The Oval

Where were you the day it arrived? What were you doing? What was your initial reaction? Was it fear? Was it contempt? Was it disbelief? Was it unfathomable? Were you annoyed to have your boundaries painfully extended past the comprehensible confines of society? The same society you thought you’d finally mastered?

I’ll tell you what I saw. Most people first turned to the scientists and mathematicians, for a plausible explanation of what was going on. They waited impatiently for the next newspaper article or CNN appearance of some big shot scientist, serving as the ultimate brain for the country, for the whole world. To reassuringly explain why there was an oval-shaped rock parked within the shroud of clouds blanketing New York.

When the scientists and mathematicians failed to provide a convincing answer, they all turned to religion. Which religion? There are so many to choose from these days. Their respective religions. The Hindus proclaimed that the floating oval was hollow and contained the lost texts of the Vedas. That they had been sent here to remind humanity of the honest and gentle paths our ancestors had walked, and we had lost over the years.

The Buddhists believed that the oval was a demigod. Reborn from another existence from the highest plane of the six gati.

The Christians believed that this was the Second Coming of Christ, and that the oval was a sacred symbol for the womb of the Virgin Mary.

The Muslims closely followed this belief. Except, they were ready for the Son of God to step out of that rock and spread Islam across the continents, converting even the fish in the oceans, and everything in between.

Some of the more hardcore Christians believed that the oval was a judgement from God. For all the sins we’ve gotten away with over thousands of years. They flogged themselves daily, to repent the running tab of disobedience, until their skin glistened raw. When the oval didn’t move, they upped their flogging sessions to an hourly cadence. Most of them died trying to calculate how many flogs it would take to account for the sins of eight billion people.

Others believed that it was the beginning of the Rapture. They closed their eyes and raised their arms into the sky. Ready to be taken up high to meet Him, as if He had nothing better to do than to meet a handful of people He had created in the first place.

Some professed that it was a second Ark. They quickly spoke of plans to find two of each creature. But this biblical generosity and act of selflessness, lived and died only through words. In reality, everyone cut in line to get a spot on the helicopters, which would fly them into the Ark. The rich were naturally up first, while the poor argued amongst each other, blind to the fact that their seats were being taken. Fights broke out, people were trampled to death, and anarchy broke loose on the streets, spreading rapidly like a pandemic.

The Jews waited quietly for the most part, unwilling at first to join in on the endless chaos and destruction. They believed that the end of days was upon them, and that God would reanimate all the bodies of the dead. He would return the rightful souls to their rightful containers of flesh and blood and begin to judge them. One by one.

The Atheists blamed the government, for not providing enough funding to the scientists; which they claimed, resulted in their inability to explain this phenomenon.

The rich opened their wallets and offered up every cent to ensure their own safety. Until one day, money didn’t mean anything anymore. Dollar bills were used as toilet paper and became less valuable than toilet paper.

The drugstores, grocery stores, and pharmacies were amongst the first to be raided. That was the newest currency. Forget the middleman. People stole more than they could carry, just to have an edge. Whether this edge translated into more portions of everything for themselves, or leverage that could be used against the other starving, wounded, and sick people. It was a win, an upper hand regardless. But such an upper hand would not go unnoticed and needed protection. So, the gun shops, knives, baseball bats, any weapons were raided next.

People killed each other in the streets over canned beans, Snickers bars, you name it. The oval continued to hover overhead silently. Two months had gone by, and the oval hadn’t moved an inch. Society, however, was almost completely eradicated. It had mutated into a lightless era. Into a form closer to our earlier days, with strong and cruel tyrants, forming gangs, identifiable through specific colors and symbols. They divided the land into new territories. Even the families who were led by fathers holding their heads up high saying, “I told you one day this underground bunker I spent all of our savings on would come in handy,” grew weary as their food supplies continued to diminish.

The homeless were forced to choose sides and fight one another over the scraps they could no longer beg for. The doctors were forcefully put to work to treat the battle wounds of their relative gangs.

The fighting continued, until there were two rival gangs left. All the smaller groups drifted away and were forced to swear allegiance to one of the two. Like a behemoth corporation buying out all of its competition. Squishing the bugs before they had a chance to grow big enough to challenge them.

A Mother Teresa shelter was formed for all those who sought refuge from the violence and terror. The two rival gangs both took turns raiding and recruiting people from this peaceful shelter, offering the survivors a simple choice: join or die.

The government, which had been reduced to practically nothing, tried one final attempt to restore peace and order. These peaceful attempts were quickly carried out with the remaining rifles and ammunition which hadn’t been stolen from their stores. Until those too were seized and incorporated into the armies of the two rival gangs.

Then one day, like a bored viewer clicking off the TV, the oval left our world. It hadn’t commenced the Rapture. It hadn’t brought forth the Second Coming. It hadn’t proved itself to be a demigod from one of the six gati. It hadn’t blessed Man with the lost texts of the Vedas. It had however initiated the end of days, reanimating all the bodies into corpses.