Vox Orbita
(Quirkworks Laboratory)
by Valerie Smith
It’s Sunday morning and we’re in Utah. The year is 2002. The congregation has gathered outside their small church. They’ve been prepared for the end of the world decades in advance. They’ve trained their children in survival techniques, and built hundreds of special shelters. It was a “noble” effort, but to spite their efforts, the Earth spins on, carrying them with it. The war has diminished in size and is mostly being fought on the West coast now. They lost over half the members of their small community in the first attack three years earlier. It’s been tough, but they’re survivors and their faith is still strong. They’ve gathered today to discuss moving to Atlantis which, since its return, has not been touched by war.
Suddenly, an object appears in the sky. It’s not like anything they’ve seen before. Could it be from another world? The object moves closer causing panic in the group. They make a run for the church and close its doors. They hear a loud rumbling sound like a tornado approaching. The church begins to shake and fill with bright white light. Bodies collapse in little heaps all over the floor.
The first person to awaken is Annie, a young girl of five. She looks around and finds herself in a bluish-white room. Heaven? Others begin to wake and they make the same assumption. They have finally all died and passed on to heaven. They sing out in joy… which ,of course, could be mistaken for pain by a race unfamiliar with human vocal stylings.
A dense blue gas begins to rise up from the floor enveloping the group. They become disoriented and their vision becomes blurred, their consciousness is “beginning to fade.” An extremely tall woman enters their chamber. Huge gray wings reach out on either side of her body. She has a tiny baby in her arms. Is she their guardian angel? She walks to the center of the room and shows the baby to Annie and says “Eve.” She turns and exits the room. Is this the “rebirth of Eve”? Is this our destiny? “Anastasia says” she thinks the angel was pretty.
The congregation is afraid. There are those who trust the angel and believe that they are meant for a higher purpose. There are others who call her “the demon angel” and think that she means to kill them all. Eventually, the gas takes control and they begin to sleep. The doors open again and “el gato negro…” enters and weaves her way through the sleeping bodies deciding their fate while the ship orbits the Earth.
Translation (optional): Sounds like a spoiled rich kid who can blow $20,000 on a whim, books a huge block of time in a recording studio to make a CD. He invites his friends over and they spend hours haphazardly playing around with the synthesizers, drum machines, and putting different effects on random sounds and vocals. Every now and then everyone seems to sync and a brief, almost musical, episode occurs, but these are few and far between. The result of their efforts is a CD guaranteed to receive the response, “What is this crap?” from anyone who happens to hear it. Near the end, some of his diva friends who can actually sing, come in and lay down a few tracks, but by then, who cares?
