Memorycemetery

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Chapter 3. The Room Designed for Human Use

 I had no idea what to expect when we walked into the room, but I made a mental note to try and remember everything in detail, so that a proper record could be made later. For this reason, the best thing is to describe the room as factually as possible, so that the description can be of maximum use to science. The “room” was really a series of rooms, in other words, like a small flat on earth. The living room was about 12 feet by 14 feet and the floor was covered with brown acrylic wall-to-wall carpet. There was a pattern on the carpet that created a kind of swirly effect using mainly several shades of brown, but also some black, orange and flecks of grey. The walls of the room were covered with woodchip wallpaper painted cream. The main feature of the room was a three-piece suite. This was covered with brown cotton material laced with thin cream-coloured lines (the lines seemed to have tiny bumps on them). The sofa, a three-seater, was sitting against the centre of the wall, opposite where we now stood. In front of the sofa was a small coffee table with a brown formica top and slightly splayed legs. The legs had little round gold feet. A picture in a greyish-cream frame was hanging on the wall above the sofa. It was the well-known painting, “The Spanish Lady”. A large display cabinet and a bookshelf took up much of wall to our left. In the corner to my left, at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the sofa, was a television placed on top of a small cabinet. The cabinet contained a video player. Beside the video cabinet was a small brown imitation wood table with a cream plastic telephone on top. The main feature of the wall to my right was a stone-effect fireplace within which was placed a “Magicoal” electric fire. The fire was turned on (but not the bars) and the little mechanical flames danced up and down. I sensed the Grey was watching me, looking for signs that would show my reaction to the room. I thought it best not to say too much, either for or against. “Very nice” was all I said. The Grey indicated that we should move to the next room, which was the kitchen. Like the living room, the kitchen had everything you would expect to find in a normal room on earth. There was a fridge, cooker, sink, washing machine, microwave, shelves, breadbin, biscuit tin, teapot, mug tree with assorted mugs. The floor covering was cream lino with a brown flower-type design. Where the lino joined the skirting board it curled up slightly. On one wall was a calendar advertising a Chinese takeaway: The Golden Dragon. “Nice kitchen” I said, “Very modern”. The bedroom was small, with one double bed, a Louis XIV style wardrobe and a dressing table. The dressing table did not match the wardrobe. In the bathroom a deep-peach bathroom suite with matching tiles completed the picture of everything you would expect to find in a normal family’s home back on earth. It was certainly spacious and well-equipped when compared to my tiny bedsit in Eglantine Avenue. The Grey suggested I make a cup of tea. I decided to play along, and anyway, after all I’d been through I was dying for a cup of tea. The Grey stood in the middle of the kitchen and watched as I made the tea. I quickly found everything I needed, teabags, mug, teapot, sugar, and there was milk in the fridge. I was surprised to see the fridge stocked very much like my own on earth, with one packet of Smokey Bacon, some cheese, some Golden Cow butter, six tins of Carlsberg Special Brew and nine bottles of lager. I made my tea, helped myself to four Digestive Biscuits, and we went back into the living room. I sat down on one end of the sofa. The Grey sat at the other end. He sat with his hands clasped together in front of his knees. The Grey pointed out that this was a good room in which to sit and have a beer or watch a video. I agreed that these were things that you could do in this room. Communication was obviously still taking place at a simple level, as must be the case when two highly sophisticated species attempt meaningful dialogue for the first time. Now that we were sitting on the sofa, I could see the most remarkable thing in the room: the window. Opposite us, just over to the right, a window was framed by two orange curtains. Two screws in either side of the window frame supported a wire, which sagged in the middle under the weight of a net curtain. This curtain was slightly bunched at the top, and the most bunched part was black with dirt, with the black gradually turning into lighter shades of grey until there was a suggestion of white at the bottom. So far nothing out of the ordinary. But through the window I saw a street, with a row of red-brick terrace houses directly opposite. I just had to get up and “look out”. Two children came up the street, a boy and a girl, skipping along and looking like they were enjoying themselves. It was winter, and they were wrapped up nice and warm. They knocked on the door opposite my “window” and it was opened by their mother, a red-haired woman in her twenties. The two children went into the house and the mother closed the door. A car drove past, a Vauxhall Viva, the driver was a young man. An old woman pulling a shopping trolley walked along the opposite pavement. A Ford Mondeo drove up and parked outside the house. The driver, a man carrying a briefcase, got out and went into the house. I found it difficult to hide my amazement. The attention to detail of the illusion was brilliant, and for a moment I was almost sure I was back on Earth. The explanation was that the Greys had developed a highly sophisticated hologram technology.. We had this technology on earth in the 1980s, but the Greys were much farther advanced. The window was a good example of their skills, but they were capable of much more complex illusions, as I saw later.

Chapter 4. Trouble with a Handle

The Grey wished me goodnight and said that he hoped I had a comfortable night. We would speak again tomorrow. Before he left I saw him do something that gave me a twinge of fear, my first since I had woken up in the examining room. The Grey stopped in front of the door, and seemed to study it carefully. Then his long arms shot out and the digits closed over the door handle. If you have ever, when you were a kid, taken the skin off a golf ball and seen the elastic strands inside, the Grey’s digits looked like that on the door handle. With a quick and powerful movement the Grey turned the handle, opened the door and left. I was now alone, and at last could draw breath and take stock of my situation. It had been a momentous day (if it was just a day, as I had lost track of time). In the morning I had been delivering milk in Primitive Street, now I was on a Grey spacecraft. The day had been an epic voyage of discovery from beginning to end, and there were a million things buzzing through my mind. For a start, thinking about things back on earth, I was worried about being able to get in contact with my Mum, because I knew that if she didn’t hear from me after a while she would start to worry. And then there was my job to worry about too. I was sure McLenehans weren’t very happy about one of their floats being abandoned in the middle of the street and half-a-round’s worth of deliveries not being made. Even more important, my rent was due in a couple of weeks and if I wasn’t there to pay it I’d lose my bedsit. This was even more important than my job because if I lost my job the dole would pay my rent, but if I lost my bedsit I’d have to move back in with my Mum, which I didn’t want. Then there were bigger questions. Just how long did the Greys intend to keep me here? I already knew a good bit about the Greys from my studies, so I had some idea of the basics of how they operated. But, having passed through the usual examinations, I was now in unexplored territory. I decided that the best thing to do was to play along with the Greys and hope to build up a good relationship with them. The routine examinations had been relatively painless, so I knew the Greys were not into inflicting suffering if they could avoid it. Anyway, for all I knew, their experiments were for the good of all species. Best to keep an open mind. Already I had made several discoveries of scientific importance, and that was something I was pleased about. But now I was tired and hungry, and went to see what was in the kitchen. I had a light supper of three bacon sandwiches and two Special Brews and went to bed straight afterwards. By my watch it was one o’clock (in the morning I assumed), and I noticed that this agreed with the clocks in the room. Clearly there would be no great “jet lag” effect in adjusting to life in Outer Space.

to be continued

Barry Mitchell

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