Alien Landscaping for Beginners...(AAC)

I started carving crop circle patterns in my lawn because mashed potato monoliths were too cliché and easily hidden amongst the green beans and grilled chicken.

Writing in an unutterable language of circles, squares, dots, and symbols meant for only heavenly eyes to behold. The swirly curling designs of ancient sacred geometry were being carved across my yard embossing the green blades and adorning the topiaries in hopes of communication and communion. Is it madness to wish to communicate and understand the inexplicable, to thirst with an unquenchable desire? But how do you speak when there are no words? Since that night my grasp on reality might be slipping.

...The room is pitch dark except for electric light flashes that slip through the gaps in the blind...

My neighbors pass by with large eyes and open mouths like bleach blond deer caught in the head lights of a Semi truck barreling toward them. It’s possible they believe I have gone mad in the summers sweltering heat, but I really don’t care. Ever since "The Event" as I have taken to calling it tripped the power and put my air conditioner out of commission. I have spent the last few days in an overheated strange stupor, feeling like I am walking in my sleep, so perhaps they are right.

...A Crack of lightning peeling across the sky rattles the walls of my house and shakes me awake, and I hear a thunderstorm rolling in, looking around don't see the green glow from my clock so the power must be out...

Today of all days, when it was expected to reach record temperatures, I finally felt compelled to do something, . Being one of the hottest summers on record was taking its toll in the city, with the highest count of emergency room visits due to heat exhaustion or exposure recent years. Had I succumbed to this infernal summer swelter? Was I truly going mad? Was the other night just a heat induced delusion? Strangely I felt motivated to landscape to express myself and well whatever it was, whatever this feeling is…

It felt real, it felt unreal...

"Quite the lawn you got goin on" my neighbor Bill says swaying slightly as he takes a swig off a mid-afternoon imported and most likely expensive Belgian beer. "Reminds me of something I saw on the Discovery Channel about Ancient Aliens, you tryin to communicate with Aliens?"

Only when a neighbor like Bill would stop and stare too long or mention something would my mind sober again from the otherwise mental daze reminiscing of that night. And yet again I would be pulled back to the boring reality of suburbia.

"Pretty much" I say with a sardonic smile emptying the last bag of clippings, as my sweaty shirt sticks clinging to my chest. Salt drops sting my eyes as I pull the lawnmower over neatly cropped pattern and into the garage. Grabbing the hedge trimmer I swiftly move around Bill and his beer who just stands like he belongs exactly where ever he stands.

"So you gonna leave it like this?" he says a little more seriously adding "You know the HMO will not approve and you'll get a warning, hell I got one for leaving my Cans out for 3 days…"

"Not really worried about it Bill" I say deftly moving on to shape and form a Forsythia into something, some design I won't know until I am finished with it, which is how the whole day has been.

"So come on, you don't really believe Aliens is what knocked the power out and blew up your unit do you?" Bill says as he nervously glances over at his wife, who loves to spread rumors, waters the plants on the porch. Doing the three finger while holding a beer wave and a half smile, it is returned with a knowing frown of "Why are you talking to him" look. The neighborhood gossip spreads quick, when they believe you are the cause of their precious power being down and having to spend a sleepless night in the heat.

The power company stated it was a blown transformer and not my air conditioner that caused the outage. But because it oddly continued to work after the blackout and then was the only one that exploded, they would not replace it. They also didn't believe me that I didn't have a generator because there was no rational explanation as to why it would be able to keep running after the power went out.

...incredibly I hear the fan noise thrumming outside my window, it was still very cool in my room so it must be the air conditioner...

Of course I knew how it kept runnin, but that wouldn't stop the suburban nightmare when the townsfolk want someone or something to blame, they start a modern day witch hunt or suburban equivalent of shunning. While waiting to get power back on makes one cranky I suppose we are so coddled these days. But I swear we are only wrecking the new Mini-van, burning a gourmet BBQ, or loosing a Smarphone away from pitchforks and torches in this community.

...Another flash followed by ground shaking BOOM I slide effortlessly out of my bed...

"That flash of light was either the transformer blowing or your air conditioner, still like to know how yours kept running an hour after the power went out or how it burnt the roof. Where you hiding that generator?" Bill says lightly leering at me a bit with his glassy softly bloodshot eyes.

"Whatever and Nowhere" I try to say smoothly as the truth wouldn't be believed even if I had more proof than the blown conditioner or the circular burn mark on my roof. The reality was I didn't care what he or anyone else thought all I knew is I was being compelled almost driven and he was just interrupting.

As I start on a boxwood, and trigger the trimmer it starts to make a nice buzzing, for a moment I am drawn back to that night and that familiar humming noise. My eyes unfocus and sort of stare again into the distance…

…I feel my body moving but was I in control? And that noise? It was just a tiny pitch higher than the drone of a fan, an electric buzzing that brought me to my window at precisely 3:33 A.M. That hum, so sweet, where had I heard it? It sounded so familiar, I reach up and pull the shade...

"Hey I get it! You’re trying to do some creative landscaping, still won't float with the committee, but good luck!" Looking at the boxwood now shaped like a lollypop on a stick that I finished, again almost completely unconsciously, and then around at the yard Bill interjects again with "Sort of reminds me of that Jim Burken movie the guy with the scissors hands, what was it? Mr Scissors?" Immediately snapping me briefly back into the absurd moment.

"You are joking right? It was Edward Scissorhands and its Tim Burton" I reply no longer amazed that unless it is sports related Bill wouldn't have a clue or care. Which was why other than sharing a beer we had little in common, not unlike most the lunks in the hood as they called it.

"Oh yeah right Edward Scissors Hands, funny movie. No joke unless it is sports related I forget it instantly" repeats Bill slurs a bit confirming my suspicions as another swig is taken off the dark brown bottle. Funny movie? My eyes want roll back to the rear of my head and I have a slight shutter.

…The shade flips up and over slapping hard and loud against itself several times, I am mesmerized by the bright light that now pours into my bedroom. I continue to stare unable to turn away when I hear a soft and different hum coming from the light...no coming from room? Wait from inside my head? It sounds like a tune, like something playing on an AM radio you hear late, late at night. It's like a distant signal from a station long forgotten without the static yet familiar, delicate and melodic. I know this song somehow! If there is phenomenon like knowing a word and having be on the tip of your tongue, then this melody was on the cusp of my ear! I knew it, I know it... Then it started to change from an electric hum to a more organic...female hum...Hmmmm hmmm hmmm...

edit on 13-8-2013 by abeverage because: (no reason given)