John Scalzi - Alien Animal Encounters

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Alien Animal Encounters

By John Scalzi, Staff Writer, Sol System Weekly Report

15 October 2001

Each week, we here at SSWR step right outside of our offices here on 54th and

ask folks on the street our Question of the Week -- sometimes topical,

sometimes whimsical, always intriguing. Our question this week:

What is the most interesting encounter you've ever had with an alien animal

species?

Rowenna Morello, Accountant, Staten Island:

That's gotta be the time we got the cat high with a glyph. My college roommate

worked in the xenobiology lab and brought the glyph home one night in a

shoebox. It's just this little mouse-like thing, so of course the cat wanted at it

right away. It's cat-food-sized. We pushed the cat away from it a couple of

times, but then I had to go make a call. I left the glyph alone in its box on the

table, and the cat hopped up and started poking at the thing with its paw, you

know, poke poke poke.

Thing is, the glyph is a total predator, and it's got this mouth that opens up like

a little umbrella and surrounds whatever it's going to eat. So there's the cat,

batting at the glyph, and suddenly the glyph lunges forward, opens its jaws,

wraps them around the cat's paw, and clamps down hard. It's trying to eat the

cat. Well, the cat's freaking out, of course. It's scooting backwards, trying

frantically to shake this thing off its paw and wailing, you know, like a cat in

heat. My roommate had to use a Popsicle stick from the trash to pry the glyph's

mouth open.

The cat ran away and seemed to be pissed off but okay. Then a half hour later I

caught him just staring at a bookshelf and wobbling back and forth. Seems that

glyphs paralyze their prey with venom; it kills just about anything on the glyphs'

planet but here it just makes you hallucinate. It's a chemistry thing. After we

realized the cat wasn't going to die, it was actually pretty funny to watch him

bump into walls and stare at his own paws. Although at one point he sprinted

right towards an open window and my roommate had to make a lunge to keep

him from jumping out. It was a third-floor walkup. I guess the cat thought he

could fly.

Anyway, the glyph went back to the lab the next day. The funny thing is that for

the next couple of days, the cat seemed to be looking around to find the glyph,

circling the table and poking into boxes and stuff. I think he wanted a fix.

Alan Jones-Wynn, Copywriter, Manhattan:

My daughter's third-grade class was taking a trip to the Bronx Zoo and it was

my turn to be a parent assistant, so I got the day off from work and helped her

teacher herd a couple dozen kids around the place, which, if you've never done

it, is just as aggravating as it sounds. This was around the time that the Zoo

was just opening their "Alien Animals" exhibit, and the place was jam-packed; it

actually helped that we were on an official educational field trip, because

otherwise we probably wouldn't have been able to get through the crowds.

We filed through and the tour guide pointed out all the popular alien animals,

like those omads and the revers and the neyons, right, the ones they make

stuffed-animal toys of to sell at the gift shop. But then we came to this one

habitat and the tour guide stopped and pointed out what had to have been the

ugliest lump of fur in the whole zoo. She told us that the lump we were looking

at was called a corou, and that it was an endangered species on Tungsk, and

that the Bronx Zoo and others were trying to start a captive breeding program.

As she was saying this, her eyes were welling up with tears, and it seemed like

she was about to break down right then and there.

Well, obviously, this seemed like pretty bizarre behavior, but then I looked at

the corou, and it swiveled an eye stalk at me, and I swear I was overwhelmed

with this wave of sadness and regret that was so overpowering I can't even

describe it. It's like what you'd probably feel if you'd just heard that a bus

carrying everyone you ever knew just went off a mountain trail in Peru. And it

wasn't just me; all those kids, who you couldn't have shut up if you wired their

jaws shut, were all just standing there silently, staring at the corou and looking

like they'd just seen their dog run over by a car. One of the kids actually tapped

on the glass of the habitat and said "I'm sorry" to the corou, over and over. We

had to literally drag some of the kids away. I mean, I wouldn't call it telepathy

or mind control, but something was going on there.

My kid and I went back a couple of years later and the corou exhibit wasn't

there anymore, and I was sort of glad -- it's never a good thing to worry that

you're going to get clinically depressed at the zoo. At a dinner party a little later

I met a vet who worked at the zoo, and I asked him about the corou. He said

that one zoologist working with the habitat committed suicide and another was

placed on leave after she took the zoo's breeding pair, drove them up to

Vermont, and tried to release them into the wild. She kept telling everyone

afterwards that they told her it was what they wanted. They eventually had to

get rid of the exhibit altogether. I haven't heard about the corou since. I think

they're extinct now.

Ted McPeak, Community College Student, Jersey City:

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AlienAnimalEncountersByJohnScalzi,StaffWriter,SolSystemWeeklyReport15October2001Eachweek,wehereatSSW...

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John Scalzi - Alien Animal Encounters

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