Mslexia short story entry

Hi all - hope you're not as sick of the weather as I am!

As I've previously mentioned, last year I entered Mslexia's short story competition - I wasn't successful, but I still thought I'd share my piece with you all.

I've not written much fiction; so although it's got a heavy environmental/nature theme, as well as a spot of chronic illness, I did feel a bit out of my depth.

The cat at the beginning is based on my friend's lion who unfortunately took his journey to the rainbow bridge while I was writing.

Hope you enjoy (just to let you know there's a little spicy language)!

---

The 24 month turnaround

Picture this: A red brick cottage a couple of streets away from the large town centre. An extremely fluffy orange and white cat sat on the garden wall, watching a butterfly on a nearby foxglove; tail twitching ever so slightly. He really is majestic. An überfloof, if you will. An urgent thought crosses his mind and he jumps down and skips over to the blue front door. He enters, rather clumsily, through the cat flap, making it seem a much trickier manoeuvre than it actually was.

Next door, Alice pulled a brush through her short, choppy black hair. She stood from the sofa with a slight wince and grabbed her bright striped walking stick from the stand near the door. Since her friend Lois made her a few awesome custom pieces last year, she felt heaps more confident using a cane as a twentysomething with invisible health struggles.

A few houses down on the opposite side of the street, It’s the end of the world as we know it played from an open upstairs window. Little did the teenage boy lounging on the bed know, it would end up being surprisingly appropriate background music for the whole damn day.

Alice closed the door behind her and slowly made her way down the road towards the bookshop where she worked. It usually took her about 15 minutes at her ‘recently deceased’ snail’s pace, but today she wouldn’t get there at all.

---

Until that moment, it had been a fairly sunny day, a few clouds here and there, but nothing to really worry about. Then, all of a sudden, the sky changed to the purple of a sunset as if by a flick of a switch.

Alice looked up from the pavement where she’d been watching her step and saw others on the street were doing the same.

Again, abruptly, like a jack in the box unleashed, a dark shape appeared. Almost your stereotypical flying saucer, but hexagonal instead of round. On each side there was an image of a planet with multiple rings surrounded by a deep teal shield with a gold border. It floated there for a minute or two, before a voice began:

Listen up morons. We are Protection for Planets, a coalition of many races from all across the universe. We travel the cosmos looking for any worlds with species that have gotten out of control and are killing their home planet through selfishness and greed. We then carry out a range of protocols so the planet can repair itself and return to functioning as it should, benefitting all life present.

This brings me to our motivation for being here today:

We are sick of watching your beautiful Earth being destroyed. We are done observing from a distance. There are too many human beings on this planet. It cannot cope, changes must be made. We will shortly reduce the population of Homo sapiens by 50%.

In an attempt to limit psychological harm, we will do our best to extinguish entire social units to ensure no one is left behind. Once this process is complete, it is down to you. Look after your planet or not only will we be enraged, but we will be forced to return to implement further action.

This message will now be repeated in the following languages: Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, French, Bengali, Russian, and Urdu.

Inevitably, there will be places in which these languages aren’t spoken, but as these groups will be almost fully removed, the need for them to understand our message and the overall situation is lessened.

“Brutal.” Someone behind Alice said, having regained use of their vocal cords.

And that was all they had to say. The voice continued as if coming from the air itself for almost an hour; running through each language twice to really hammer the message home. Powerful but calm. Like that famous nature presenter off the telly. What was his name? Alice's usual brain fog, plus the fear and confusion of the current situation kept her from remembering.

Everyone around Alice just carried on staring at the sky with eyes like CDs (remember those?) and jaws around their ankles. Who knew if they listened to and understood the message? They may well have been too stunned to pay any attention at all.

Alice herself had dropped her cane in surprise when the ship first materialised and had to slowly bend down to retrieve it. She began walking again, passing the bookshop, until she felt palpitations in her chest and knew her heart rate was rising sharply. She’d been stood up too long. She headed to a bench where she knew she could stop, think and attempt to process what the hell was going on.

Strangely, by the time she lowered herself onto the seat, the streets were almost entirely deserted. Goodness knows where everyone else went. Home to their chores? Back into work as if nothing had happened? A warm, dark cave in which to rock back and forth, convinced they’d gone insane?

Half an hour or so later, Alice was still on the bench. Had she forgotten her meds this morning and imagined the whole thing? No, of course not, everyone else saw and heard it too. She looked down at her phone. She spent several minutes skipping across the internet, but could not find a single news story about the ship and its message. It turned out the media all around the world were under strict instructions to stay quiet until further notice. Social media posts were also thin on the ground, for once it seemed that people were too stunned to get out their phones.

Alice shook her head, still attempting to process the absolute mindfuck of a situation that appeared to be unfolding. She decided to head home, her boss at the bookshop having text her not to worry about coming in.

She spent the evening watching movies and eating all the snacks she could find in the house. If it were true and she had a 50% chance of being eliminated from the face of the earth, what did it matter that she was ploughing her way through a month’s worth of calories in one go? Of course, if she was one of the lucky ones who were left behind, her body would probably be super pissed at her in the morning. But she decided to cross that bridge when, and if, she came to it.

A restless night on the sofa followed, not even her high strength sleeping pills could knock her out. Why hadn’t she heard from any of her friends? Were they already gone? Were they just too confused to reach out? It wasn’t until 5am that Alice realised her phone had been off the entire night. She cursed and tried to turn it back on, but the battery was dead. She found the charger, plugged it in, and finally managed to get some rest.

The morning came and it had happened.

The sky was once again a gently brilliant blue, the sun was out and there was no sign of the UFO.

The PFP ship had made good on its promise, but how? Half of all humans had indeed been wiped from Earth, but left no sign they’d ever been there to begin with. No blood sprayed everywhere, no suspicious chemical smell, no foxes or seagulls munching on the remains of what might have been the plumber.

Hardly anyone was missing friends, nor were there people sobbing in the street for lost loved ones. All in all, everyone seemed pretty ok with it.

It was mega weird.

The closest Alice came to losing anyone was when her best friend and colleague Iris text her a couple of days later:

Elliot’s aunt gone. He’s not that bothered. Didn’t like the miserable cow anyway.

The three of them met while Elliot was a barista at the café next to the bookshop where the girls worked and they came in one day on their lunch break. His estranged aunt was the only family he had left and they hadn’t spoken in years, despite living just a few streets apart. However they were calculating it, the coalition clearly realised their relationship wasn’t serious enough to remove Elliot too. Out of curiosity he had gone round to her house, found the key under the mat and let himself in. He sighed, annoyed at his aunt for leaving the emergency key in the first place anyone would look. Not that it mattered now. Everything was where it should’ve been, but the woman herself had just. Gone.

No one really saw the impacts of the PFP’s actions on a personal level, nothing had really changed in their individual little worlds. Life seemed weirdly normal considering there’d just been an alien apocalypse.

2 years later

A lot had changed on planet Earth since the PFP ship visited and halved the human population overnight.

Initially, the powers that be didn’t have a scooby about how to run things moving forward; but with a lot of conversation and teamwork (I know, right?) a plan for the future gradually emerged.

Clearly, a population half the size it once was, does not need the same volume of supplies as it used to. The first widespread action involved recycling the cars and motorcycles that had belonged to those who had vanished. Many who were left had switched to cycling or other more planet-friendly modes of transport, so their vehicles were scrapped too. The materials recovered in this process would be enough to last for decades, generations even.

Next came the removal of redundant infrastructure, beginning with housing. Substandard dwellings were torn down, people were moved to better accommodation. It wasn’t long before all of those mould-filled, bug infested deathtraps were gone and everyone had a safe roof over their head.

On these empty sites, public parks and other green spaces were created. Acres upon acres of greenery, running water and flowers for everyone to enjoy. Of course, plants are a great cleanser of the air and even pollution began to drop as well. Breathing became something that nourished the body, instead of filling it with toxins.

Fewer people need less food, so landscapes once dominated by oppressively farmed monocultures were returned to nature. Some were planted as forests, some as wildflower meadows, and some just left to do their own thing. Animals raised for food now had more space to roam and play, and their lower numbers meant their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers themselves reported one of the highest increases in wellbeing, as they were no longer under pressure to produce food in huge quantities, at speed and in conditions and an economy that fought them every step of the way.

Even the climate sceptics were amazed at how quickly the harmful gas levels in the atmosphere were plateauing, and scientists soon predicted it wouldn’t be long before they started to drop.

People were finally interested in protecting the world around them; and boy was the world around them grateful.

Temperatures decreased, natural disasters became less frequent and weather patterns returned to what they had been before people screwed everything up.

Coral reefs sang back to life and the polar ice caps stabilised. Previously scarce creatures saw their populations rocket as once degraded habitats returned to their former glory. Nature was finally something everyone appreciated and benefitted from.

Inevitably the working population gradually found their workload lighter. Police, teachers, lawyers and social workers were no longer working themselves to the bone trying to serve too many people with too few resources. Factory workers and delivery drivers weren’t on their feet for hours at a time with no time to even go to the bathroom. Doctors now had time to make a real difference in people’s lives, rather than just rushing through five-minute appointments or attempting to diagnose over the phone.

A global survey of the 50 most populated countries reported a 65% increase in people having hobbies outside of work. Proper hobbies. Not just flopping down in front of reruns of crappy TV or doomscrolling on their phones. Things like birdwatching, painting, hiking and cooking were all back on the agenda when a work-life balance was restored. To everyone’s surprise, birth rates decreased as people's lives were now so interesting, many no longer felt they needed to have children to have a worthwhile existence.

Who knows if humans will eventually go extinct, but then again, who cares? Everything was fine until we showed up.

---

Alice was sitting in her nearest park, under a recently planted tree, when her phone yelled a catchphrase from her favourite TV show. She slid it from her pocket and found the email she had been hoping for, but never really expected to receive. A study she had been following, looking into treatments for chronic pain, fatigue and other related symptoms, was entering its second phase and needed more participants. As she scrolled through the email outlining the early findings for the first part of the study, her heart cartwheeled.

“Significant reduction in symptoms for upwards of 70% of patients”

“Minimal side effects that resolved shortly after treatment began”

“Long lasting relief”

Alice almost couldn’t believe what she was reading. She knew that a huge number of medical studies had been given a real boost since the PFP visit. It was widely known that many in the medical field had switched to research, at least part time, because frontline medicine was no longer demanding a disproportionate share of man hours and funding. Even so, to have a huge forward leap like this already left Alice shaky.

---

A month and a half later Alice was sat on the end of her bed, crying. Tears of relief, grief and joy streaming down her face and making her nose snotty. She had been on this new treatment for 3 weeks and felt human. Not great, not even good, but human. She had only needed her cane to walk to work 3 days this week instead of the usual 4. Her gait was steadier, her body having more energy to hold itself up and place her feet properly. She was sleeping better and not waking up in cold sweats because her heart rate had gone through the roof for no reason. Her pain had decreased from what she would call a seven out of ten to a five. Work had been much busier since people had more time to read, but she felt no worse than she used to after a slow day sat behind the counter on her stool.

That night, Alice had her friends round. Her and Iris shared the sofa, Lois was in the armchair and Elliot nestled into a beanbag on the floor next to Iris’ dog, Nugget. They were watching a movie from their favourite horror franchise but all Alice could think about was her future and what doors were finally opening for her.

The PFP created a world in which Alice could envision getting her life back. She could study, she could travel, she could live, rather than just survive.

She chuckled. Aliens had changed her life for the better.

Aliens.

What.

The.

Frack?!

People all over the globe shared this sentiment, but it was especially profound for people like Alice whose worlds were finally expanding and lives were truly reset.

It didn’t take long before formerly busy city workers couldn’t imagine starting their day without feeding the birds by the lake; or finishing it with a leisurely game of bat and ball in the park with their friends.

The overall pace of life was slower and more relaxed. No stressing if there would be enough food to go around, no worry about finding a home. No one getting sick from polluted water or smogged up air. No one working themselves to an early grave or dropping dead from an anxiety induced heart attack.

Who would have thought that all we needed to be happy and healthy was for there to be fewer of us?

Not only were the people happy, the planet was too.

Sure, everyone knew the ships would always be watching.

But most saw this as a gentle reminder to stick to this new way of life rather than a scary threat.

We couldn’t fuck it up a second time – could we?