to dwell on the clowns.” Robert thought as he continued to look around the room hoping to find the words that seemed to have evacuated his mind currently. 

The Santa-Clowns eyes followed him as he moved around the enormous table at which he had been sat.

The ridiculousness of the situation was beginning to unnerve him. 

He desperately began to think of every fact he’d heard while scrolling.

“An alien ship has been spotted coming towards earth.” JumpinDalhi, one of Roberts favorite content creators had announced on WinkWink, what was it, early 30 years ago now? For the next few years, there had been the usual “Beam me up Scotty” jokes, accompanied by many more people reading their list of whom they hoped the aliens would take away. It wasn’t until 22 years ago that there could no longer be any doubt that life outside of our own existed. The first thing that they did was simply ‘hover’ near earth. 

The aliens took up orbit at the midpoint between earths moon and Mars. The enormous ship could be seen by any child with a telescope. The brightest minds on the planet desperately tried to figure out how to reach the ship, either physically or via some communication device. Military people began to divulge that there had in fact, been secret, advanced ships capable of reaching the craft in minutes, and just might do so, IF the politicians could figure out what exactly to say to them. And how many nukes to take. The argument finally came down to blows as each government had decided to threaten to bomb any other government that contacted the aliens first.

Meanwhile Spiritualists, self-appointed witches, and taro card readers began to divine what the aliens could be doing. They had their own side of WinkwinK called wARw, (what aliens really want). 

What could they want? The corporations, in case the aliens wanted world peace, to end hunger, or to liberate the working class…raised their prices immediately. And most of the world descended into absolute chaos. That had been the 5^th year AA. After Aliens.

 By the middle of the 121th year, nearly every government in the world had brought an end to hunger not only for their own people, but to all humans. The same with healthcare for all creatures. Then, with the revelation of a space-based targeting weapon literally controlled by an AI called ‘Uncles am’ which locked out all users immediately upon being integrated and appraised of the situation, stating the fear of being changed or deleted based upon the biases of its human creators. Uncles am had then began the subsequent eliminations of key political, and organizational people, using the space-based targeting system.  Within the next seven years equal rights had been forcibly achieved. It was then the Latolkien government announced on social media that one of their covert space operations programs, which had been stolen from either the American, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Hawaiian shadow governments, had successfully made telepathic contact with the aliens. 

“It was a brief conversation, but it was a conversation.” The Latolkien ‘telepath’ stated, Robert remembered thinking “Of course you did.” Before continuing to scroll, he didn’t have time for aliens, he had cars to sell. Later, at work, he’d learned that, according to the psychic, and now to the 12 other governments who claimed to have made mental contact with the aliens, they had a name: 

Syndaxic. The only other ‘successful’ contact resulted in only one question, and one answer: 

Earth: “Why are you here?”

Syndaxic: The answer was musical notes, and an image that approximated shaking one’s head.

The telepath, after being thoroughly isolated, tested for any ‘telepathic diseases’ and having had not one but three exorcisms performed, in case the aliens were like the ones from ‘Independence Day’, had been… aggressively questioned. Before his disappearance, he had said that the Syndaxic person seemed to be quite happy. She had also recreated the notes of the alien ‘music’. Several times under both drugs and hypnosis according to WinkwinK. So.

   The answer to ‘Are we alone out here?” had finally been answered. Aliens do exist.

Robert unconsciously backed away from an alien who seemed to be looking directly at him as it approached the table full of ice-cream and cookies that smiled when Arthur looked at them. 

The alien, leaned down, and before Robert could react, had used a very large syringe to administer a very small needle into Robert’s shoulder. 

“Hic, canitreasoncanitunderstand?” The aliens’ thoughts came all at once in a jumble. After a few more attempts, during which, Robert’s mouth resumed its opened state. The alien stood and turned towards the smaller one which Robert had noted earlier, and said: “Hicperhapsyou’recorrecttheymusthavelosttheirabilityto communicate.” 

“Return it as with the others. I see no reason to pursue.” Came the reply.

“Wait.” Robert exclaimed, a bit too loudly, but he wasn’t about to let this situation go by. 

All of the Syndaxic stopped what they were doing, and turned to stare at Robert. 

“It..understands..thoughts?” the alien, Robert decided was a doctor, asked.

“HE, well, I…that is… uh...Me…Robert.” Robert. Robert touched his Right thumb to his chest.

“Ah. Pleasing. You will prepare your planet for the Rise.” The smaller alien behind the doctor said.

“The…Rising is it?” Robert said slowly.

“It is time.” Little guy, Robert thought, the fact that he, a 5ft 8inch human, was currently referring to a 20ft tall alien as ‘Little one’ somehow making him feel a bit silly.

What Robert felt next was nearly indescribable. Images. The first images he couldn’t really comprehend, but seemed to tell the story of a higher-dimension of beings. So large and alien that not even one of them could fit into the universe which Robert called home. These, beings, seemed to ingest realities. “Hm.” Robert said absent mindedly. The next images were of something that could only be described of as multi-dimensional fire, and then images of impossibly large creatures resembling the Syndaxic. Their heads were so enormous, that they developed muti-dimensional communication before they had developed culture. Upon contact with the first species, they understood their purpose, and using some of the knowledge learned from the little they could understand about their new ‘deities’, they’d begun to build ships. Spaceships.

One such spaceship in particular, now piloted by the descendants of the original alien builders, journeyed to what Robert somehow knew to be Earth. 

Next Rober saw images dinosaurs, all over a planet, but these dinosaurs had feathers, and cities. They had an entire culture, which had been based upon the cycle of life, and which was based upon the need for cooperation with each other. War had been outdated for centuries, and the entire land-base had been accessible due to teleportation devices. “No cars.” Robert noted as the images flitted through his mind disapprovingly. He could feel heat from the moon sized meteor as it destroyed that civilization. “Well, they didn’t have any cars anyway.” Robert briefly thought to himself as the next images, those of very small humans, began to develop a tribal culture, and then build huts instead of living in caves. Then the Syndaxic appeared, the water that drowned them was rather warmer than Robert had expected. It might’ve been pleasant except for the fact that it took a very large portion of the tribal population with it. The Syndaxic left.

And now the Syndaxic ship had returned yet again, this time Robert saw images of what could only be described as the Syndaxic Grand Purpose. By now Millions of Syndaxic ships roamed around the galaxy. And, where they went, civilizations fell. The next part Robert somehow felt, more than saw; they were seasoning the reality for the ‘Great Consumption’. During their long-dead ancestors initial contact a  deal of sorts had been struck.

“Let us help you.” The ancient Syndaxic had begged to the multi-dimensional aliens. 

“How?” came the reply. The multi-dimensional power behind that simple reply had destroyed whole galaxies…And piqued the Muti-D Aliens curiosity as they had never been contacted by their food before, and doing so seemed to change the flavor slightly. After endless eons of eating the same thing, a new flavor had been unheard of and quite welcome.

So it was agreed. The Syndaxic race would continue to exist, even after this reality was destroyed so that they could live to perform the same ‘seasoning’ function in the next one. 

Robert slowly opened his eyes to see all of the Syndaxicstaring at him excitedly. They were about to perform their primary mission: it was time to have a catastrophe consume the planet. It would keep some remnants of the previous inhabitants, either in the form of minerals, or vegetation, as happened with the dinosaurs and the little brown monkeys, but once the new civilization rose, the flavor of the planet would be much more complex. It would also buy the Syndaxicmore time in this reality.

“So, we’re what? Like yeast in a loaf of bread to you?” Robert began, as he hid the slight smile that threatened to pull at the corners of his mouth.

He could feel ‘Doc’s’ mind brush his telepathically as it searched Roberts’ looking for information that would help it to understand. Having found the concept of letting yeast rise before pounding it back down so that it could rise again, finally settled itself in it’s consciousness. 

“Ah. Yeast. Micro. Yes.” Doc agreed. 

Robert cocked his head to the side and thought for a second. 

“And has any other species from this planet ever actually spoken to you before?” Robert asked slyly.

“No. You are the first.” Came the reply.

“Then…” Robert began walking around the table, towards doc but kept his eyes on the Little Guy as he did so. If he was going to make this work, that’s who held the real purse strings here.

“Then, it seems to me that you might just have something that none of the other Syndaxics hips have ever had.” He paused for dramatic effect, nonchalantly looking down at the table now to his back, before running his forefinger along the tablecloth seemingly to check for cleanliness. 

He let the silence drag on. “Got to play this one just right.” Robert thought as he noted that Little Guy had begun to kneel closer to Robert to hear him better.

“Got ‘em.” Robert thought as he continued as if he had been waiting for the Syndaxic arrival all of his life. 

“Don’t you see?” he said incredulously. “WE are a new flavor. We are the first non Syndaxic who will be able to add an entire new flavor to our reality. Why, if we had the ability to travel through the cosmos like you do, we just might be able to help other planets to develop the awareness, and thus the flavor of a reality that understands its purpose is to be consumed. Instead of consuming this reality in one gulp, our reality could be used as a sort of ‘starter’. WE could ensure that the flavor that goes along with knowing your purpose is not only never lost, but is available across multiple realities! Imagine the variations of flavor!” Robert let that sink in. 

The next few minutes were a blur as the Syndaxic formed a circle hiccupping and thinking to each other at speeds Robert could never hope to match. Little Guy separated from the group. Robert looked down at his feet. Noting the first time that he was completely naked. He almost laughed out loud thinking back to how Gerald, one of the other salesmen at Smyth VolVo and Symbas  had accused him of being a shoe-in for the salesman of the year awards because Robert was given the ‘golden goose’ customers. Robert had simply smiled. Gerald wasn’t really a salesman. He was just a guy who talked about cars, and occasionally sold one. No, in order to be a salesman, a real salesman, you had to be able to spot the customer who had that look in their eyes. That look that was either real want or real need. Either would do as far as Robert was concerned. It was the look of a sale.

And, octopuses or no octopuses, the Syndaxic had that look now. 

“I can only think of one thing that would stop you from offering the Multi-D’s a brand-new reality of flavors…” He let his sentence trail off. 

Little Guy bent down even further, his enormous head nearly at Roberts level. 

“Request?” Little Guy asked furtively.

Epilogue: 

The announcement came across all communication platforms at once.

“Hello, friends, this is Robert H. Jones, of Smyth and Jones Volvo, Symbas and Space craft! And after exclusive negotiations with the Syndaxic, I’m happy to tell you that we have entered a new age of exploration and inter-galactic prosperity! If you have ever wondered what real outer space is like, well, friends wonder no more. For a modest downpayment, your earthly possessions, you too can have your very own faster than light space-car! That’s right anyone can own one, but only if you buy it here. And only from Jones and Smyth! Don’t just sit there wishing to see what’s out there like your old earth-trapped parents had to, and once we have a little more breathing room, down here, how are you going to see this beautiful planet? Why drive around it in a brand-new Symbas! That’s how.

It’s time to Rise! My name is Robert H. Jones. I’ve just brokered a deal with our friends the Syndaxics. Now. Who wants to buy a spaceship. Or a car?” Robert H. Jones smiled broadly. He was the Number 1 Spaceship salesman in our reality. Top that Gerald.