I do think he did this to spite me, he thought acidly, as he scooped out one more bug clinging to his neck, squishing it between his thumb and index finger. Maybe I shouldn’t have got involved in that brawl at all.
He coughed. The fat asshole was puffing the smoke on his face as if he got nothing to do with cancer or global warming.
“Hey mister, are you done?”
“Just one more sip. Let me get in the mood. ForKrishna’s sake, King Krapla is coming.”
He bit his lip. King Krapla was going to get his vocal cords hoarse, not you asshole.
His intercom buzzed.
“Vivek– things under control?”
Well, there should be things to be under control.
“Yup, everything under control.”
“King Krapla would be coming anytime soon. Be on alert, have you that ambulance on standby?”
“I have arranged two. You never know when these fame-freak chicks may swoon.”
“Good work, over and out.”
Of course it is good work. I always do good work. Sometimes I do it so good that my perfection gets me botched up.
“Mister, you aren’t technically allowed to smoke in a college campus. Get it done with it now.”
“Hey jerk, I am not responsible for this. You people aren’t allowing me to go out. The guy says that once you go out, you won’t be allowed back in.”
“The guy has got it right. You shouldn’t even have brought a cigarette in a college precinct-control your impulses, your dream is about to be fulfilled. King Krapla is coming.”
Just as he spoke the last bit, he heard the wheezing sound, the wheeze that grew into a buzz, the buzz into a beat, the beat into a boom, a boom which ultimately grew into a cacophonic roar. The UFO man had come.
The fat guy looked up. There it was, a perfectly symmetric dish, glittering with lights- something like a disco-ball being converted into disco-disk, continuously rotating about its own axis. Its disco-light shimmering shadowed the moon which by this time of the day was making its presence felt.
The announcer started roaring over the mike, getting the restless public charged up. Their patience had paid off. The Alienman had finally arrived.
The fat guy threw his cigarette down, choking its fire with the tip of his shoe.
He began to shout “ALIENMAN, ALIENMAN, ALIENMAN……” and rushed out mingling with the crowd in the front.
The crowd seemed to have caught up with him. The whole campus was in an organized pandemonium. They seemed to be swiveling around, chanting King Krapla’s name as some kind of mantra.
The UFO hovered over the crowd- getting the crowd excited. The chant grew louder.
“ALIENMAN. ALIENMAN. ALIENMAN.”
Finally after getting the crowd in tempo, the UFO regally raced down, right over the top of the stage.
Suddenly all lights faded out. The crowd went hush, the silence pregnant with anticipation. A cone of yellow light hit the centre of the stage. And with a Grogon’s flourish, King Kapra jumped out right at the circle of light, his knees bent and his blue face hidden by long tangles of his hairs.
The crowd roared with joy. Similar cones appeared, and out of the sky came his fellow artists on the instruments. A mike appeared out of blue.
Vivek fervently wanted to be near the stage but cursed his bad luck to be posted here this far.
“HELLOOOOOOOO EVVERRRRYONE,” He cried in his usual multi-faceted voice- three tunes simultaneously emanating from his vocal cords each merging itself into a single whole but still larger than the sum of its parts- his voice ripping every earthling’s heart apart.
The crowd roared in reply.
“ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME?”
The crowd roared once again, this time in affirmation.
Meanwhile as he was holding everyone’s attention- a battalion of two dozen burly muscular Grogons spread out in a semi circular arc around King Kapra. They had their butts (or something analogous to that, the scientists of earth hadn’t a chance to study their anatomy) facing towards the audience- and like the crack of the whip out came a fart so strong and utterly foul in smell that it may render you unconscious for quite a few hours.
The audience booed them. But they could do nothing else.
The fart spread out around King Kapra shielding him from any freaky fan or assailant- something like a force field which reeked. Its pinkish hue tantalizing the crowd, daring it to come forward in that viscous, sticky and noxious gas.
“I said are YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME?!!!!”
“YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS……….”
“Okay, my dear beauties and their respective hunks, without further ado-let ME BEGINNNNNNNNN……..”
The crowd went berserk with ecstasy.
“Well, the first song that I would be singing would be one of my bollywood chartbusters which I hope you like……….”
He pushed back his long hairs. On the view screen that was few feet away, Vivek could see the suckers at Alienman’s cheek bones- his blue skin glowing out in yellow light.
He took a deep breath. He didn’t have a nose like a regular earth man. The suckers behind and around his cheek bones helped him do just that……….and a lot more…….
Just as he said, without much ado- he started with a Bang- the UFO lights flooding the stage, the beautiful alien music and that baritone voice with all its multiple hues of emotions and tonal weights, the voice that sang all the ragas simultaneously in a complex whirlwind of released air, which he controlled much like a pied piper playing thousands of his pipes at the very same time.
Now there was no stopping back. His feet began to tap unconsciously. His spirits were lifted, his mind kicking into over drive. He felt powerless, totally in control of The Voice.
Screw this job.
But then the devil advocate in his mind reminded him of his job. He was posted here, and this was the place where he should remain if he didn’t want to risk his position in Checkmate Private Security Services. He controlled his feelings and stood his ground.
In that melody, he heard a scraping sound. He turned around.
There he was, the reason that he was posted here in this remote corner of the college precinct. On the top of the back wall, were a bunch of kids, dressed in rags, attracted by the sounds- trying to climb through and mingle with the crowd before the security caught up with them before it was too late, before finally some young fashionably dressed lady discovered some rag shaking his legs with her in all too familiar fashion or some young gentleman’s wallet go missing.
So the squatters had finally made their presence felt, though nothing like a free lunch when I am at duty.
In their anxiousness to get down without any noise they didn’t notice the giant hulk of a security man. He let them jump down from the wall, and just as they prepared for a lighting speed, he caught two of them by their collars. He pushed one of them towards the back of the wall so that the rag remains right in his vision, and slapped the other right across his left cheek. They were mortified.
He began to cuss them. They were three of them. The third one was trying to sneak past him towards the grounds but before he had a chance- he was caught.
He swore in a loud brash voice, the kids also began to swear in retort. He picked up a stone and acted as if to throw it at them. They climbed the wall again and jumped out of view.
He threw the stone sideways. They would now be trying some other mode of entry. One thing he had to give them, they were undaunted in their pursuit.
He had missed track of the tune. He looked up at the screen. Alienman was right into one of his soulful songs, when the first surge of people tried to rush forward through the gaseous barricade. He fervently hoped that the security guards would stop them before the gas rendered them unconscious.
Fuck, there were some of the security men involved. They should have never hired young men for the job.
He gasped. He was unable to believe what he saw as the crowd shimmered out through the pink hue of the barricade.
He rubbed his eyes. This wasn’t possible. The Grogons said this was a security measure they cannot do without. But instead of rendering the crowd unconscious, they were rendered invisible!! This wasn’t possible.
But he seemed to be the only one who had noticed. Every other guy in the campus grounds was glassy eyed.
Before he could think what was happening, another bunch of kids rushed right through that barricade. He was horrified.
For God’s sake, this was King Krapla- heart throb of billions- how can such a thing happen?
He spoke in the intercom.
“Kapil, what’s happening near the barricade?”
He got no reply.
“Kapil, what’s happening?”
He shivered. His gut chilled with frission. They all were entranced. They weren’t able to control their feelings.
King Krapla was the pied piper.
Before he shook this though out of his head, the entire ground was empty. He had to hide, hide before they come to know that it had not affected him.
He hid behind the tree.
Through it he could see multitude of aliens thronging out of barricade and filling the grounds. Their shapes changed. And they begin to resemble the human forms that had just disappeared.
It was not a barricade. It was a portal. They captured human beings and filled the earth with their alien counterparts. They were invading earth through their rock concerts.
However laughable the idea sounded, King Kapra and several others of his league had earth beings captive to their beats.
He rushed to the back wall. He began climbing it. Thank God- he was placed far away from the band, thank God for those squatters; I am safe and sound here.
But for how long?
An alien voice filled his mind as he rushed down the dingy aisle between multitudes of slums, his voice rising in crescendo of a shriek.
Alienman 