Peace On Earth

Machine guns rang out in the blackness of the night as the shrill whistle of bombs falling filled the air. Amidst the discord, the high-pitched screams of the choir of the innocents echoed in the night sky. It was another performance of the symphony of violence, chaos, and destruction. In other words, it was a pretty typical day on Earth. However, something was different about this night; there was something special in the air. Unbeknownst to all the soldiers, murders, rapists, lawyers, politicians and all their innocent victims, on this night Peace would come to Earth.

Mrs. Scotts was a nice, middle-aged woman who lived on a farm in Oklahoma. She had a simple life doing chores around the house and helping her husband tend to the farm, but Mrs. Scotts was also a dreamer. Every night she looked at the stars and pondered what wonders beyond her husband’s farm and her weekly bridge game the universe held. This night seemed like any other night, with the stars shining brightly in the night sky, displaying the Universe’s idea of abstract art. However, on this night the Universe’s masterpiece had a new bright streak added to the canvas in the form of a shooting star. Mrs. Scotts had never seen a shooting star before, but she knew that when you saw one you were supposed to make a wish. She could only think of one thing to wish for… peace on Earth. When you wish upon a star your dreams may come true, but you better have a pretty specific wish or the joke is on you. Mrs. Scotts was about to learn this lesson.

To Mrs. Scotts’ surprise, the star seemed to be flying directly toward her house. Within moments an object in the shape of a saucer flew directly overhead, leaving a sparkling path behind it. As Mrs. Scotts stood with her jaw dropped staring dumbfounded at the wake of the flying saucer, another flying object soared over her head along the same path. If Mrs. Scotts hadn’t been so astonished by what she had just seen, she would have noticed that this object was shaped like a teacup.

A few miles away from the Scotts’ farm was a hippie commune. People in the area referred to this commune as the Pottery Barn for the exquisite pots, mugs, and vases the residents produced on their farm. Other people just called it the Pot Barn for the copious amounts of marijuana that the inhabitants smoked. Most people believed that the hippies smoked the marijuana just to get high, but they couldn’t be more wrong. The hippies were very health conscious people who loved to experience the joys of the senses. They realized that glaucoma was a very serious threat to sight, one of their five favorite senses. In order to ensure that they did not contract glaucoma, they used marijuana as a preventative drug. Of course the only thing it really prevented was the hippies from being productive members of society.

In the few hours of the day that the members of the commune weren’t in a drug induced stupor or sleeping, the hippies managed to maintain a farm that provided for most of their sustenance. On their commune, the hippies had a few expansive organic gardens. In these gardens they grew many types of vegetables, fruits, and legumes which they used for a large part of their food consumption. The hippies were known as very good gardeners for the most part because they grew some of the best tasting vegetables around. Unfortunately for the hippies, one of the wonderful gardens they maintained was about to become the landing site for the spacecraft that had just passed over Mrs. Scotts moments ago.
Unbeknownst to Mrs. Scotts, the beautiful rainbow-colored wake she had observed following the flying saucer was actually the exhaust from the retro boosters that were being used to decrease the velocity of the craft to the appropriate speed to initiate landing procedures. Upon reaching a sufficiently slow enough speed, the saucer began to descend and it was not long before it settled down in the middle of one of the gardens on the commune. Shortly after the flying saucer had landed, the teacup shaped spacecraft commenced a similar landing process and slowly lowered onto the saucer. The landing produced a soft clinking noise and splashed a little bit of brown liquid from the top of the craft. Almost immediately upon landing, a small ramp was lowered from the ship and a spherical object rolled down to the ground away from the ship. Within moments after the sphere’s descent, the space craft imploded taking the landing pad into nothingness with it. No evidence of the spaceship or its landing pad remained except for the plants in the garden that were smashed into a giant circle.

On this commune there lived a single child named Love. Being the only child on the commune Love could not help feeling lonely most of the time. In a normal situation a lone child surrounded by adults would have received all the attention he needed, but this was not a normal situation; these were hippies. With no friends and very little attention from the adults in his life, Love had developed an active imagination which allowed him to create an entire fantasy world for himself to escape to when it felt like there was no place in the real world for him. In this world he would undertake grand quests in search of lost treasures and battle horrible beasts such as the magic dragon that he often overheard the residents of the commune talking about. However, despite his powerful imagination Love could never escape his feelings of complete loneliness.

Unlike most eight year olds, Love did not have a specific bedtime because his parents were often not aware of him or the time. This gave Love the ability to roam free and experience the wonders of the world that only came out at night which most children would never get to see. On this night Love crept about the fields under the glittering stars and the silvery half-lit moon on another one of his adventures. As he wandered through the maize of darkness on another one of his quests for buried treasure, Love heard the crops ahead of him rustling. What monster lies before me this time thought Love to himself. Is it the dreaded Rabid Rabbit or the Fearsome Fox? I guess there is only one way to find out. With this thought Love began to slowly stalk through the cornfield hoping not to alert the fiend to his presence. As he drew closer to the disturbance the noises were becoming more cacophonous. Love’s heart pounded against his chest and even though it was a cold night sweat began to form on his body. There is something different about this monster, something I can’t quite figure out. Alarmed by this thought Love halted his advance for a few moments to contemplate what the problem was. He had never been this afraid of one of the monsters before now. It was almost as if… before Love could finish his thought the cornstalks in front of him began to bend over finally revealing to his eyes a round shape … it was real. Love’s body froze in terror. IT IS REAL! A REAL MONSTER! What do I do? Love’s pulse began to race and his eyes stared directly at the spherical shape trying desperately to process the image of the creature situated in front of them.

As Love had first observed, the creature was almost perfectly spherical. The only deviation from the spherical shape was the two little stubs that extruded from the front of the creature which seemed to prevent the creature from rolling any further. Although the dark blanket of night was not helping Love’s perception of the creature, he thought that he observed some other interesting traits. The organism appeared to be composed of a viscous liquid constrained in a membrane although in Love’s terms it probably would have just been called a strange gooey skin. Suspended in this liquid skin were three grape-like objects that formed a triangle. Love could only guess they served as eyes because all of them seemed to be staring directly at Love.

There was tension in the air as the two stood caught in a staring contest. Love’s muscles began to tense in anticipation of the slightest hint of movement. His fear was growing by the second. To Love it appeared that the creature in front of him looked just as tense, but it was difficult for him to tell because it was just a big ball of liquid. It looks scared too, thought Love. If it is scared of me, why am I so scared of it? There was something wrong with the situation, but Love could not identify what the problem was. Unable to stand still anymore Love took a slow step backwards making sure to carefully observe the creature’s reaction to determine whether or not he was going to have to run. At the same time that Love moved backwards, the creature’s little arms pushed against the ground and retracted into its body causing it to roll backward a little. As it rolled backward its eyes moved so that they were always looking at Love. It did the same thing that I did. After a few more minutes of standing still a thought dawned on Love. Maybe there is some sort of connection between us. To test this Love took another step back and the creature responded in the same way as before. To make sure it just wasn’t coincidence Love tried waving his arm up and down slowly to see if it would try to imitate this as well. A short little stub similar to the stubs preventing it from rolling around shot out of the side of the creature and began to slowly move up and down. So there is a connection. This is amazing. As Love’s fear began to drain away, he could see the creature begin to relax as well. Believing there was no real danger from this creature Love began to think about all that had happened here.

For Love there were a lot of things to figure out about this encounter, but the most important thing to Love was the identity of the creature. What is it? I have never seen or heard about anything like it. It took Love only a few seconds of thinking before he came up with the answer. Love had often heard his parents talk about peace and love. He had always assumed that this meant some day he was going to have a younger brother named Peace so that he would finally have another kid to play with. However, Love had no concept of what a baby actually looked like or where it came from because the only child he had ever known was himself and his memory of his first few years were very hazy at best. All Love knew was that children grow and so do vegetables. Although this creature didn’t look like any person he had seen, he also knew that the seeds used to grow vegetables looked nothing like the full grown vegetables. Love also knew that as a kid he liked to imitate the adults he was around much like this round, liquid visitor imitated him. Using these lines of deduction, Love came to the only logical conclusion he could; the creature before him was his little brother Peace. Thus begins the story of Peace on Earth.