On April 3rd, from all reliable accounts, the aliens appeared in virtually every town and city in the United States… except for Alaska and Hawaii, for reasons we will never know. They were uniformly taller and thinner than your average Earthling and had a distinctive rich olive or purple tint to the skin, depending on how the sunlight hit it. They wore clothes of a type that had never been popular on our planet nor particularly appealed to anyone much. Otherwise, they didn’t look radically different from your average malnourished basketball player with glam makeup wearing unflattering, second-hand Hollywood costume rejects. One day they were nowhere to be seen, the next day they were ubiquitous. 

         In every instance that has been shared on social media, they made their existence known when they emerged mid-morning (tilting their heads slightly or doing a subtle Chuck Berry duck-walk) from abandoned houses and began sprucing up the exteriors and doing rudimentary yard work. Neighborhood sleuths, from coast to coast, pored through official records, shared their findings with each other and assured the rest of us that the appropriated properties were all owned by one government entity or another and were deemed uninhabitable as of April 2nd. 

         They communicated with each other, but made no effort to interact with any of us. Though they had mouths where we have mouths, none were ever seen to be open. Their speech appeared to emanate from the general area of their heads, but the only sound they made was a guttural, multi-syllabic mumble, not unlike one of us answering a question with a closed mouth, “uh uh uhhh,” that clearly means, “I don’t know.” This casual discourse, coupled with their shark-skin dermal coloring, elongated physiques, unstylish attire, vague lumps indicating various unidentifiable body protuberances beneath the baggy outfits, and a general disinterest in the rest of us led to quite a few online suggestions for derogatory terms to use for the newcomers. The vast majority of us, however, having no idea where they were from or what they were up to, settled on “THEM” or “THEY,” in all caps and in an olive green and/or deep purple font.

         On April 6th, none of THEM were observed outside of the newly gussied up dwellings. Social media, understandably, was completely abuzz with nearly identical accounts of what we all were experiencing simultaneously. The fact that this completely unprecedented situation was being treated as a non-event by the United States government and every other government on the planet led to a flurry of speculation, misinformation, disinformation and daffy conspiracy theories by the middle of the day. Saner heads prevailed, though, and, miraculously, by the end of the day the SHUT UP, OBSERVE AND SHARE voices had stifled all but a minuscule body of diehard miscreant rumbling.

         The next day, a date every school child knows by heart, the sacks appeared. In every home across the land in which the occupants had access to social media, and presumably in those without, folks awoke to find a yellow bag in a central portion of their house, apartment, etc. The sacks were roughly the same basic size and had a similar appearance to that of a typical trash bag filled with yard clippings, discarded food containers and the like. The analogy ended there. The sacks (the preferred term used by nearly all of us) could not be moved about, lifted, opened, reconfigured or otherwise dealt with in any manner. No one could explain exactly what property the sacks possessed that rendered them immutable, but there is no known account of anyone affecting the slightest adulteration. There were also identical sacks on the lawns or common areas wherever THEY resided that morning that were not seen the previous day.

         There was a collective gasp online that day because THEY made the only subtle gestures that appeared to be geared toward conveying something to us. It was not a direct form of communication, by any stretch, but somehow it seemed obvious to all that a lesson of some sort was being imparted. One or more of THEM brought out an item from the once dilapidated abode, such as a washing machine or a stereo system, and placed it somewhere on the property. THEY touched a hand to a shark-skin forehead, closed both eyes and the object disappeared. As the item vanished the sack got ever so slightly larger and then returned to its initial measurements. After a few minutes, hand to head with closed eyes movements were repeated and the object reappeared where it had been placed earlier. The sack shrank a tiny bit then regained its usual size. The demonstration was over and THEY returned to do whatever went on inside. A few people claimed one of the items used in the sack demo was a framed portrait of one of THEM wearing a skimpier version of their clothes and posed provocatively, but no evidence of such was ever shared. No one saw olive/purple hide nor hair of THEM again.   

         Over the next few days there was a flurry of activity nation-wide as experimentation led to a series of discoveries and US citizens mapped out what the sacks could and could not be used for. It was found there was no need to place a hand to a forehead or close one’s eyes. All that was needed was to think that you would like one or more items to be in the sack and they would disappear while the sack grew a tiny bit then returned to its standard size. The item(s) had to belong to the person doing the wishing. If a family was involved, any of the members could wish something they owned collectively into the sack and any of the members could wish it back. If an item was placed in one’s hand and wished into the sack it would be returned to the hand of whoever wished it back (for family units) no matter where they might be. If an item were in a drawer or mounted on a wall, it would be replaced to the drawer or the wall in the exact condition and position it was originally in. The system did not work for people; pets; any other animals; living plants; food stuffs; beverages; medicines or cosmetics. A chest of drawers could be stashed, but not if someone had left a candy bar, or the like, in it. There was not a single reported instance of anyone being harmed as a result of an item being wished into a sack or returned. There did not appear to be a time limit involved with retrieving an item after it had been deposited. Interestingly, the only items that were returned in an altered state were cell phones, and the only difference anyone was able to discern was that partially charged phones were returned fully charged no matter how low they had gotten or how short a time they were in the sack. 

         As April was coming to a close virtually everyone in the country had grown accustomed to using the sacks and knowing that THEY were probably still among us, though THEY were never seen. Reports surfaced of people attempting to gain entry to a few of the repurposed homes and finding them as frustratingly impregnable and unalterable as the sacks. Almost all of us had readjusted our daily routines by then. Some items such as antiques and collectables that were not usually displayed on a daily basis were wished into the sacks for long-term safe keeping until they were wanted. Some items such as original artworks and family treasures on regular display were wished away as lights were being turned off for the night and restored as lights were being turned on the next morning. Cell phones were in the sack as often as not and were always there as we settled into bed for some shut eye. The phrase, “Now where did I leave that phone?” was a thing of the past. Reports of home robberies dwindled to zero or pretty darn close to it.

         On May 6th, another date nobody will likely ever miss if it were to appear on a test, the sacks and all their contents vanished without a trace. Without our phones, news travelled much more slowly, but in time it was discerned that THEY were gone as well and the homes THEY had inhabited were no longer off limits. Before long the nation’s homeless had moved into the renovated abandoned abodes and the US government made no moves to stop them. Within a few months most of the American people had replaced their phones and returned to some semblance of normal. However, the angst associated with not knowing who THEY were; what THEY might be using all our cell phone data for; and how we could be so foolish as to wish our cherished valuables into a sack will likely never subside. Certifiably insane conspiracy theories are at an all-time high and gaining more and more traction among the masses… but, oh well, what can you do?

Copyright 2023 P. Edwin Letcher