crilobar

1/1/18

The crilobar was no longer hot.

When it arrived from what the locals called Alpha-century- meaning anything from outer-space, it was considerably hotter, hot enough to melt rock.

Now it seemed just like an ordinary pipe joint fitting. So they took it to the plumber. The po-lice, couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.

X files, Star Wars, twilight zone, Black Mirror- didn’t connect the dots. Figured that entertainment stuff was just a lot of malarkey made up to sell tickets.

 Nothing happened for sixty years. That is nothing relating to crilobar.

Name came from the place it landed - soft landing for an object moving that fast just seconds previous. Landed just back of Cyril’s Bar and Grill - grill-o-bar. Cyril’s Grill and Bar- crilobar- the name stuck. Folks liked the name. Liked it so much, Cyril renamed his bar. Business picked up considerable.

Funny thing when it landed. After it cooled down, no one could pick it up. Took a jackhammer to pry it loose from the bedrock, a heavy duty winch to lift it into the Po-lice pickup. The dark green one used to belong to the parks department, ‘they put out of business, damn EPA- those government folks never did us no good turn.’

So here we are sixty years later, most folks who saw It land were dead and gone or pretty darned wizened specially in the brains department. The lump of metal plumbing had been sitting in a glass case supported by old pinewood, you could see the grains which darkened over the years.  The display case tilted slightly. You know the kind where the front angles down a bit. Well Mildred who was a kid when it landed now worked as the night cleaning woman in the Po-lice warehouse (also the town museum).  Mildred one night finishing her dusting and such noticed a dark blue light, a small circle going on and off, off and on- blinking like. Then started omitting a fuzzy sort of pale green almost smoky light. After a while it turned reddish. Mildred didn’t get scared nor nothing, just picked up the old landline- must have been as old as old Mildred- dialed 911. By the time the officer arrived, the operator asked if Mildred had been drinking - “No,” she said, “Harriet you know I haven’t touched a drop since Harry died and I joined AA.”

Well when Barney arrived. The glass-topped case was empty. No break In the glass. No telltale sign that nothing never been in that case.

A body couldn’t figure. Weeks passed, nobody really cared anymore. Too much important stuff going on. Dems taking away our guns, peddling fake news, killing unborn babies, denying the one true God, immigrants, ugh…

That was until about forty of those pipe joints showed up on the steps of city hall. All standing with their blue lights on. Nice and respectful someone said, matched the color of the po-lice uniforms.

Just like sixty years ago, no one could move the metal pieces. This time not even jackhammers or forklifts couldn’t budge ‘em.

When Mayor Bob came out, they all turned green. When he started to speak, they all turned red. When he continued to speak, they made a fire engine siren sound. Soon as he stopped yapping the objects shut up too. They went through a couple of cycles of his starting to talk and they making their siren sounds till Mr. Mayor - who wasn’t the quickest on the draw, but most everyone liked him- got the idea that yammering wasn’t wanted.

 The pieces turned pale blue.

Silently floated up just above City Hall where they put on a silent fireworks show. Best I’d ever seen. Folks applauded. Things died down. Got real quiet. The instruments color turned their pale blue... after a while floated up into the white summer clouds and disappeared off our radar.

Folks liked it so much, the quiet that is, they started having quiet parties. Just sitting round not talking. Funny thing too. Someone got the gosh darnedest idea. Maybe there were too many people killing each other.

Must have been smoking weed. One of them Criolbars comes light as a feather, sits on old Mayor Bob’s nose. Does a little dance. Flies off a few feet. Guy back of the crowd says he’s seen these alien machines four times before. Go figure.