Southend U3A

December 2023

Twas The Night Before Christmas - Lynn Gale

‘Wake up! You’ve got to see this!’ Fran, my flatmate, came charging into our shared bedroom and headed for the window.

‘What! Go away!’ I opened one eye. ‘And close that blind.’

Christmas Eve, and after working a double shift at the plastics factory, I was not in the mood for one of Fran’s practical jokes. I pulled the cover over my head.

‘It’s all over the news. You need to get up.’ Fran reached for her inhaler as she stared out of the window. From the news screen in the other room, the presenter sounded hysterical. ‘Invasion from the stars!’ he screamed. ‘Earth is doomed!’ I leapt out of bed and joined Fran at the window. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, a smooth, grey vertical stone had appeared between tower blocks six and seven, home of the utility workers. ‘What the …’

‘There are more of them,’ Fran interrupted, inhaling another mouthful of the chemicals that helped open her lungs. ‘They have appeared all over the world. People are saying it’s the end of days.’

Fully awake now. I pressed my face against the fixed glass to see how high the monolithic shape reached, but it seemed endless. The sound of angry, frightened people could be heard in the corridor outside.

‘If we are going to be attacked tonight, I’m not going to die in these boxes.’ I pulled on my grey workwear. ‘Let’s go outside and get a closer look.’

‘They did say to stay inside.’

I headed for the door. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Of course,’ she laughed nervously. ‘Don’t forget your mask.’

The residents of Turnpoint Towers filed out of the blocks and stared in amazement at the monolith that stretched far into the sky.

‘Where did it come from?’ Fran asked.

The yellow haze that swirled around the ground level had dissipated, and patches of a starry sky could be seen between the closely packed towers. A few people had started to remove the clumsy plastic face coverings that left the utility workers of Turnpoint towers scarred with permanent indentions across their noses and cheeks. The grey stone seemed to shimmer with flashes of orange and blue as the people began to suck in gulps of rare fresh air and laughed joyfully.

‘It’s a Christmas miracle.’ A woman took off the oxygen tank strapped to her back. ‘A gift from God,’ she cried, falling to her knees in prayer.

A vast crowd had gathered around the monolith. An elderly man stepped forward and laid a hand tentatively on the smooth glass-like surface. The crowd gasped in anticipation of him disappearing in a puff of smoke. A huge smile broke out on his pale, worn face. ‘It’s warm,’ he sighed. Others rushed forward, hands outstretched. The stone began to shimmer in hues of green and yellow. Fran and I stood back as the crowd started to push each other out of the way to touch the monolith. As people were crushed against the surface, it began to heat up and change colour as flashes of red and purple zig-zagged through it.

‘Move away,’ an authoritarian voice echoed over their heads. ‘Step back, or you will be detained.’ The crowd cleared a path as the army marched into view. A Major standing atop an armed jeep barked orders into a speaker as his men herded the people away. A ring of barbed wire quickly set up around the perimeter.

‘Go back to your homes,’ the Major ordered. ‘Curfew will begin in three hours.’

The residents protested, but the sight of gun-waving soldiers deterred them from anything else. Heading to the food stores, they loaded trolleys to overflowing. Fights broke out in the aisles as some took far more than they needed.

Conspiracy theorists flooded the internet to convince the population that they were secret government antennas to subdue and control the populace. Or lifts to spaceships belonging to the lizard people, finally about to shred their human skin that they had kept hidden to reveal their true form and enslave the human race. Churches, Synagogues, Temples and Mosques filled rapidly as people rushed to lament the end of time.

Armies and Navies of previously opposing countries liaised to bombard the alien creations with tanks, guns and rockets. The monoliths shimmered at the onslaught, turning jet black with flashes of red, but no damage was reported, and there was no retaliation.

Then, it was the turn of the scientists to use their expertise to find out everything they could. A mountain of electronic equipment surrounded the monolith, while huge speakers bombarded it with high and low sounds. The stone turned jet-black, and the flashes of red became more frequent.

All the testing proved futile, and after three months, the experts conceded they were no closer to finding out where they came from or why they were here.

‘We will have to get on with our lives,’ the leaders declared, ‘and learn to live with them.

The equipment was dismantled, the barriers removed, and the soldiers and scientists departed.

The curious and brave came to get a closer look; parties, picnics, and festivals were held around the bases. We soon realised that the sound of music and laughter caused the structures to shimmer with floating clouds of yellow, green and orange.

People flocked in their thousands to marvel at the never-ending structures. A sense of peace and well-being surrounded them as they swayed and sang together.

After eighteen months, with no planes allowed in the sky and the monoliths distributing air currents evenly around the planet, the Earth began to breathe again. The unseasonal weather that created death and destruction worldwide calmed down. Deserts received rain and began to bloom again, giving new life to plants, animals and people alike. Fighting raging in the Middle East, Africa and Northern Europe ceased as warring countries came together in the shadow of the Monoliths to talk of peace.

Fran’s chronic lung disease cleared up, and we fulfilled our dream of running our own business growing organic food on a patch of land we bought with other residents.

They did not poison, enslave or destroy us but taught us to respect the Planet we live on and learn to live together. One day, they vanished as quickly as they appeared, leaving a new generation with the future of the Planet in their hands.

I heard on the news today an assassination attempt has resulted in a coup in South America.