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I have a friend named Kate who is an absolutely fabulous actor in New York City. She's done quite a bit of Shakespeare, among many other fine shows (I won't mention Charlie Brown). I have another friend, Rebecca, who is a topnotch stage manager, one of the best in the biz. She has worked on a number of big shows including one of which she's not too terribly fond: Saturday Night Fever. Whenever I'm in NYC, I visit with these wonderful folks, and we always have a grand old time sipping cheap wine, sampling fine cheese, and discussing art, literature, film, and theater. Somehow out of these slightly tipsy debates, Flyby Aliens arose.Art and creativity are the aliens within us. Beautiful, frustrating, enlightening, difficult, joyous, painful...I like the idea that the entire artistic process is a B.E.M (bug-eyed-monster), sometimes helping us along, other times leaving us stranded and desperate. We're all strangers in a strange land when it comes to creativity, struggling to understand, never giving up or giving in, champions till the end. Rah! I guess that was the metaphor I was playing with underneath the surface of "Flyby Aliens," our sense of struggle to create something divine with the unique and inadequate voices in our own overwrought personal universes.But to be honest, that's stretching things a bit. It's just a story, after all. And if you enjoy reading "Flyby Aliens" half as much as I enjoyed writing it, my efforts were worthwhile.Writer Nick DiChario's short stories are published widely in magazines and anthologies. His short story, "Sarajevo," is a finalist for this year's Hugo Award. You can read more about Nick at: www.mysteryhouse.comFLYBY ALIENSby Nick DiChario"Let's talk," Sally said to Max."Do we have to talk right now?" It was late. Max was in the middle of revisions for Act III of Flyby Aliens, the pages strewn across his side of the bed.Sally sat on the mattress in her terrycloth bathrobe. Her dark gray hair settled damply against the pale sienna color of her skin. She tucked up her knees, and Max could smell the sea-spray bath oil lingering on her skin. "I think it's time you wrapped up that play, Max. You've been obsessing over it for five years.""Four years. I started writing it the day I retired. I thought you liked the play.""I do. I love it. But three years rewriting -- ""Two. I just can't stick the climax. Why does Melinda have to leave Eddy?No matter how many times I rewrite the final scene, it just doesn't sound honest.""Maybe you should turn on the TV and rest your brain for a night."Max tugged on his pajama bottoms and repositioned the lumbar pillow to the small of his back. He couldn't sit still for too long. Sometimes his sciatic nerve made him see stars, even if his play didn't. "If I turn on the TV, you won't fall asleep, and tomorrow you'll blame me for the dark circles under your eyes."Sally kicked off her slippers. "How long have we been married?""Twenty-five years.""What if I told you it was over -- the marriage. I'm leaving. What would you say?""I'd tell you not to be so melodramatic. Melodrama kills." Max looked for the page where the alien ships came down and hovered over New York City. In his play, the aliens never actually landed on Earth. Sally had proposed that change early on, in his third or fourth draft. Max knew she was right as soon as he'd heard it. More than just a clever twist, an alien visitation where the aliens never reveal themselves, where they just fly by, teasing us, leaving us frustrated and confused, was a metaphor for Man's own frustrated journeys through time and space and, well, life. He reached for his coffee cup on the nightstand, but the cup was empty.Sally patted her hair with a dry towel and leaned back against her pillows."What if I told you that talking or not talking wouldn't make a difference. I'm leaving. The talking is for your sake, not mine."Max tried to figure if Sally was serious or just projecting. She was not normally prone to theatrical displays of emotion, but she was fond of daytime TV. She might be operating under some crazy gab-show pop psychology theory: 'Today on Get A Life, Why Your Perfectly Good Twenty-Five-Year Marriage is Bad for You!'Max decided to laugh it off. "Come on. We've got a great relationship. We talk. We share. We like the same radio station. We vote for the same lousy politicians. We even go to the grocery store together. Not bad after twenty-five years of marriage." He didn't mention their lack of children or lack of sex; they'd tried hard at one and had quit trying altogether at the other. But you couldn't live a long time with a person and not suffer a setback or two. Struggles brought people closer together, Max had always believed. "Besides," he added, "what would I do without your help on my play?""Maxy, you need to finish the play. What are you going to do, fiddle with it forever?"Max shrugged. Why not? If he never officially finished it, the play could never officially be rejected.Sally found the remote, clicked on the television, and turned up the sound. Max thought about moving to the kitchen to continue his tireless efforts, but an Asian anchorwoman appeared on-screen and said:"We don't know where the aliens have come from or why they're here. We haven't been able to open any lines of communication but -- one moment -- we're going to give you four live views now, and you'll see the alien ships over Paris -- are we ready? -- yes -- there they are now -- Paris, France; Lubbock, Texas; Sydney, Australia; and Port Elizabeth, South Africa."The alien ships looked like monstrous accidental experiments in pottery, all different shapes, sizes, and colors. There were hundreds of them, possibly thousands in the skies around the globe, more appearing every few minutes. The anchorwoman said that none of the ships had made any "aggressive overtures" toward strategic land targets or United Nations reconnaissance aircraft. Her lips twitched, and there was a slight tremor in her voice."My God," Max mumbled. "I think she's serious." He snatched the remote and changed the station to see if anyone else was covering the story. CNN. MSNBC. National NewsNet. All the major networks and their local affiliates were talking about it.Sally curled up under the bedcovers. "I'm serious, too.""I don't think this is the best time to discuss splitting up. Look at those aliens out there, I mean, Sal, they're in our atmosphere, right over our heads. This could be the end of the world as we know it. The end of mankind. What if we only have a few hours to live?""Now who's being melodramatic? The end of mankind. Sheesh."Max rummaged through the crumpled pages of his play and pulled out Act I, Scene II, the scene where alien ships first appeared over New York City. "Sal, don't you think it's weird that my play is about this exact thing? I've got an alien visitation, an entire fleet that just cruises in from outer space and nobody knows anything about them. They don't try to communicate with us, and we can't contact them, just like what's happening now."Max felt Sally turn away from him in bed, leaving his question unanswered. He set aside the play, clicked off his light, and moved his body to fit neatly beside hers. After twenty-five years of marriage, he didn't think that either of them could live without the other, and he didn't really believe that Sally wanted to try. Whatever was troubling her, they'd work it out. But he couldn't help wondering about the aliens and his play.Max had been a schoolteacher and head of the drama club at George Madison High for thirty years. When he'd finally retired, all he wanted to do was write his own play, something unique, poignant, fresh, inventive, new. Sally had helped him get started. They'd bounced ideas around. They'd plotted and shot dialogue back and forth. Max didn't know if he completely bought into Harold Bloom's theory -- great scholar and critic Bloom was -- that nary an original thought had been penned since Shakespeare had written centuries ago. But there was certainly no excuse for Broadway productions like Saturday Night Fever, no matter how bad things got.Max had been a science fiction fan all his life and yet he hadn't thought, at first, to write that kind of play. It was Sally who'd pushed him in that direction, and now the aliens were here, right in front of his nose, and Max felt cheated. What did the aliens want? What did they look like? What intergalactic message of peace, love, or mass destruction did they carry? Max didn't want to know the answers to any of those questions. He wanted to write his own Act III. Maybe Sally was right. Maybe he should have finished the play two years ago. He turned off the TV and went to sleep.#The next day Max got up before Sally and made the coffee. They had retired to a condo in West Palm Beach, Florida, Singer Island, within walking distance of the sandy beach and the gambling cruise ships, where all winter long the weather was sunny and eighty plus degrees. To Max, who had grown up in frigid Minnesota, his life had become a permanent vacation. The condo was small -- one bedroom, one bath, a cozy living room, and a miniature kitchen -- but it was home.He went outside to get the newspaper. The breeze carried the smell of salt water from the Atlantic Ocean, and the early sun looked almost rose-colored in the clouds. A crowd of people stood on the beach in their bathing suits and flip-flops, gazing up at the sky, shading their eyes with sunglasses and umbrellas. Arnie, Max's neighbor, was out walking his little yellow mutt named Chester."Hi, Arnie," Max said. "We got... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]