Good morning. Time to go to bed.

Has a day ever just disappeared? Mine did. And for most of the time, I was trying to come to terms with our new alien masters.

When the disks appeared in the air, we did not have time to contemplate their meaning, like you do in the movies, they just started attacking. The lasers swept through neighborhoods, obliterating everything that they came into contact with--it was a lot like the heat beam in HG Wells' War of the Worlds, reducing every mote and beam of every building to ashes. There was much confusion about what to do--were we supposed to run or was it safer to stay put? I ran and fell in with a small group of people who vowed to organize a resistance band if we survived the attack. This sort of felt like a promise we really did not have to worry about making good on, since the chances of anyone surviving seemed to be almost nil. Had it not been for army artillery firing on the searching saucers from over the hills, the lasers would have certainly swept through the building we finally decided to hide in, a television station.

When the first shells struck the saucers and distracted their pilots, we made the decision to run back into the part of town that was already destroyed--there was no reason for the attackers to expect anyone to be alive there, as the destruction was almost perfect. An underground mall had served as an unintended shelter for hundreds of people in one section of town, and we found that otherwise completely ruined section of town surprisingly well-populated. Without a doubt the most disturbing sights were the bodies that still held lifelike poses.

My parents were gone. I imagine that they fled.

The distraction of the military units (which were presumably turned into globs of melted flesh and metal) actually saved a purpose. The saucers (yes, they were saucer shaped) apparently had orders to attack only for a day. Anyone who survived that first day was allowed to continue to survive. The first time I saw an alien, I was reconnoitering an area where I had heard shouts and the sounds of heavy equipment. I worked my way through the debris of what had been a housing project, wondering why none of the remaining apartments had any doors or residents, when I reached a window that overlooked a courtyard. The aliens stood in groups of two in the center. They were tall, maybe 7 feet, and traveled in pairs, a phenomenon I did not yet understand was related to their longevity. They were of all different builds, shades, textures and features: it would be completely impossible to describe a "typical alien," aside from its height. It turned out that they shifted shape quite easily. I saw no weapons, but somehow they managed to load humans onto low, gated pens that looked like horse trailers, but without wheels or any visible means of locomotion. They hovered and went to where the aliens silently directed them. The commotion was coming from the other buildings, and were clearly the screams of people who were being pushed out into the courtyard, also in pairs, and turned over to alien handlers who lassoed them around the neck with a flexible metal cord.

The one who caught me was had a face that came to a point, no eyes and no mouth. He wore an immense gauzy tunic, and it was clear to me when he appeared I was no longer a free human. I had conflicted emotions about this. On the one hand, I could no longer be expected to be a part of the resistance, which would have been a relief. I decided that I would look for weak points in the alien transportation and communication systems. Part of the problem was that the aliens were so damned charming...I couldn't understand it. They were clearly subjugating us, but we were fine with it, even after the person in front of me in line, when I was herded into the courtyard, someone stepped out of line and was instantly disintegrated in swift punishment. I was appalled by my reaction, "That'll teach you to disobey," I thought, but those weren't my thoughts. I mean, how could they have been? The cord around my neck, was it tapping or hacking my nervous and endocrine systems? I did not know, but as I stepped into the hovering holding pens, I realized that my handler would be with me constantly and that it would be nearly impossible for me to escape without him noticing me.

I had a moment of terror when a woman ahead of me started fighting, and her handler, swallowed her. He merged with her. Stepped into and around her. The creature, who I now abhorred, no matter how much guilt I was induced into having for that hate (the aliens were working very hard on mastering my emotions, which I knew would leave me susceptible to their influence, even if my reason remained intact) left the pen to look for another person to put at the end of their lasso. I pulled a tack from the sole of my shoe and carved a message to my future self, whoever that would be, on my arms. On my left arm: "Slave. Escape. Remember." On my right arm: "Guilt is good." The effort was immense, and the emotional agony I felt for writing such a subversive message on my otherwise unmarred skin was clearly disproportional to the crime. (Why was I suddenly worried about the condition of my skin? Why was I not worried about the state of my brain?)

HJ