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THE ALIEN FESTIVAL

( Giovanni Agnoloni ITA - IL FESTIVAL ALIENO )

 

 

 

The crowd was pressed in a hollow space, a sort of clearing in a forest. People were moving silently from a lamp to another. The sky was extremely dark: the tiny lights of a million stars alone wouldn’t have sufficed to illuminate the area.

That was the basic problem of the Vegans. They needed daylight to live. When night came over, they were compelled to sleep, as only by keeping their eyes closed they could survive in the darkness. Just on very special circumstances, like tonight, they dared come out after their sun had set down and the greenish colour of their atmosphere had turned deeply black. Yet, even in these cases they needed artificial lights to stay alive, and so they held on to them, like Earth mosquitoes around a lamp.

Cyrus was among them, on one of such occasions. Indeed, he was from Earth. He was the emissary of the World Federation, which had chosen him to visit the Vegan system, in order to study its inhabitants’ way of living. In fact, life on Earth was growing difficult, lately, mostly because of violence and ignorance. But many people from this planet thought that space exploration could teach something good to change their world. And Vega had been their first choice. Cyrus was an anthropologist, and the most famous scholars believed that his knowledge was the best means to approach another space civilization. Moreover, previous radio contacts demonstrated that the Vegans were quite similar to people from Earth, apart from a special gift that only they possessed: mind-reading.

So, as we were saying, tonight was a special night: more precisely, one of the two occasions in a year on which the Vegans faced darkness, to take part in a peculiar music festival. The sounds produced by the huge music-making machines filled the air with strange sorts of vibrations, which were meant to keep their mind-reading gift keen.

 Cyrus hadn’t hidden from them the reason of his arrival, also because he knew it would be useless: they would understand it anyway. But he had not dared hope they would allow him to take part in that extraordinary event, which was supposed to remain secret. However, Vegans were open people, and they had welcomed Cyrus. They had just advised him to use special earplugs, for the occasion, or he would go deaf.

There was a video-screen, in a corner. Many individuals gathered in front of it, which showed the making of drawings. On Earth, you’d have called them comics, but here everyone seemed to take them very seriously. They looked like 3D figures, depicted on the faces of a cube. Stories were so continuously created, and they flowed like something between a cartoon and a movie.

Cyrus initially found that show intriguing, but after a while it became a bit boring. Maybe he would have needed someone’s company, given that he was alone. Still, he couldn’t say he felt lonely. More exactly, he was losing interest for that part of the arena he was in. Maybe he should only move to another side. Music was going, all around, and he could visualize it as a series of waves. Walking through that hollow space was like swimming in an aerial sea; the earplugs were his “oxygen dispenser”. Because of them, he couldn’t hear the music, but he liked to imagine how the Vegans might feel. They all looked so distant, like many drug-addicts on Earth. But they appeared to be really happy, not just euphoric.

Cyrus tried to behave like them, following the stream of material music. The second lamp was placed in anther corner, just beyond a bump. He climbed on it, and from its top he looked down. He could see a sort of bar. They were serving small cans, with a wire coming out of the bottom, and the people bought them and plugged them in a socket they all had in the right elbow. Cyrus wondered what that might be. He looked around in search for an explanation, and he crossed the eyes of a Vegan woman. They were sweet, although a bit lost, and they inspired him with a sense of solitude and tenderness. He strongly desired to communicate with her. He approached her and asked: 

“What’s that stuff they serve the people, over there?”

She nodded slightly, and then she pointed towards the bar-area. Finally, she spoke with a voice that was like a caress. Cyrus could hear it even through the earplugs: its consistence must be very subtle.

“Those cans,” she said, “contain our wishes for the next semester. Every time we recharge our mind-batteries with this music, we can buy a desire. It is not necessarily what we would expect, but anyway it is something good. Do you have a wish?”

“I’ve got many of them,” Cyrus answered. “But I’m not a Vegan. I’m from Earth.”

She didn’t look surprised: she already knew it, as she could read it in his mind. “Don’t people from Earth usually see their desires fulfilled?” she questioned.

“When they insist a lot, in the end they may, if they are lucky, but on our planet no bar serves wish-cans,” Cyrus replied.

“Would you like to try one of ours?” she offered.

“Of course I would. But I wouldn’t know where to plug it in,” he observed.

“You think so,” the Vegan woman objected.

“No, look at my right elbow. There’s no socket in it.” And he showed it to her.

“In fact, you are right,” she acknowledged. “But you can’t have one, if you don’t let yourself go with the music. Then it will appear.”

Cyrus was astonished: “How can I listen to this music, if I need to keep on these earplugs, in order to stand it?” he asked.

“I didn’t say you had to listen. You just need to go with it. As you were beginning to do before you talked to me.”

And Cyrus understood. Without even reflecting, he took her by the hand, and they began dancing together. No, they were rather floating in music, like angels in an alien heaven. So doing, they spent quite a long time. In the end, she left his hand. Cyrus felt changed. He knew he still was a man from Earth, but he had also assimilated something of the Vegan way of living.

“Check out your elbow, now,” she invited him. So he did. The socket was there. Cyrus lacked the words to express his wonder.

“You need not speak,” the woman reassured him. “Now you are ready to take a can.”

Cyrus was afraid. He had never had a real chance to choose, in his life on Earth. Nor would he get one now, indeed: he would only receive a wish that wouldn’t probably correspond to any true desire of his. But he knew it would please him anyway, since the Vegan woman had promised so, and now he trusted her. However, he felt a sort of instinctive repulsion against this experiment. He didn’t want to be deprived of the faculty to choose his own course of life. He didn’t want to become like one of those periodically-recharged aliens, that didn’t have a real goal in life, and accepted whatever came to them. It was true: he hadn’t had great opportunities on Earth, but he had been able to work his way through life, gaining at least something similar to what he desired. He had so become the most important anthropologist on Earth, although he would have preferred to have a family of his own. But, as an anthropologist, he felt he had succeeded. And his duty was that to understand different traditions, not to get confused with them.

He reflected for a few seconds, while he felt the glance of the Vegan woman steady on him. He was aware that she could read his thoughts, as well as of the fact that she didn’t want to interfere with them. Eventually, he decided he would run the risk. After all, she had said that he could get no harm from this experience. He turned to her, and she understood his intentions. They reached the bar together, and she bought him a can: “A little present from me,” she said.

“Thanks,” he answered, taking the strange object. He plugged the wire-end into his elbow’s socket, and he crossed fingers.

A moment later, he had already understood. Around him, there no longer was music, or festival, or dancing crowd. Only nature, sunlight and the far skyline of a city. That was Earth, the place all Vegans secretly longed for. And Cyrus realized that Earth could be changed only starting from Earth.