Life on Mars

We are getting in our first full reports now of what seems to be the dawn of a new era of mankind; Today, July 7, 2013, is the day that we now know for sure, there is life on Mars. Here is NBC news correspondent Jeff Schultz, live at capitol hill with questions for Wisconsin Senator and former NASA director Barry Pullman. Stay tuned for more images as they come to us.

Breathe in, breathe out…. Just act like you’re a regular guy. They don’t know what you’re thinking; they don’t know what you’re about to do…

I try and tell myself to stay calm, but my heart is beating out of my chest and my muscles are acting weird; the feeling reminds me of living under a tarp in Afghanistan, eating the crumbs out of the nearly empty packaged meals that ran out two days earlier, I start wondering if I am going to die from starvation like I almost did over there; I remember my tarp-partner going into hunger-convulsions. I remember not even being happy when the ANAs finally got us little bits of seasoned rice and clean water; I thought, wrongly, that I was finally done suffering. Now, back in suburban North Carolina, there are plenty of supply lines around me, but the only food I've had in the last two days were a few stale muffins and croissants that Starbucks dumped when they were closing. I don’t have much left in me, my still larger-than-average biceps and quads are telling me that they are going to shut down if I don’t get them some food ASAP.

The .45 caliber glock tucked into the back of my pants is digging into my lower back and I think I am bleeding, but I can barely feel it; my adrenaline has kicked in to the point that life around me is like a muted movie. I can remember my last 2 adrenaline rushes: one was 8 months ago, when I had 40 some rounds shot at me from high ground with no cover around me; the other was 2 months ago, when I impulsively put my last 500 bucks on red on a casino boat; it hit on double zero. The adrenaline is nice, my mind is taking a few minutes off from its usual coup of my existence; I should attempt to rob banks more often.

Nothing is confirmed yet, but oh boy, is it an exciting day for America, human-kind, and Earth. Reports are pouring in that the most recent Mars rover, Wonder II, has captured video of some kind of moving creature feeding on plants that grow just below the surface of Mars. Experts speculate that these animals are subterranean, and that they don’t require oxygen. I will tell you Elizabeth, this is a day to remember… today is the fabled day of first contact, back to you at the studio.

I am 30 feet away from the BB&T, and at this point I am committed. The world around me seems distant and greyish, even when loud metallic scrapings and crunchings start taking over the airspace around me. People start running towards the noise a block away, I don’t concern myself with it; instead I make my way towards the glass door. At this point, I am too hungry, too angry, too desperate to watch some disaster happen, I have seen enough violence and carnage for one pair of eyes.

I can feel my middle and rear deltoids cramp and lock up as I pull open the right door of the first of two double glass doors. The noise is still audible from in the bank; twisting of metal, perhaps even a few small explosions. People start running past me out the door to see the source of this noise. I seem to be the only person walking towards the bank counter. All this action is making me feel alive again, like I’m not just watching some shitty reality show whilst suffering from insomnia on some friends couch. I become aware of what I'm doing; I don’t like it. I walk up to the now line-less counter and tell the woman to give me everything in the drawer, and I discreetly point the pistol I have at her. I tell her in a low voice that I will fucking kill her if she doesn’t cooperate. She discreetly starts handing me stacks of money; 3 stacks of 20s, 4 stacks of 10s, 3 stacks of 50s, 6 stacks of 100s. No one is paying attention because everyone is screaming and asking questions and running around like a bunch of panicked pedestrians. I tell her to go to the safe and fill me up a zipper envelope with 100s. she leaves to follow my directions.

The implications of this are just tremendous… I think this kind of discovery is just what we needed to put an end to war. Now people will finally see that there are other things in this solar system that could pose a threat, that we are not alone, that we need to start thinking of ourselves as Earthlings, and not Americans, or Chinese, or Swiss.

Thank you very much Dr. Morton; that was Dr. Morton from the Astronomy department at UCLA and a leading member of the growing field of study of Astrobiology. I hate to have to interrupt this momentous occasion but we have breaking news out of Mooresville, North Carolina. There has been a massive train car pile-up, and anywhere from 39 to 52 silver back gorillas have escaped from the wreckage. We have local reporters rushing to the scene now to keep us informed about this story, so stay tuned for more. Back to Jeff Shultz, who now has Wisconsin Senator and UFO enthusiast Barry Pullman ready for some questioning about the discovery of life on Mars.

I can’t wait for this girl at the counter to come back with the money, and she will probably put one of those ink bombs in there anyways, so I leave. I’m sure I made enough off the drawer to do whatever it is I am going to do with this cash. I walk out and peel my top shirt off and drop it in the trash can. I hang a left and reality starts to kick in. People are running from the direction I am walking towards. Nobody bothers to stop and tell me why they are running, but there is genuine fear in their eyes; I've never seen an American civilian with genuine fear in their eyes before.

I make it a block, and then I see it. I am not sure if I am hallucinating from the combination of hunger and adrenaline, but there are gorillas running in the street, and not the democratic socialist kind. I have hallucinated before, but usually its men in robes and turbans, or little brown women screaming and crying, and mostly its marines dying on the ground in front of me as blood spills out of them and they ask me to take care of their wife and newborn baby that they haven’t met yet; sometimes they tell me to play catch with them when they are old enough, some tell me to make sure she doesn’t marry another Marine; some just ask me to pray with them.

These gorillas seem too real to try and ignore though; they seem to vivid, I don’t think my fucked up head could even make this up. I hang a left and a girl is screaming on the ground with a giant gorilla over top of her. I am brought back to the time I saw my standing officer raping an Afghan woman in a little compound we had taken over and were using as cover for the night. I couldn’t report him, he was my superior and 'brother'; and we weren’t close enough to a base for it to really matter. Sometimes that woman calls me a monster in my dreams.

Here was my chance to redeem myself. I pull out my Glock and fire 2 rounds into the Gorillas head. The gorilla blood splatters on the American pavement pretty much the same way human blood does on Afghan soil. A gorilla jumps on me from the back. It’s really fucking strong.

We are going to have to take this one moment at a time, Jeff. But I have already compiled a digital copy of great achievements in the arts and technology to present to these beings, if, of course, they have the capacity to appreciate it. I have put together a crash course in human history on an iPad to give to these creatures. It contains pictures, films, music, and literature since the dawn of human civilization. I have always been the type to assume any extra-terrestrial life is friendly until they prove otherwise. But words can’t describe the excitement I am experiencing right now, and I will be glued to the TV just like the rest of the world as we get more information on this great day.

I am face down on the pavement with a gorilla punching, clawing, and biting my back. I am trying my techniques I learned in basic training to flip this gorilla on the ground and gain the upper hand, but this thing has to be at least 350 pounds, and nothing is working. I edge my right arm around my body and blindly let off 3 shots into what is probably the stomach of this giant animal. He lets up for a second, I turn over and put a bullet through his jaw and into what might be his brainstem, because it falls limp almost instantly. I am splattered with bits of Gorilla flesh and blood. I try and get up, but I can’t. I think I have lost too much blood for my muscles to respond. My vision starts to fade… sounds start fading… my vision goes grey to black to white…

And this video has garnered over 150 million hits in the last three days. You have probably already seen it, but if you haven’t, take a look at this. Former Marine and veteran of 1 tour in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan, Private First Class Jeff Thompson of Mooresville, North Carolina, saves a woman from an attacking gorilla and then wrestles with another before successfully neutralizing the primate attacker. While everyone else was running away, Private First Class Thompson went into the thick of the danger to save a woman from sure death. Although he is still in critical condition, doctors say he is recovering well, and President Obama has already decorated him with numerous honors for his heroic acts in the small town in North Carolina. We will warn you before showing this, the contents of this video are quite graphic, the faint of heart may want to change the station.

I open my eyes and there is machinery all around me, the beeps of the heart monitor start speeding up. The room is white and pale green. I try and keep a cool head and assess my situation. It seems I am in a hospital, and I am not cuffed to the bed. I don’t feel hungry anymore. My bag is sitting on the table. I struggle to reach over to it, and there are sharp pains all over my back that would probably be a lot worse if I wasn’t getting drugs through a drip bag. I look in it; the cash is still there.

I sigh; it looks like I will have to keep on suffering. This is the second time I had written myself off as dead prematurely.

I buzz the nurse in and ask her to turn on the TV for me. The channel that comes on is CNN. My vision is blurry; probably a combination of the drugs and the fact that I haven’t had my eyes open for some uncertain amount of time, but I make out the headline:

Life on Mars?