Sometimes, I think, “what would it be like if I were visited by a being from somewhere out there?” Recently, my imagination did some dancing and I thought about a David Bowie impersonator knocking on my door one night. He’d be dressed in his Major Tom outfit and behave the way I’d imagine. Then, I really wondered if this was actually my idea at all. Assuming there are entities from far away galaxies, capable of traveling infinite distances to get here, why the hell couldn’t they effortlessly trick me into thinking all of this was my creation?
The story I am now writing is most likely the product of an idle mind, looking for just another way to share with you. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me, one way or the other. Although, if it actually happened, I’d be screaming to recount it to you and that is an understatement if ever there was one.
So, I opened my door and in walks this guy. He tells me he really isn’t David Bowie, because he knows he’s dead and doesn’t want me to think he’s crazy, if you can believe that. However, he does tell me to call him Major Tom. I don’t know why, but I didn’t freak out. He was very nice and aside from the costume, he seemed quite normal to me, even for a rock star. He had all the mannerisms I remembered of Bowie, regardless of his origin.
He came in and sat on the couch. I perched myself close by in the chair that sits in front of my desk, where my computer rests, along with my Betta fish and a little marble statue of an ancient Eastern holy man I call Rocky. The most important thing I wanted to know is why the hell he picked me? You’re not going to believe this, but Major Tom told me “they” have been following my blog and are very intimate with everything going on between my ears.
I have always been vocal about my love of music and my rock solid sense it is a language that can transcend galaxies. They have been captivated by our music for centuries, which often seems terribly juxtaposed to our behavior. To them, Bowie pushed so many boundaries and his persona fit their own chameleon like nature.
Major Tom was very clear this was the first visit with me and depending upon how it went, this could be the last. Any questions I had about his world would have to wait for the next time, if there was to be one. I agreed. I didn’t want to screw up future possibilities. It was also okay for me to write about any of this, because he was confident no one would believe me anyway.
He explained to me there were only two ways any planet could evolve, both extreme, similar to our political Left and Right. One is based on broad equality for all, a cohesive, fair governance, a universal participation in society. The other thrives on the absolute exercise of power, the many subservient to the few. Devoid of judgment, either one is capable of great achievements. It didn’t surprise me that based on his demeanor, my visitor came from a place where all life had value, including those creatures deemed to be less powerful.
It has been very clear to them, even from their impossible to understand distance, earth has been on a set trajectory, since the beginning of the introduction of us two-legged upright, thinking creatures. Dominance has been the mantra of man, from the moment he wielded the very first club in the very first clenched grip. From then until right now, it seems very little thought has been addressed to the consequences of our actions, at least that’s how it looks to Tom and company.
I knew what was coming next and i started laughing before he even got the question out. I said while he might come from a land of perfection, we are terribly flawed, as if the scientific purity of our evolution had succumbed to a greed hernia, the development of an intellect broken by the idea of its imperfection, mortality.
I said we have enslaved each other over the millennia and can’t seem to understand the flaws in this oft repeated strategy. Wanting to know why we keep doing this is a good question and I wished there was an answer that made sense. What Tom found really interesting was the persistent need for freedom that seemed to be impossible to kill, no matter the power thrown against it, an innate resistance to obeisance. He saw that as a flaw in his perfect design of Left and Right, at least as it applies to Earth and not anywhere else in his interstellar travels. I told him the Right will never vanquish that human need, even if we never make it to the other side of the political equation.
OK, so I am not shocked that I got picked for this encounter, but I wanted to know why now? Tom, in his faux Bowie accent, said “ We have traveled all over the many galaxies and with extremely rare exception, most destinations are either balls of gaseous fire or inhospitable, barren boulders of arid rock. No, your planet and mine are not the only ones with a history of hosting all sorts of life forms. However, earth is the only one hell bent on destroying itself at its own hand and that makes no sense to us.”
There would be more visits from them and it would likely be to humans much younger than myself, ones who were innocent enough not to catch on to their handiwork. One of his own has been spending invisible time with Greta Thunberg, who they carefully singled out to be their first emissary, carrying the only message that made sense to them.
Tom said it was time for him to go back to his “tin can” and I should simply let him walk out the way he came in and stay seated at my desk and write. I had only one request of him. I hoped he would return and asked if he could inhabit George Harrison.