Suburbia-File: Alien Exile

Narrated 'account' of alien-visitation consciousness in New England suburbia drawing 'visions' of Earth-distances.

An opus inspired by The X-Files. Enjoy, 

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It was a sunny week in the suburban area of my idyllic New England area when I noticed some strange goings-on, which was nothing too unordinary, since it simply took the form(s) of people acting just a 'tad' unlike themselves, but I secretly wondered in my diary if there was some kind of mass brain-wave phenomena related to Facebook-overuse 'psychology' resulting in latent repressed expressive alter-ego behaviors, so I wrote it off (naturally).

I'm a cognitive scientist and I work from home, and I started wondering about this altered-states of behavior among the people in my New England suburbia-area, and I started to think about a work I read regarding the natural-psyche theory about human beings in traffic-outlands residential zones (e.g., suburbia) indulging in forms of 'consciousness' alteration or 'abduction' fantasy linked to technology/media overuse, a natural backlash to a claustrophobic 'brain rigor-mortis' created by too much Facebook indulgence(s).

So naturally, I decided to start walking around and take stock of the people in the suburban area and shopping areas of my New England residential town/community/neighborhoods and took iPhone-shots and notes in my mind and on my tablet/iPad/iPhone about this 'natural' probable psyche-backlash of 'escapism' alter-ego consciousness and mind-wanderings created by Facebook-overuse/pseudo-addiction, but the more I wandered and took such mental notes and observed the good folks of the area, the more they 'literally' started to feel/look...like other people (not themselves at all!).

This culminated one season later when we heard news of multiple people being caught/shot by policemen while wearing masks and acting wildly in public areas claiming their minds/bodies were inhabited by the spirits of invading 'invisible' Xenomorph alien 'dragon' intelligences (a Martian species!). Now, I was worried. This theory I had about Facebook-paranoia suddenly turned into a more 'sci-fi' oriented notation about potential 'mass hysteria' (at least!) or some kind of mob consciousness alteration. Was it the heat of the spring-summer transition or global warming? I doubted the normalization hypotheses now more than ever, since this 'felt' more like some 'wild' Bohemian rebelliousness heat-wave tech-use claustrophobia anarchy 'purge' of secret lives altogether! I didn't know what to think anymore.

NEIGHBOR: Man, you're paranoid, good neighbor; all you need is more time with that pretty schoolteacher girlfriend (Mara).

ME: No, no; Mara and I 'get-along' just fine, man; I just took her to a hot Bruins game; no, neighbor, even you sound unusual.

NEIGHBOR: What...are you talking about the way I'm just 'having-fun' with my two dogs and wife here outside with Mara?

ME: No, no, neighbor...people don't feel like themselves all of a sudden...and that whole masked 'bandit' group-thing (news).

I decided to put on a Coronavirus-mask and drive around late-nights in my New England residential area/neighborhood and just take notice of people walking-around after dark and 'not looking' like themselves. That's when it occurred to me --- something strange --- regarding that psychology-work I read about tech-overuse mania-backlash with alien-abduction consciousness fantasy. I suddenly concluded a 'realistic' possibility --- some invading 'invisible' lurking 'host' of Martian-aliens were 'inducing' mental deformity among the good folks of my New England area and leading them to behave as if they'd become like 'wandering mad servants' of some Invasion agenda. I didn't want to discount this 'possible imagination' just on the grounds that all of this simply seemed...too child-like in scope or scale. Why not? Why not?

DIARY-ENTRY: I put on my mask; walked around at dawn; ran into two neighbors who whispered, "I'm not your Earth-pal." I decided to sit in front of the central area park gazebo in my neighborhood and put up my magnetic pocket-chess set on the gazebo seating-bench area table and 'pretended' to play 'against' the imagined 'invisible' invading Martian-aliens and made rook-bishop double-line offense-balance maneuvers and 'predicted' a strong/stern queen-knight offensive counter-move option by the 'invisible' hand of the Martian(s) and drew a miraculous/ironic and 'self-willed' tie-stalemate progression! I then whispered into the air, "Just go home and leave us humans alone...retire to the deep-ocean abyss as isolationist-exiles and simply give us that 'stalemate-drawn' residence-peace sovereignty we simply 'yarn' as trafficking humans on Earth.

After this strange diary-accounted 'experience' I had (with myself only?), I decided to get the laureled new Mack/Harvard work about alien-abduction psychology on Earth and read about various ideations of the 'consciousness' associated with 'spiritual' displacement(s) and thought about concerns about translated/transferred 'dark dreams' of other-worldly undesirable 'claustrophobia' and wondered why simple Earth-human activity (e.g., Facebook-chess) might 'cure' this eerie 'wave' of mob-psychology 'motion' one might 'tacitly' imagine (or sense!) in the traffic of everyday life. This was something like HG Wells from yesteryear wed to a new-era idea about 'suburbia' human distancing. As a Catholic, I felt insane, but as a human being, I couldn't but help 'cater' to this 'yarn' of inventive self-willed consciousness 'control' for experimental psychology. Why not?

I woke up one week later and hear a news-broadcast about a strange forest-fire near my New England town and decided for some reason to just run to the woods and take stock myself, and it was still early morning (dawn); and for some reason, all the firefighters were temporarily 'unavailable' and had left --- and before my eyes, I saw what I thought was a large alien-spaceship with a very bizarre and even 'frightening' looking 'dragon' like alien humanoid with metal helmet and chorded-hair (like dreadlocks) and holding some kind of razor-blade weapon bound to this 'warrior'-banded arm, and he stared at me (I thought I was dreaming this but I rubbed my eyes, and the vision remained!) and then he simply...disappeared (along with his spaceship!). Was I becoming one of these 'crazies' I was just one season ago 'noting' in my iPhone for psychology ideas/work? Was I going insane?

DIARY-ENTRY: I had a dream in which the very-same 'alien' I saw in the woods visited me and 'congratulated' me for achieving that 'whispering tie-stalemate' in gazebo-park chess earlier and assured me he/it would indeed 'resign' to the deep-ocean abyss as an isolationist-exile (forever!) without any further contact/invasion-IQ...all because of my 'human-love' of Facebook-chess! When I woke, I decided I'd become a 'witness' to my own machinations, as creative/thrilling as they were/becoming, of 'Earth' distance(s). That's the whole truth (really).

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)