Author: Juliet Wilson
I’ve been on alien watch my whole life. Patrolling the forest, my eyes and ears always alert. Climbing the crumbling watchtowers to scan the horizon for strange lights or UFOs. I’ve been here long enough to recognise the shrieks of magpies, the shining eyes of nocturnal animals, the distant glow of approaching forest fires. I never see or hear anything inexplicable.
I live alone in an underground bunker deep in the woods, where my only guests are rats and cockroaches. I grow fruit and vegetables, forage seeds and berries and sometimes kill a rabbit or a pigeon. Once in a while, I stumble across the carcass of a deer worn out by a hard life. This lasts me a while and when I’ve finished, the crows fight over the last rags of flesh hanging on the bones. The nearby river provides drinking water, occasional fish and helps me put out fires.
The bunker’s computer broadcasts constant updates on possible alien sightings across the world and reports from scientists who map alien movements against the march of deserts and the decline in wildlife. I report on my failure to entirely put out the fires that now surround my valley. No-one responds.
I was told I would be an important first line defence against the alien invasion. I was told I would have backup. But I’m all alone.
Every year, I see more dying trees, more dead fish, more deer carcasses. Every year, I put out more fires. But where are the aliens?
The computer screen flickers and dies. I walk out of the bunker into a wall of heat. Burning trees crash down around me, a single magpie flies overhead, its fiery feathers dropping to the ground.