“And then God looked again and said, ‘Actually, it's not very good. It's adequate at best.’ And he had a nice old cup of tea with some biscuits and said, ‘Oh well, let us try again, but this time with feeling!’ And it was so.”
— Genesis 1:32
Not a lot of people would travel halfway across the world after seeing one grainy video while sitting on the toilet. Mostly, because they weren’t awesome enough.
Axel Yang was pretty awesome though. He was one of the last remaining independent thinkers in America. Everyone else sold their brain to the establishment or died under suspicious circumstances. At least, Axel found them suspicious.
Many attempts were made to silence him.
First, they locked in a psychiatric ward to prevent him from investigating a native American site where human-alien hybrids were born in secret underground tunnels. After they released him, he was sick all the time as a result of the poison big pharma put in his medicine to prevent him from revealing the truth about their nefarious plans to control humanity through mind-altering drugs. To add insult to injury, his wife left him for some dude in a suit. It was only years later that it became clear to Axel that this ‘dude’ was no random office plankton but a CIA operative tasked with keeping people from exposing the lies of the NSA about receiving signals from outer space. None of this deterred Axel from his quest for truth and knowledge.
Yep, Axel was pretty awesome.
The most important man in Axel’s life has been his Jewish grandfather Morty. Morty had survived the Holocaust by becoming invisible with the aid of a talisman given to him by an angel who visited him in the ghetto one night. Tragically, Morty lost the talisman during his stay in a displaced persons camp, which the British kept in conditions not much better than the Nazis. No one except his grandson believed the talisman had ever existed. Most didn’t even believe in angels, who were obviously benevolent space aliens in disguise.
Toward the end of his life, the old man spent a great deal of time working in his basement. Eventually, he came out with a new talisman he’d prepared based on recollections from his meeting with the angel. He said this talisman would be the key to deeper truths for those willing to look. And, by whatever being you choose to venerate, he was right! He’d seen so much!
His girlfriend didn’t see what he saw but that was okay. She saw many things he didn’t see. It was like the Guru in their crash course in Radical Buddhism had said. "There are many realities and most only see but one in their lifetime".
Jenny and Axel met on a trek in India and despite a gap of over twenty years between them, quickly became lovers. They moved to a cabin in Wisconsin, where Jenny worked in a gas station and wrote poetry while Axel delved deeper into the mysteries of the universe and argued with strangers online. This was hard work, but somebody had to do it or the bad guys won. Jenny and Axel went to the occasional social justice protest or nature party, but mostly they kept to themselves and were very happy.
Then came the video. Thousands of shimmering lights over some hill in Palestine. The few people who bothered to comment said it was either fireflies or poor CGI, but Axel instantly knew it was the real deal. These were space aliens.
Later, watching the video frame by frame, Axel noticed several tall figures with large protrusions coming from their backs. They were barely visible in the dark, almost indistinguishable from the thorny bushes in the background, but he had no doubt that they were the real deal as well. Another kind of aliens! Maybe the same species that had built the gate in Babylon and later taught the Druids how to predict the future.
Jenny didn’t see what he saw, but that was okay because she believed in him. She always did.
One week later, they were driving a rented car from the Ben Gurion airport to the settlement from which the video was taken. The landscape rapidly shifted from parched flatlands dotted with tiny towns and bare fields to sparsely forested hills covered in tall, white buildings that looked like something from Lord of the Rings.
After passing through a city of white towers and strange circular compounds, the two found themselves driving through a lush forest that felt out of place in the brutal summer. Families of ultraorthodox Jews who dressed like it was winter in Poland and not summer in Israel, frolicked in the woods. Axel sighed at the quantity of trash they left behind. We were given such a beautiful planet, why must we poison it?
The forest ended just as abruptly as it started. It was replaced by an expanse of hills covered in dead vegetation and the occasional antena. It reminded Axel of the hills around Los Angeles but the architecture was different; heavier, more monumental.
Currently, Axel’s attention was divided between the road and the GPS on his phone. Jenny was listening to music and tapping the rhythm on the windshield with her bare feet. She was so cute. From time to time, she tried to show him funny videos her friends have shared with her. Axel threw quick glances at the screen and replied with generic compliments. Some day, her love of sharing would be the death of them. Ah well. At least they would die smiling.
Axel was concerned that they might be detained by the border patrol once they reached the occupied territories. Though he was technically Jewish, he looked Chinese (except for his luxurious viking beard) and he was not a citizen of Israel.
However, his concerns proved to be unfounded. The guard at the security checkpoint, an African girl with hair that resembles white and black tentacles, just smiled at him, blurted something in Hebrew, and signaled to proceed. Jenny scowled at the guard, but the girl was already busy greeting the next car.
“She didn’t even ask to see our papers!” Jenny said angrily.
“Yeah, weird.” Axel agreed absentmindedly as he navigated a sea of parked trucks, Arab fruit sellers, and spike belts he really, really, really hoped were in the right direction.
“Not weird, racist.” Jenny growled. “They search every Arab like he’s a criminal but let us pass without even looking into our car.”
“Yeah,” Axel agreed. “I read they call it face control.”
“Why don’t they just call it race control and be done with it?” Jenny crossed her hands angrily. “That’s the worst profiling I've seen in my life!”
However, within ten minutes, they saw worse profiling. Axel spotted a wrecked car in a ravine he recognized from the video and turned to a gravel road headed for a Palestinian village with the cute name of Al-Kittah, which had overlooked that ravine. Very soon, he ran into another security checkpoint, this one less fancy and manned by border patrol troopers instead of security guards.
A swarthy officer, by means of crude sign language, for not one of the troopers spoke English, indicated that Axel should turn back. Axel tried to argue, much to Jenny’s chagrin (she was naturally afraid of guns and uniform).
He might as well have argued with a rock. The trooper kept pointing at a large sign that read in Hebrew, Arabic, and English: This road leads to Area 'A' Under the Palestinian Authority. Entrance For Israeli Citizens Is Forbidden, Dangerous To Your Lives And Is Against The Israeli Law.
Axel kept trying to explain that he wasn’t Israeli but… this rock wasn’t a pet rock, so Axel drove away angrily. Fine, so his car had an Israeli license plate, so what? He wasn’t Israeli. He was a Chinese Viking!
“Fascist assholes…” Jenny muttered while animatedly typing on her phone. Reception here was shit. Half the time Axel’s GPS didn’t work, the rest of the time he only had one or two bars. Jenny often shook her phone, as if that would make photos upload faster. She was so cute. Axel loved her so much. He grabbed Jenny by the chin and planted a loud kiss on her lips. She giggled.
“So, what now?” She dropped her feet to the floor of the car and looked around. “Going to that settlement?”
Axel grinned. “Now we outsmart the fascists!”
“I like the sound of that!” Jenny said with a grin to match his own. “Just try not to get us shot. This asshole was just itching to shoot someone. I could feel it.” She shuddered. “Imagine what it’s like living here, under occupation…”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“They’re too lazy to move away from their shaded security checkpoints,” Axel said as the two went on driving down an empty road flanked by featureless rocks with only a few trees clinging to dear life. The sky was blue, without a single cloud for comfort. Their AC ran on full power and it was still hot. “I say we park in the bushes and just walk to the place in the video. It will be dark soon. I doubt anyone is really looking…”
Jenny frowned. “What will happen if we meet a patrol?”
“You just say we got lost trekking in the hills. It’s so easy to get lost with their crazy system of Area A, Area B, Area C, Green Line, Blue Line, the GPS not working half the time, every place having at least two names, Oslo A, Oslo B—”
“Alright, alright!” Jenny laughed. “I get the idea. Why me though?”
Axel laughed. “Cause you’re a cute white girl and I’m a crazy Asian guy.”
Jenny sombered. “I’m so angry that this makes sense. I’m sorry white people are so shitty.”
Axel didn’t know what to say, so he just kissed her. There were very few good things in his life and Jenny was most of them.
After a few miles, the suffocating walls were replaced by a vista of sunbaked hills spotted with trees and bushes. Small herds wandered between the caves and ruins that dotted the hills, seemingly unattended. The ruins looked interesting, but Axel didn’t feel they were important. His talisman was dormant.
Axel parked under a huge bush with fruits that looked like spiked seamines. He read somewhere that this plant was poisonous, but he couldn’t remember its name. He chose that place because it had a table and some shade, which made it a good spot for a break.
Axel went to a lookout across the road while Jenny spread a plastic tablecloth on the rough stone table. She then took out several boxes of pastries they bought at a gas station and arranged them on the table. Jenny was like that. She needed everything to look pretty.
While she went for drinks, Axel breathed in the silence and the wide expanse of the land. It was uncanny. Birds didn’t chirp, flies didn’t buzz, planes didn’t fly, cars didn’t drive, the wind didn’t blow. After a few moments, his ears started ringing.
He smiled to himself for no reason and went to join Jenny. Because of the stifling silence, it was easy to hear the approach of a young Arab on a donkey. Axel was bad at determining age, but he guessed this young man to be in his late teens. He had a mustache, albeit a flimsy one, and displayed none of the shyness Axel expected from younger kids. Still mounted on his donkey, the newcomer stopped and eyed the pastries hungrily.
“Hey bro,” Axel shouted at the youth, “you want some, eh,” he whispered to Jenny, “what do they call these?”
“Bourekas,” she answered, bits of mushroom and pastry flying from her mouth.
“Yeah…” he turned back to the youth. “Bourkas?”
The young Arab approached and picked a handful of puffy pastries, pressing them to his chest like they were rare gems. Axel decided to try his luck.
“Hey bro,” he fumbled for his phone, “have you seen this?” He showed the video of the shimmering lights to the boy. At first, the kid looked bored. Then his eyes widened.
“You know this place?” Axel asked hopefully.
“Yes!” the boy said excitedly. “I take you there. Pretty lady can ride.” The boy smiled toothily at Jenny. She smiled shyly in return.
“Wow, man, that’s… that’s terrific!” Axel clapped the boy on the shoulder.
The boy nodded. “200 shekel.”
“What?” Axel asked, dismayed.
“200!” The boy repeated, holding two fingers in the air. “Dollar or Euro also good.” Of course they are…
Axel looked helplessly at Jenny. He only had a credit card on him. She sniggered and pulled out her wallet. Such a perfect woman.
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Axel had to admit that this was 200 shekels well spent. After following the boy for about half an hour, he and Jenny (who all but shone from the joy of riding a donkey in the Middle East) reached the exact location from the video. Jenny was a little cross that her internet barely worked, keeping her from posting photos from their trip, but Axel was as happy as a miner who struck gold.
The place where the boy had brought them was the exact spot depicted in the video. Axel could see the settlement from which the video was taken on a faraway hill and a rundown Arab village on another. Around them were boulders of varying sizes and a whole lot of cacti. Not a fun place to stumble through after dark…
At first glance, what they faced was nothing but a big pile of garbage in the middle of nowhere. However, there were things in the garbage, things that made Axel’s talisman itch, things clearly not of this earth…Oh yes, it didn’t disappoint (even though it did stink!)
Axel scanned the area with his keen ufologist eye. “Do you know if the lights appear every night?”
The boy tilted his head and frowned, as if he suddenly forgot how to speak English. Then he pursed three fingers together and waved his hand up and down. “Wait. I call my uncle.”
“No, wait…” Axel started, but the boy was already gone, hopping through rocks with the alacrity of a mountain goat. His donkey, now tied to a tree, threw the boy a judgmental glance and went back to munching on the sparse grass growing through the garbage. Axel hoped the poor beast wouldn’t poison itself.
“Look!” Jenny cried and pointed at a large, colorful stone looking out of place in the midst of the drab detritus. Axel walked up to the stone and examined it. It was painted purple and was decorated with little green men dancing in all sorts of weird positions. His talisman all but buzzed at the presence of the stone. “These images were not drawn by human beings!” he declared with awe. “Babe, are you recording this? We’re on the cusp of greatness! My talisman was never as excited as it’s right now. It’s amazing!”
“Yeah,” Jenny said. “Shame the internet never works in this place… hey, look!” she pointed. Axel had to squint to see in the dusk. It was their guide, coming back with several men. Axel waved at them. One of the men waved back.
As the men approached, Axel noted that they all had rifles slung over their shoulders. This made him feel uneasy. He understood they needed weapons to protect themselves from settlers and their herds from predators, but he still felt uneasy.
“Ahlan wa sahln,” one of the men greeted Axel with a beaming smile. The man was rakishly handsome and athletically built. Despite being clean-shaven, he reminded Axel of the kind of dashing pirates who populated the romance novels his mother liked to read. The same could not be said of the other men, who were grim and crude and eyed the Americans with the same hostile skepticism as the troopers at the security checkpoint.
“How are you, my brother?” the dashing non-pirate said in lightly accented English and offered Axel his hand. Axel shook it and winced. The man was much stronger than he looked.
“Good…” Axel said, thinking how he could get out of this interaction without losing his phone and wallet.
“Good, good!” The man said cheerfully. “You like our little country, yes?”
“Yeah, it’s very picturesque.” Axel lied.
The man smirked. “Pretty like a traffic accident… So,” he crouched to examine the colorful rock Jenny had discovered. “You’re an, how do you say, archaeologer?”
Axel noted with annoyance that the man paid Jenny no attention at all, like she didn’t exist. She, in turn, was obviously scared of him. Or maybe it was just all the guns. Jenny really didn’t like guns. The grim looks of the man’s companions didn’t help either.
“Well…” Axel considered for a moment what exactly he was. “Sort of.”
“This is very good!” The man straightened like a spring. “Maybe you can help us…”
“I can try…” Axel said, wondering if he was about to become the victim of some stupid prank. You’d think the intrepid ufologist would be used to it by now, but Axel was a gentle soul and it hurt each time anew.
“Wallah, you’re a good man!” The man clapped Axel on the back and squeezed the back of his neck, a little too hard. “Jazak Allahu Khayran! God bless you!” His expression softened, as if about to talk on a painful subject. “You found this place, this means you’re a wise man. Do you know how to remove a placeholder?”
Axel frowned thoughtfully. “What kind of placeholder?”
The man gave him an annoyed glance. “Wallah, the kind that holds places…” He turned toward Jenny. “And you? O wise woman who’d seen the Rock of Cain in the garden? Do you know about placeholders?”
“I’m just the girlfriend.” Jenny said with a shy smile that barely hid her terror.
“Just the girlfriend…” The man sighed. “Okay, halas. I won’t bother you anymore—” He started to turn but then he noticed Axel’s talisman and his eyes narrowed. “Are you a Jew?” he asked flatly, saying the last word as if it tasted bitter on his tongue.
“No...” Axel said, hoping Jenny wouldn’t pick this moment to preach tolerance to a bunch of armed strangers. “It’s just some cheap toy we bought in the flea market—” Axel winced as the man picked up his talisman, his most precious belonging, and examined it.
“It’s pretty,” the man said after letting go of the talisman. “Very good buy. I hope they didn’t screw you on the price. You need to haggle in this country or you pay a thousand times the price!”
Axel mumbled something even he didn’t understand.
The man studied him and Jenny with newfound curiosity. “So what did you come here looking for? I live here. Maybe I can help?” For another 200 shekels…
“Proof of the supernatural,” Jenny answered quickly while Axel was looking for the right words to describe his lifelong quest to expose the hidden layers of reality to those trapped in the matrix; the truth that mankind was not alone in the multiverse, that history and science were fabricated, that—
The Arab snorted with tired amusement, as if laughing at an old private joke. “Wallah,” he reached into his jeans pocket. “You found it.”
He pulled out a pistol and shot Axel in the face.
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Jenny shrieked and started running into the dark.
“Hey!” the man cried after her with laughter in his voice. “Where are you going? You will fall and break your neck!”
Jenny ran, too dazed to think, too dazed to feel. Branches whipped at her face and thorns tore at her shins, but she felt no pain. She ran and ran and ran, until she became aware of something running beside her. Something very tall and very spiky and definitely not human.