Life under the Martians
On the road to Roswell, NM
I woke up in deep west Texas. The dull horizon glow of sunset had faded while I napped. A cool, dry breeze blew through the partially open driver's window. The radio mumbled some old song I almost recognized while tires droned on the interstate blacktop. Her hand was on my arm. "Look, out there," she said, nodding toward my window.
I turned my head. Near the car, shoulder and hardpan and creosote bushes flashed past. Low hills squatted on the horizon, and random white and regularly spaced red stars dotted the sky above them. Huge white columns faded up into darkness between these two extremes. Up high there was the impression of movement, ponderous and lethal.
I thought of ranked Martian tripods. The red stars would be the glow from their heat rays, ready to lash out as the pilots of the machines shouted in exultation.
"Wind farm," she said.
Of course it was, but still an intimidating, eerie sight. She felt it, too, I knew, by the way she spoke, as if she might be overheard by alien overlords. I could understand why people out here saw floating lights and UFOs and strange hybrid beasties loping through the barren landscape. The big emptiness was full of Martians, after all. I watched them march dimly east in endless formation, their baleful lamps scanning and finding no significant threats, our world theirs for the taking; then I nodded off again as we sped through the night toward New Mexico, toward Roswell.