Part One

Comas, despite the negative reputations they’ve rightfully earned over the years, are in fact excellent ways to waste time. No matter what degree of brain activity one might generate under the effects of a coma, it is never enough to allow for luxuries like checking a clock for the time, or glancing out a window to see what the weather is like. While this lack of activity might be seen by some as a drawback, for the most part, comas can be helpful for passing an unpleasant stretch of time in relative peace.

The main drawback to comas, aside from the debilitating physical effects, is the shock one receives upon waking up to discover that years have passed. Loved ones might have moved on, or perhaps passed on, and old familiar haunts are flattened and paved over for new buildings. Life goes on without people who fall into comas, and though it is a fact everyone knows, it is always quite upsetting to the person who is just waking up.

It isn’t hard then to understand why Roger Maple was stunned when he woke up from a five year coma. He stared at the stranger in front of him, a thin frightened looking nurse in a flimsy blue cotton dress who had just told him her name, and yet he couldn’t remember it already.

Perhaps it was because after introducing herself, the nurse said, “You should have died.”

She explained very briefly how Roger had been in a coma for five years before she proceeded to describe an alien invasion which surely could only have been crafted by Hollywood , with one minor difference: humans lost. The rest of the details were similar to a blockbuster movie in the nurse’s brief story. UFO’s showed up, and an ugly green gelatinous blob gargled its demands into a translating device which broadcast to every satellite. The message made to Earth: Work for us, or become food.

Government officials declared they would fight to the bitter end. Speeches were made about how the human race had already overcome slavery. Brave soldiers marched, flew, and shipped off to fight, and every weapon mankind had was brought into play. As a movie, the budget for pyrotechnics would have been in the billions. The victory scene in the film would have been glorious and illogical, and might have starred Will Smith.

But the invasion wasn’t a movie, and though Earth weapons worked well enough on the aliens, there were just too many invaders.

It was also demoralizing to see the mucus-like aliens cover a soldier, and then consume them within seconds. Many soldiers dropped their weapons and fell to ground, driven insane by the horrid sight. Many still laid in hospital beds, their faces slack while they spent every day staring out at a world they no longer participated in or understood.

Roger almost felt like joining them, and his pale face gave the impression he was attempting to audition for a part in the sanitarium. But while his slack expression was close, his bright blue eyes weren’t glazed over or vacant. Instead they were filled with a troubled light which only became more intense while the nurse went on with the history of the humans’ defeat.

Attempts were made to fight by the rapidly weakening military forces until the leaders of the major world governments were weeded out of their fortified locations. They were consumed in a series of nightly broadcasts as a warning to everyone else. Some police joined forces with civilian groups and still tried to fight, but it didn’t matter by then who tried to mount a revolt. The revolution was dissolved, pun intended, and the rest of the human race gave up.

Once unanimous agreements were made to live under the rule of the aliens, the killing stopped. Each person was made to sign a document they couldn’t read, a formal process they were told expressed their consent to work for the aliens. Nobody questioned the legal fine print by that point.

Factories were built by the aliens, and cities sprang up around the factories shortly thereafter. Unassembled mechanical parts were shipped to Earth for workers to construct machinery, and the completed works were shipped off-world at one of four space ports around the planet.

The aliens did not run sweatshops, and not everyone worked in the factories. The training for their jobs was a formal education which included language and mechanical courses. Roger was told he would start his own training course the following day.

The nurse pointed out how, obviously, if Roger had been cared for in his infirm condition, the aliens were capable of mercy. But almost no one resisted their new masters. There was no trial for people who resisted. No questions were asked, nor warnings given. The nearest alien collapsed over the troublemaker, and slurp, problem solved.

Roger had the usual questions come to mind which any person might ask upon waking from a coma, such as the whereabouts of his wife and son. He wanted to know if his dog was okay, and if the cab company he worked for was still running. But all of his other concerns were overshadowed by the bleak revelations made by the nurse.

Before he could recover from his shock, a doctor opened the door on the left side of the room and walked in carrying what looked like a small black plastic clipboard. Roger would have taken the man for an intern or an orderly if the nurse hadn’t stood up at his arrival and quietly said a single word greeting, “Doctor.”

He was dressed in a blue cotton uniform with a similar color to the nurse’s dress, but he wore a thin jacket over his collared shirt, and paper shoe covers over what looked like combat boots.

The doctor told Roger it was time to leave, and then waited by the door with a bored expression. It was just another day at the office for him.

Despite the nurse’s assurances that the aliens were decent slaveholders, Roger expected a nightmarish post-apocalyptic scene to greet him upon leaving the hospital. While he got dressed in the uniform and boots he was given, his mind conjured images of half destroyed skyscrapers, their crumbled tops still illogically burning and belching clouds of smoke.

But then he knew the world couldn’t be that bad. The hospital still looked like a familiar, clean place, but there were no windows anywhere Roger was led. So the fearful images clutched his imagination like a child squeezes a doll after hearing a bump at night.

But his fears were proved to be only half irrational. He emerged from sliding double glass doors into a world which wasn’t burning, but was still totally alien to him. The buildings outside were intact, but every block was a perfect square. Each block contained a single rectangular building with a wide patch of grass at the front and rear section of the lots. There were no parking lots, and no cars. Every building was white, and no signs marked which buildings served which purposes.

There were no billboard ads. After years of seeing the signs for products everywhere, their absence was so shocking that Roger’s pulse sped to a doubled rate.

His head bobbled around, his eyes trying to absorb all the changes while he allowed the nurse to take his arm and move him to a bus stop bench. She sat him down and went back inside the building without saying goodbye, or even offering instructions on where he was supposed to go next.

It was only after she left that he realized she never told him how he ended up in a coma, nor had she told him when he’d been admitted to a hospital. He thought of going back inside to ask, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to meet any of the aliens just yet if he could avoid it.

Roger’s gaze lifted from the sliding doors up the side of the hospital. No cracks marred the white surface. No black smog filled the sky, and in fact, not one white cloud was visible either. Instead, it was a quiet, sunny day, and the birds were singing. It didn’t look or sound at all like the hell he’d imagined.

He looked around again. Very few people were outside, and all of them sat at benches just like Roger’s. Some of the people read from small black handheld devices, possibly their work schedules or reports, while others stared like Roger did.

The lingering effects of his coma made understanding his surroundings harder, but after many minutes to absorb the details, Roger began to pick out other glaring differences. The scene was too perfect, too sterile. There was no litter anywhere, and the benches bore no graffiti or tacked flyers. The buildings were too clean, but there was something else, something wrong with the windows though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. There were no vehicles parked by the curbs, and only the occasional bus passed through the intersections on either side of the hospital.

A bus passed on his left side, and in the absence of the engine’s sound, he noticed how only the birds and the insects disturbed the peace. There were no voices raised in a shout to hail a cab, nor to call a friend across the street. The world was filled not with a peaceful silence, but an enforced silence, an oppressed peace which kept everyone hiding and working as slaves.

***

A bus arrived, and the driver opened the door, calling Roger by name and waving for him to board. The driver made no further comments until he stopped, and although the bus was nearly packed full of riders, no one looked up or made eye contact with Roger. No one talked to each other. It was like riding a bus with a bunch of breathing mannequins.

He knew it was rude, but Roger stared at people, trying to will them to look up. But no one did unless their name was called, and then they walked quickly to get off the bus, hurrying away to some unknown destination.

The driver called him back to the front of the bus. Pointing out a bench down the block, he instructed Roger to wait for another connecting route at the stop. Then the driver turned his head to look ahead at the road without saying anything else.

The routine was repeated twice before he was directed to enter one of the buildings. It was madness to him not knowing where he was going. He desperately needed something familiar to get his bearings from, and his mind was still fuzzy after waking up. Yet he was offered nothing but more instructions to keep moving.

Shouldn’t I be allowed to rest up and recover? he thought bitterly.

He noticed how the air was feeling hotter while he crossed the grass in front of the building to reach the sliding glass door entrance. Just the brief walk from the stop to the entrance had him panting, and a sheen of sweat rose on his skin, sticking his uniform to his body. Once he was inside, the air conditioning rippled his limbs in goose bumps and sent an uncomfortable shiver down his back. He wasn’t sure which temperature extreme felt worse.

Inside the cramped white lobby, a man stood behind the service desk built into the right side of the corridor. Roger went to the desk as  the man waved him over.

“I’m the building custodian,” the man said as he walked around the counter, and then he escorted Roger to a bank of four elevators on the left side of the corridor.

The custodian didn’t spare him another glance as Roger was taken to his apartment on the fifteenth floor without further explanation. He was given his keycard, told a case worker would arrive shortly to assign him a training schedule, and then left alone to stare at the door. Even when the building custodian was talking to Roger, he never looked up or tried to make eye contact.

Roger dropped the card on the floor two seconds after the door shut, his grip as slack as his jaw.

No one talked to each other unless they were allowed to. Since talking to the nurse, no one had bothered to say hello or to ask him how his coma was. It was always, “Roger Maple, come here,” or, “Go sit on that bench and wait for bus 317.”

Part of his mind wanted to think the whole thing was a hoax, but the joke was too far reaching. The world he remembered was not sterile, and cars and trucks littered the roads along with motorbikes and diesel rigs. The people he knew were loud and rude jerks, and not at all the docile domesticated puppets he saw on the buses.

Roger was frozen, his eyes locked on the door while he waited for the case worker and thought of his family. He thought of his friends and his co-workers. He wanted to explore the memories of his last waking day, because he wasn’t clear on how he’d gone into a coma. But the part of his memory he wanted was still lost inside the fog floating through his brain.

He was surrounded by people, and completely isolated at the same time. There was no point of reference to orient himself. No date to know exactly how long he’d been unconscious. No familiar faces to assure him that everything was all right. He hadn’t even seen one of the aliens to know what they looked like. He had to take the word of one nurse as fact, and the behavior of everyone else as proof of their existence.

Behind him, he heard a device click, and turning his head to look over his shoulder, he saw a square panel mounted in the wall change from white to an intense cobalt color. Even with daylight filtering through the blinds, the light from the screen cast the entire room in an eerie glow.

A computer generated beep sounded loudly, playing over speakers throughout the apartment. The procedure wasn’t explained to him, but Roger understood the meaning instantly. The aliens wanted his undivided attention.

He turned around to face the screen. The beep ended, but the blue screen didn’t fade or lose its bright glow. A fake sounding female voice which reminded Roger of a telephone operator declared, “Humans, we regret to inform you that your planet will be invaded by the Kimellians in seven days. We will be taking our leave of your planet now, and offer our deepest regrets at your eminent demises. It has been a pleasure working with you.”

The screen shut off and reverted back to a white panel which was indiscernible from the wall. Roger took a step toward it to examine the screen when the ground shook, and he pitched forward onto his hand and knees. The room filled with the roaring thunder of an explosion, and he had to clamp his hands to his ears while he tried to stand. Though the floor rolled under his feet, he was able to stagger hunched over to the window and raise the blinds.

The building across the street was taking off.

Plumes of jet flames gushed out from the bottom of the white building, but the weight of the massive skyscraper made the climb slow at first. The flames blew out wider, and the air in front of the window fogged with grey smoke rising up from the ground. He lost sight of the climbing building, but even with the smog outside growing thicker, he could still see the glow of the propulsive flames rising up until they were only a few floors below his.

Roger instinctively threw an arm in front of his face and fell back from the window, but before he hit the floor, his senses alerted him to the lack of heat coming from the wall.

Thumping on the padded carpet, he gaped as the roaring jets passed the window. The room swam in orange light, but it was hard to see anything clearly. Even the edges of the window became blurry for how quickly they shook.

The glass should have broken from the sound itself, and the force of the flames rattling the outside of the building were intense enough to shake the blinds loose. Roger yanked his leg back, then flinched when the metal box and plastic blades crashed to the floor. But he flinched from the visual impact alone, because the blast outside consumed all other sounds.

The roaring continued, but the jets rose away from his floor, leaving behind only a thick smog. The smog seemed darker with the shadow of the building looming above it, but as the thunder pealed off into the distance, sunlight began to filter through the exhaust.

Roger panted, trying to clutch at the carpet while he debated getting up or staying on the floor. His legs felt like dead weight. His skin was slick with sweat, and his heart rattled an erratic beat that made catching his breath difficult.

Nothing else happened. The smog outside didn’t clear, but nothing else exploded or took flight. Roger’s lungs were once again under his control, and his heart wasn’t trying to claw out of his chest. His legs were still weak, but he forced himself to stand and touch the window. It was warm, but only slightly, as though it had been heated by natural sunlight.

Standing at the window did not offer him a better view, but he couldn’t go outside. Not out into that poison. He didn’t need to breath it to know the truth. It was the parting gift of the aliens he never met, a toxic cloud to kill the strays who were outside when they shouldn’t have been.

***

Late in the day, the smog lifted and revealed a blackened world. Soot covered everything, and curiously, the only surfaces not black where the windows. That was when Roger’s senses alerted him to the other detail that had been puzzling him all day for its absence. None of the windows he saw outside had reflections. It was possible to look into every room without distortion, and even from his side of the window, Roger couldn’t see himself.

He rubbed his neck, looking around the room for something heavy. Not to break the window with, because he didn’t believe he could. There was too much proof to give him such an idea. He just wanted to know what the window sounded like when it was stuck.

But there was nothing to pick up, because everything seemed to be molded into the walls. He settled on thumping his elbow into the surface. He struck hard, and the window clanged metallically.

Pain flashed along the side of his triceps, but it was a minor bolt, and he didn’t bother rubbing his arm while he leaned closer to look for his reflection.

Then he started to notice other people checking their windows. In apartments where the blinds had stayed in place, the white plastic blades were gathered and drawn up partway while one or two people stood watching the world. It seemed as though most everyone was on a timer, and they all chose the same moment to see what the world outside looked like.

Many of the windows were empty, but Roger didn’t know if it meant no one was home, or if they were still too scared to look outside. Reminded again of the toxic cloud, he looked down, then sighed when he really thought about the stupidity of looking for bodies in a blast zone.

He conceded someone might have gone out right after the aliens left, but it seemed highly unlikely. No one was ready to go outside yet, and  he confirmed his suspicions when he didn’t find anyone, alive or dead, in the streets.

Instead of moving out to talk to each other, everyone lingered at their windows to see what else would happen. Roger’s head bobbed from left to right, or alternately down and up while he waited for anyone to move away from their windows.

Anger seeped into his thoughts for their apathetic reactions. People should be doing something, at least talking to each other.

But he couldn’t sustain the emotion, because he too was glued to the same spot. The shocking change left everyone in virtually the same position as Roger. He had just woken up into an alien occupation, and while the rest of the world was used to the facts, their reality had just been redefined again. There was no Hollywood revolution to save humankind. There was just another invasion coming which would put the remaining population out of its misery.

***

Night fell, and Roger looked up when the lights in the streets flicked on. The power was still on, at least. His stomach growled, and he allowed himself to wander away from the window to look for the light switch in the kitchen. He touched a square panel which was raised above the wall surface and beveled smooth, and the lights in the whole apartment lit up at once.

The cupboard was stocked entirely with jumbled and overturned cans in black and white labels. There were no glass bottles, nor plastic jars.

There was a wide assortment of vegetable and fruit juices on the top shelf. Mingled in with the juices were cans of condensed milk, water, cheese, and smaller cans containing two shelled eggs each. The second shelf from the top contained single vegetable servings, fruits, and other basic ingredients for meals like corn starch or flour. The next shelf down was stocked with pre-prepared meals, while the rack below them was the only one with hardly any selections. A few larger cans of coffee, sugar, and tea sat widely spaced from each other.

Moving back to the shelf of premixed meals, Roger picked out pork chow mein and dug through the drawers for a can opener. Before he found the opener, he slid open a drawer with a collection of square spice cans with sliding plastic tops.

Spices? Roger thought while he moved to another drawer. What sort of slaveholders make sure theirs slaves are getting well fed with tasty food instead of bland slop?

He found the opener on his fourth try when the answer came to him. Because well fed cattle are less likely to revolt.

He had another thought, one which should have been ominous: Maybe the aliens kept spices in the house to season the humans they ate?

In his mind, he saw a blob of green mucus push open a door and leak into a room while a screaming couple held each other on the couch. The blob produced a green garden hose and splattered the couple in tomato sauce, then announced, Right, off to the kitchen with both of you, and dip yourself in basil and oregano.

He almost started to laugh when he reminded himself the aliens did eat people. Then it wasn’t so funny.

The thought was unsettling, but with his stomach clenching in near starvation, he truly could not lose his appetite at that point. A long angry gurgle rose from his gut as soon as the opener pierced the lid and the aroma of the broth hit his nose. But he had only forked a few mouthfuls out of the can when his stomach churned, and he had to curl over the sink to throw up.

Rinsing his mouth, and then the sink out, Roger conceded he’d not eaten solid food in a long time, and his first attempts were rejected. He decided to try a can of condensed milk, which stayed down. But if it was from sipping the thick liquid slowly or just being easier on his stomach, he didn’t know.

He opened a can of saltine crackers and had a few at a time, eating slowly to avoid the food being sent back up.

But once the needs of his stomach were met, Roger couldn’t do anything else. He stood by the counter, staring at the opened cans while he absently sucked bits of cracker mush from his teeth.

He picked up the lid of the cracker can and dragged his thumb along the edge. Instead of metal, the top was plastic which rolled under mild pressure. Roger took hold of the empty can and squeezed the sides, thinking to fold or tear the metal. But the surface barley dented though he was red faced from his efforts.

All at once he stopped himself and asked, What am I doing? I’m trying to make a sharp weapon? How does that help? Feeling stupid, he threw the can and the lids away before putting the open chow mein into the refrigerator.

A nervous feeling was building inside him, and with it came a voice demanding that he do something, anything to pull himself out of the situation he found himself in. But what to do? Where could he or anyone else to go that was not  the same?

He stood searching for answer long into the night. But fatigue finally pulled him down, forcing him to sit, and then lay on the cold tile floor.

The nervous voice fought against sleep, but the search for answers was fruitless with his mind shutting off.

***

Roger’s personal cell phone rang, and he dropped his hand from the steering wheel to one of two phones clipped on his hip. Blindly pressing at the keypad to answer the call, he then reached onto the dashboard to grab the wireless headset. Slipping the headset clip over the back of his right ear, he dropped his hand back to the steering wheel and said, “Hello?” The whole action took him less than four seconds.

Safety first. It was his mantra, and it kept him accident free in the worst of Houston’s traffic accident hot spots.

“Mr. Maple, I’m Emma Butler.”

Roger frowned. Her son’s teacher called often, but it was usually for one of two reasons. “What did Roy do this time?”

“He’s sent two boys to the nurse’s office again.” The teacher sighed. “I can appreciate that he was saving a younger student from bullies, but your son really has got to get his temper under control.”

“Miss Butler, I agree with you, and I’m trying to talk to him,” Roger said. “I’ve been punishing him too. He’s not left his room in two months, and it still won’t change his mind. He thinks he’s doing the right thing. You’ve already sent him to reform school once, and that was a real disaster.”

Another sigh. “I know.”

“Short of me beating him, I don’t know what you expect of me. But I can assure you, I don’t intend to hit my kid. Not over this.”

In the fast lane, a black Mercury Sable moved to pass Roger’s cab. He had just noticed a wobble in the side wall of the front passenger side tire when it blew out. The vehicle shuddered, then swerved in front of the cab, and then he couldn’t see past the glass for the white web of cracks spreading across the surface. Another car struck him from behind, and the cab flipped up on the front bumper, and then over onto the hood of the Sable.