“See that kite hanging from the power line? Could be GW spying us on his web cam.”
This news was dropped into the middle of the party like a little green bag, slapped on the picnic table as the night morphed into purple, hazy velvet, that certain satin Certs aftertaste sensing things are melting into strange.
“Yeah, it just might be a spy plane stealing energy from the electric wires to recharge its batteries.”
This dude wore no saucers for eyes. He didn’t see flying saucers on LSD. He didn’t live in a van. He dressed like his parents, and he didn’t play bass guitar in a New Age cover band.
“The United States Air Force is developing remote controlled spy planes to do extended surveillance missions,” the dude said. “They’ve got a wingspan of about a meter. They’ve only got so much juice, so the government is designing them to attach to electric wires and recharge. Then they change shape to look like pieces of trash.”
Fact is, the dude wore the button-down striped blue hue of a golfer, a martini slowly swaying on the deck of his tan Dockers, slick mirror wing tips shining brilliantly like the moon. Brushed eyebrows held up the crown of his wild bald spot. The dude could have sold insurance to schoolchildren, CEO’d executives up the ass. He could even be that nonchalant Dr. Man chanting, “Turn your head and cough.”
I coughed spasms of disbelief like that guy who took so much acid he thought he was a glass of orange juice. Couldn’t go to sleep or I’d spill all over myself.
“It’s real. Slashdot.org. Check it out.”
The story checked out. Slashdot.org led to a New ScientistTech news item that could fit on a blotter stamped with the Virgin Mother Mary smiling incandescently.
Science fiction is now the stuff of newspapers, because really the imagination of the Transformers generation is taking over the world. Government conspiracy believes in the brains that reigned in the golden age of Magnum pistol-transforming robots, choreographed psychopaths primed with an optical mind. Technology has made imagination impossibly possible, and I’ve seen the best minds of my generation deceived into working for the chain gang of the evil Decepticons.
Never look a piece of trash in the eye. Wave peace signs at the shoes hanging from the telephone lines; moon every electrocuted balloon with your own heart shaped loony tune. Our hallucinations have become real, hijacked by the CIA as science fiction becomes the new government conspiracy plot of USA Today.
