The Invitation(59)

“I love you too.”

As Mrs. Myers is escorted away, the President watches both of them leave, and sits back down. The time is now 12:26 a.m. The Vice President’s conversation with the Linesian android that held the world in breathless anticipation with every word now falls strangely silent. Seeing the President looking more like himself, the Vice President pauses, and thinks President Myers will now take over, and so stands ready to relinquish the temporary role he unexpectedly assumed. All the viewing world seems to share this expectation as well, and tentatively waits for something to happen.

For one viewer, weariness has overcome curiosity as she sleeps quietly on the couch in her living room in front of the television. The President’s mother, Kathryn Myers, has quickly fallen into a deep sleep, and soon begins dreaming. But this dream is disturbing, dark, and vaguely ominous. For Kathryn Myers this dream will be like no other, and will haunt her for the rest of her life. It starts as she finds herself in a noisy, unfamiliar place, where animals are housed. What could it mean? she wonders. Her dream becomes clearer, and more intense as she wakes within it to find herself in a place of pain and torment. She now instantly perceives her surroundings. She finds herself in the loud mayhem of a meat packing factory, and sees a line of cattle making their slow death walk to the killing slaughter that waits for them. She sees one, poor bovine creature being pushed, and prodded, and as their eyes meet Kathryn Myers looks into the face of a creature who feels pain, who senses fear, and who desperately wants to live. The inaudible fright seen in the animal’s helpless gaze brings a heart-wrenching anguish that floods her entire being. What can this mean? She watches as the line slowly moves ahead, and is powerless to stop what will happen. Immobilizing sleep makes her a captive participant in the unfolding tragedy. She has no choice but to watch the grisly act unfold.

As Kathryn Myers fitfully sleeps on the couch in her apartment in Washington, D.C., the television no more than twelve feet from her is showing live images of her son, the President of the United States and the amazing events taking place in Olympic Stadium. Uninterrupted coverage of the incredible scene has saturated nearly all media communication on Earth. The President, the Vice President, and an alien android creature that calls himself a 'Linesian’ are the three principal players in this ongoing drama that has so powerfully focused the world’s attention. Vice President Scott Conner has singularly carried his part in the dramatic dialogue with his alien counterpart. As the Vice President pauses, looking at the President for any sign or indication of his intentions, the temporary silence makes the three of them look almost like actors in their places on stage waiting for the director’s cue to begin, but in this drama not all of the players are obvious. There’s a fourth actor, one who is hidden, waiting, and ready. Time itself seems to have stopped, as all expectantly wait for what will happen next, but no human being could have been prepared for what they are about to witness. The time is now 12:39.

The Vice President pauses, and again looks at the President. After seeing him sitting again in the strange, passive posture as before, as if waiting for something, he continues his dialogue with the Linesian.

“You said that you offer us an invitation. What kind of invitation?”

“The invitation we offer is an invitation into your own imagination. Your own future is inviting you into itself through the glimmering possibility of intentional imagination. We’re only asking you to accept that invitation, an invitation to the invitation so to speak, Mr. Conner.”

“That doesn’t sound very practical. We need solutions to problems we face now.”

“The help you need right now is something you can only give yourselves.”

“What do you mean?”

In our models one variable could not be predicted. That is, whether or not nuclear war would occur in man’s future.”

“Why can’t you predict that? You seem confident in predicting climate change.”

“Predicting your climate is based on simple algorithmic formulations. The human factor is unpredictable. Humans are free to choose. Therefore be warned. Mankind is at the early dawn of a global environmental collapse. All you can do at this point is to mitigate its worst effects. Humanity will not survive this collapse and a nuclear war. If nuclear war occurs in the next two hundred years it will be tantamount to genetic suicide for the genus Homo.”

“Then why don’t you help us avoid that?”

“We can give you that help right now, Mr. Conner. If you can imagine a world free of the threat of nuclear war then be bold, and take that step. We will help you.”