Nothing Brings a Community Together Like a Space Invasion
Sociologists, think tank writers, informed observers, and the ordinary concerned citizen have noted for some time the decline of the type of group activities that bring people into common purpose and a sense of camaraderie.
Where are the bowling leagues of yesteryear, the Moose Lodges, the American Legions, the Rotary breakfasts, the neighborhood book clubs, the bridge tournaments that used to unite us, and by the bye scrape off some of the rough edges of our characters, as you use sandpaper to smooth the sharp corners of a piece of metal?
It is hard to begrudge a man’s ill-informed taste in movies when he has just scored a 270 for your team in the bowling tournament.
Your new larger thinking about this matter is to remark to yourself sincerely, ‘well, people have their opinions.’ A 270 is nothing to sneeze at and it has made you look at life in a new way.
It is difficult as well to resent the woman across from you at the bridge table when she has bid well and has protected the high cards in your hand and smoothed the way of your low cards.
So she is several levels above you in income and status? The word ‘hoighty’ come to mind. But say what you will about her over-stylish ways in the matter of dress and décor: she protects her bridge partner. The next time her name comes up in conversation you cut off all criticism of her. “Hey, lay off my bridge partner.”
These are the warm feelings now absent in our daily dealings. The current mode puts a premium on individual expression, and while it is always good to be on good terms with your own weird self, it is an approach that often comes up short in the common cause department.
What we need are a few good monsters.
A few werewolves, vampires, mummies, species cross-bred between humans and insects, pterodactyls resurrected for some reason from a preserved state under the ocean floor, Godzillas, Mothras, King Kongs, kraken, various larva or microscopic creatures blown up to building size, roaming packs of she-locusts, whatever those may be, and he-demons, again, whatever those may be.
This is not even to speak of aliens from distant galaxies hell-bent on humanity’s destruction, who in their private moments are revealed to be tentacled monsters who will pop a handful of people into their razor-toothed maw to get them through the long hours of mid-afternoon with a protein snack.
It is an entire family of beings that once met are hard to forget, and which — this being my point — seem to bring out the best in humanity.
You can see on the faces of the humans hot in pursuit of these monsters a look that you haven’t seen for a while.
See that fellow over there casting silver bullets in a specialized device in his basement. See his intensity, his focus. This is a new look for him, usually so hazy in his thinking, so woolly-headed in his approach to the tasks of the day. He is focused now, my friend.
And how about that gal who has perfected her archery skills so that the silver missile will pierce the werewolf’s skin from a direction that he doesn’t expect? She is tapping into a side of herself that she never knew she possessed.
The one guy over here has set up a pop-up stand of sorts selling torches, pitchforks, and I suppose bottled water and brie sandwiches to outfit the villagers as they tramp through the dark ravines of Transylvania. Well, he’s keeping the economy humming; that’s important too.
These are no longer the people cutting in front of you in traffic, jostling you in line at the hardware store, barking at one another on the television news shows.
What you now see is a milling chattering crowd, each member exchanging vital information, forming themselves into specialized groups, comparing lore that they have come across that spells out exactly how you are to stop a mummy in its tracks, a multi-headed dog mid-bark, or a sea serpent just as it is about to pull another unwary vessel to the bottom of the sea.
There is none of the rough ambition that clouds so many human relationships, none of the gossip or backbiting, none the comments behind someone’s back about the unwisdom of their most recent haircut and the suggestion that the gentleman really should sue his barber, or the offhand observation that as a matter of common sense Mindy ought not to wear a dress styled for someone twenty years younger than she in fact is.
No.
No, what you see is a concerted effort to preserve the species as is and not in a specimen jar somewhere, and a general sense of coming together into a common cause.
You get that when the latest that you have heard over the neighbor’s ham radio (a fellow whom back there in regular life you have considered just the other side of weird but who now is the only thing standing between your town and total annihilation), is the fact that the Beast From Planet X has taken over downtown and is in the process of flinging flaming boulders down the street that explode upon impact and leave deep craters in the roadway.
Enough is enough.
Your downtown is nothing to write home about on it best day, and it hasn’t had many good days, and the urban renewal project of several decades ago never really brought storefront retail back to The Avenue like it promised, but by gosh, it is your downtown, and the downtown of all these splendid people surrounding you.
When a plan is quickly devised whereby this one fellow who owns an old crop dusting plane flies up and over this monstrous segmented bug who is crawling up the side of the bank building, dropping a woman and man team upon his or her back – it is hard to tell about these Beasts from Planet X – and lasso a halter of sorts around his or her neck and ride him or her right back down to ground level and then well below ground into this underground cavern that the neighbor two cul de sacs over opened up with his jackhammer, where he or she, the monster, not the neighbor with the jackhammer, is encapsulated for the next few centuries…well, who cares whether this one fellow belongs to the country club and this other one doesn’t, and this one woman is always talking up her college alma mater while most of the girls she went to high school made do with the local junior college….these are no longer primary concerns.
What is important now is this threat to the whole of humanity and the need for collective action to save the world.
As they look upon each other after completing a series of successful feats and ploys and end-arounds that extend humanity’s existence for a few more minutes, and then for a few more minutes more still, and as they gather at the end of a busy day saving the world in the thatch-roofed tavern deep in the woods – which is a funny place to put a tavern by the way, but it seems to work – and order endless flagons of the local brew from the hearty peasant waitresses and gesturing heartily with the turkey legs that seem to be the chief item on the menu, with all ears cocked to see if any werewolves are prowling around the back door – there is a look on their faces, on all their faces, that you haven’t seen forever. It has been so long in fact that you have trouble recognizing it.
Then it comes to you.
These people are happy.
