Artifact 27: Examining the Strange

We have several witnesses to the crash in Roswell, New Mexico with the US Army in the mix. They all might get their butts in a jam if the army finds out!

             John and Rusty have returned from the crash site with bulging pockets. Out there, they picked up various pieces of debris some ordinary, some rather extraordinary. John demonstrated the ordinary with a piece of tinfoil that just crumpled into a ball with no strange attributes. But then he picked up another piece of tinfoil that he promised Rusty would be hard pressed to understand!

 

 

 Now showing Rusty, John took this other tinfoil scrap and he rolled and crumpled it between both palms of his hands into a wad and then put it on the desk.

 “Now watch it!” He said excitedly while pointing.

 As soon as he released it, the crumpled up scrap started to uncrumple itself like invisible hands manipulated it by stretching and pressing it out back to its original flat, sheet-like form. After a few seconds of convolutions and tipping, the little piece stopped moving on its own looking exactly the same as before without a single bend or even a tiniest scratch!

            Rusty picked it up and examined it under the desk light. “Not a bend nor a crease or mark on it! So what is this stuff, I wonder?”

            “Some sort of experimental metal the army is developing maybe, I don’t know but the best explanation for us finding it out there,” John said pointing in the direction of the crash.

            “Hmm, so just how strong is this sheet metal?” Rusty asked, fingering the thin strip.

            “No idea, let’s give it a try,” John said, walking around behind the desk, he opened a drawer and withdrew a pair of scissors. “Here give it a snip, Rusty.”

Rusty took the scissors in one hand and the shiny piece in the other. He studied the scrap a few moments before slipping the scissor blades over the scrap. He lightly closed the blades, but it had no effect whatsoever because the metal seemed so thin and slippery it slipped easily between the blades! Rusty tried again but the scissors wouldn’t grip the piece to cut it.

            “The blades won’t grab the metal because it is so thin. Well, here, I’ll give it another try.” 

Rusty held the scrap tightly in one hand and opened the scissor blades wide so the scrap’s edge was right up against the blade hinge. He tried again. This time the metal didn’t slip between the blades, but it was deformed as the blades closed across it, though it still wasn’t cut. 

“Man! This metal is extremely tough. Here, look at it now.”

 Rusty held it up for John to see. Even though the blades caught the metal on its sharp edges, the scissors still didn’t make a nick in it.  Rusty pulled the metal from the scissors and turned it over to examine it. 

            “Nary a mark on it, I’ve never seen anything like it!”  John shook a finger at it.  “My point here is that there seems to be ordinary enough materials out there and then others strange, I’d call extraordinary, materials.” He changed his focus to a couple other pieces that looked somewhat like wood. “Like these pieces here, just truly lightweight wood, then this material,” he picked up the other, “is different and tough. Rusty, watch this.” 

He set that one down and picked up the first. John broke what he had pointed out as wood in two hands with no effort at all. Then, he picked up the other piece that was about one inch square and about a foot long. He tried to break it, even using two hands pulling the piece across his knee. The piece flexed quite readily, but no matter how he twisted and pulled the piece could not be broken.

 “Here let me try something else,” John said pulling out his pocket jack knife that Rusty had seen him sharpen to keen edge on many occasions.

As if he was whittling a piece of wood, John stroked the knife blade down along the edge of the material, but the blade couldn’t be started into it, it just slid along it like it was a piece of hardened steel.  John then put the piece of material on the desk and bracing the back of the blade with his palm, he pressed the edge down against the material with all his weight. John grunted with exertion until suddenly the knife blade broke with a metallic ringing ping! Rusty was looking over John’s shoulder, but he jerked away when the blade broke. John relaxed letting out a huff while picking up and examining the broken blade in disappointment.

“Damn! I had this old jack since my pappy gave it to me forty-some odd years ago. I thought it was indestructible. Damn! What is that stuff there?” He said nodding toward the strange material.

Rusty picked the piece up and ran his fingers up and down the length. “Not a nick or scratch on it, amazing! I’ve never seen anythin’ like it. These pieces are worth reporting in themselves without the�"” He gulped. “Without the story of the bodies�"you think?”

 John stood there folding his broken knife back up and slid it in his pocket.

             “Rusty, listen here. We need to give them the whole story. I was thinking about what you saw. Why don’t you see if you can draw those bodies the army carried away? You think you can do that?”

Apparently, John still had his doubts concerning Rusty’s story, but he felt that something wasn’t ‘right’ out there at the crash. He didn’t know what exactly but something else was out of whack about the crash. Nevertheless, he trusted Rusty’s word.

“Rusty, here sit at the desk. I have a pencil and a tablet in the top drawer.”

 Rusty sat and timidly pulled open the drawer, feeling like he was intruding on his boss’s privacy but found the table and pencil. He quickly drew a couple stick figures with large heads, but he obviously didn’t like them and crumpled them into balls, laying them aside on the desk. He shook his head and stared at the wall thinking for a few moments.

John stood aside Rusty and laid a soft hand on his shoulder. He spoke slowly and calmly.

 “Take your time Rusty, think about what you saw and try to remember the outlines�"the sizes and shapes. Don’t worry about the details.” 

            Rusty thought a few moments longer and started drawing again. He sketched with a light hand to carefully make many light lines that eventually formed a round bulbous shape like a light bulb. Rusty then went back and with a single hard line finished the outline. He looked at it for a while longer.

            “John!” Melba shouted from the other side of the door. Both the men jumped with the sudden noisy intrusion. “It’s getting late! When are you going to come to bed?”

             “Not now, Melba!  We’re busy, you go to bed and I’ll be there in a while.” John shouted back. He laid a hand back on Rusty’s shoulder. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

            Rusty then started sketching in one eye, a huge oval eye.  Rather uneasily Rusty looked up at John observing Rusty’s drawing. Rusty turned his face up to John.

“You know, I didn’t see the faces head on, so I didn’t get to see both eyes at the same time.”

            “So seen like a profile of ‘em?”

             “Yeah, I s’pose.”

            Rusty continued sketching the one eye and added a small circle on the side of the head. 

            “Is that an ear?” 

            “Can’t say fer sure, it’s just what I saw.”

            He then then made two small hard dots that he pressed hard on and then elongated the dots like dashes or more like a quotation mark on the edge of the oval ‘head.’

            “Nose holes?”  John asked.

            “John,” Rusty said and shook his head slowly no.  “I haven’t any I-D what any of these things are I’m just drawing my mind’s eye.”

             “Of course,” John said encouragingly with a wave, “go ahead.” 

            Rusty then went back to the eye and started filling them in with dark pencil. After he finished, he looked at it again.

He elongated the eye a little on the top and turning aside, said to John, “this is what they looked like.”

            “No hair or anything on their face?” John asked.   

             “Not a thing!”

            “Two eyes?”

            “I s’pose so.” Rusty said, with a shrug, “but not showing from the side I saw.”

            “Oh�"right. Ah, how about their bodies, and ah, arms and legs?”

            “As I said, very thin, skinny, starving looking bodies,” Rusty said showing a thin outline of a body with his thumb and forefinger. “Oh! I remember now! One of them had a hand hanging off the stretcher. It had long, long skinny fingers with funny fat tips!

            “Think you can draw them?” John asked pointing to the paper. 

            “I’ll try.” With more sketching lines, the strange body took a thin sickly look.  Rusty then drew the hand with long, bent fingers with large knuckles and fingertips. He stopped and shook his head. “I can’t get the arm to body connection right. I just can’t picture that. I didn’t see it that long!” Rusty threw the pencil down and stood up quickly thrusting the roller desk chair backward with his legs. The chair struck the wall with a resounding thud. 

            “I know, I know how you must feel,” John said trying to calm Rusty. He pushed the chair back to the desk. “Close your eyes for a few moments and see if you can remember anything else, if not, we’ll leave it just like that.” 

Eyes closed, Rusty sat again with his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. He traced over a few lines again but didn’t add anything else to enhance the drawing. 

 “Rusty, I can now see why you were so bothered with what you had seen.  That is, I don’t know how to say it, that is a strange, disheartening or just monstrous�"thing in my book!” John said examining the drawing close up. “I think that Mavel man will be interested in this…all this.” He said waving over the pieces on the desk. Rusty grimly nodded.  “Let’s get some shuteye. Tomorrow promises to be a very interesting day.”

            “I don’t know, John. Today was interesting enough fo’ me!” Rusty said with a grim smile. 

            “I understand, old friend.  I’ll take care of getting hold of Mavel in the morning, I’ll see you then.”

            Rusty and John walked out of the office together. Apparently Melba went to bed on her own for she was nowhere in sight. 

            Rusty stopped short. “What about the army if they show?” Rusty asked. 

            “I don’t think we need to worry about them.  If they come by, we’ll just send them on their way to the crash site.” 

Rusty stood there silently for a few seconds nodding slowly, then abruptly said good night, turned and went out the door, gently guiding it shut to the door jamb so it wouldn’t slam.

            Rusty stepped off the porch and stopping a second, he took a deep breath, and looked up at the stars glittering through the gaps in the trees. Stepping further away from the house, he took in the wide expansive star-spangled sky, just another New Mexico night in early July, not unlike so many other summer nights.  

Rusty only wished it was a normal summer night, but the events of the day remained central on his mind leaving an uneasy, heavy feeling that lingered in the pit of his stomach.