JAROSLAV VEIS

That Invincible Human Spirit, or The Golden Ships

Those bloody, lousy, rotten ships!

Yessir, it was them that destroyed us. Don't you let anyone tell you
anything different. I know that nowadays those crazy prophets and
preachers (You aren't one of them, though, are you? ) have started
going round from cave to cave, trying to tell us it wasn't really those
ships, but rather we ourselves...

An opinion poll, you say? You want me to tell you everything I can
remember and my personal view? Hum... And why should I do that? I
see, for a chronicle... our descendants... And why are you so sure that
we'll have any descendants, sir?

Well, why not, there's plenty of time. All right then - I'll tell you
what I think about it all. Because I can still think straight, sir, see,
even in this mess. And I can still perfectly well remember everything.
So, if your brain hasn't been softened by the strontium...

Or has it? Have you forgotten what a wonderful life we had, sir? All
those things we used to have? Television, cars, air-conditioning,
fridges stuffed with vacuum-packed food... All those terrific drinks
you could get everywhere! No, my dear fellow, you can't have forgoten
that, that was civilization, see?

And that's not all, not by a long chalk. Just remember, we had lots
and lots more than that before... Yeah, that's it. Before they came.
The golden ships, my good sir, swooping down on us on the 20th of
June, 1989. No one's going to argue about that date with me, sir, and
let me tell you something - I shall remember it until I die. At exactly
half past seven in the morning, that's when it all started - and in a
week it was all over.

No one saw them fly in. I'd say that's what frightened a lot of people
the most. The top brass could stuff all their radars, detectors and
what have you, for all the use they were. There the ships were,
coming out of the blue. Huge golden pipes, shining in the sun like an
ad for a new brand of cigars. Except that there was no new brand of
cigars coming out on the market then. Nor earlier, either...

And certainly not later.

There were fellows that received a salary for knowing about things
like those funny cigars which hung three kilometers above the earth's
surface. And right away they were sure that this couldn't be anything
else except space ships from some other part of the Universe. To cut a
long story short, they said that our long-expected brothers had come
visiting at last.

Only the trouble that followed was a bit unexpected.

A fine visit! I can tell you, sir, that that was a proper panic, if I've
ever seen one. D'you remember how the newspapers carried on? And the
suicides! Everyone and his brother suddenly went crazy: out of fear,
out of delight, the dumbest just out of sheer curiosity. You are
interested in me? You want to know what I did? I can tell you I
started shitting in my pants right from the start, because to me it
was clear as mud that those lousy golden gadgets could bring us
nothing but a load of grief.

What a commotion there was, on that first day! Cops and soldiers
rushing from place to place with their truncheons! I should think a
good several hundred people must have died in every bigger town in
car crashes alone. And then that tense silence, full of uncertainty and
fear! Waiting to see what sort of a show the chaps we'd voted for at
the polls would put up...

Well, if you remember, the politicians did the only thing they've
really been good at since the days of Christ. They washed their hands
of the golden cigars... And passed the buck to the doctors of all the
branches of science there were. They put them on planes, set them
down in front of transmitters and computers... and waited for them to
make contact with the extraterrestrials.

Contact, my foot!

While the aliens... Damn! Can you imagine it? Delegations from the
United Nations, every possible kind of egg-head, politicians, the Pope
- all sorts of people addressed them, welcomed them, warned them,
sent messages of universal importance to them... and those lousy
buggers... Damn all! They just went on calmly squatting up there in
their golden pipes and didn't react at all. They hung up there in the
sky as if it belonged to them, and even had the nerve to reflect the
sun's rays at us.

D'you know what democracy was, sir? And public opinion? You just go
and have a look at the seashore when the tide comes in after a couple
of hours and the waves come rolling up the beach. Imagine then a wave
ten times, no, a hundred times higher, a wave of human confusion,
anger, fear, hatred, madness... That was the second day, sir. When the
TV blared out that ALL ATTEMPTS TO MAKE CONTACT WITH THE ALIEN
SHIPS HAVE SO FAR PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL, the people swarmed out into
the streets. they started to plunder the shops, to kill and rape, to
demolish offices. The army was given orders to use real bullets, and
when by nightfall they had the situation under control at last,
lorries and excavators had to be sent into the streets to clear away
the dead bodies. By the next morning we had a military dictatorship
instead of a civilian government.

Now although a change like that in our form of government was a
terrible blow to our customs, you know, it still didn't come close to
resolving the main issue. Democracy or dictatorship, the golden ships
still hung up in the sky and glittered provocatively.

D'you get the cheek of it? The danger that threatened us? By now it
was perfectly clear to everybody that what hung above our heads was
not a simple visit, but rather an invasion. Brutal and treacherous.
Everyone who wasn't engaged in burying their dead, and even those
who were - all of us were waiting to see what the new government
would do... what it could do.

And I can tell you definitely, sir, that the generals should not be
blamed for this. They did what they could and, after all, it's not
their fault that...

Yes, it was simply nonsensical to try conventional arms, but who could
guess that right from the start? AA guns, fighter planes, heavy
artillery - who could have known all these would be akin to tickling
an elephant with a straw?

In fact, the generals grasped that pretty quickly, you must admit. In
less than two hours the missiles were flying through the air. I'll be
damned if each one of those golden cigars didn't cop at least a
hundred bull's-eyes. And yet...

Damn all. They didn't even budge, and not a scratch could be seen on
them. For three days and three nights our army fired at them the
most perfect missiles it had... and it wasn't even worth their while to
spit. They just laughed at us from up there.

The first military government fell on the fourth night, when its head
suggested surrender... and on the morning of the fifth day things
really began to get tough. That was when the real plug-uglies moved
in and the telly sent the lot of us to the shelters. The atomic
shelters, of course, that goes without saying. Well, I must admit, sir,
that luckily I didn't see the final hullabaloo with my own eyes. You
can't see the sky too well from a shelter, you know. And by some
miracle I was one of the few lucky ones who managed to find a decent
shelter. But you must have done that too, eh? That's why we're here
and able to talk together. You certainly remember the booming. And we
were fifty meters underground! It must have been a living hell up
there. Hiroshima is nothing compared to it. A-bombs, H-bombs,
N-bombs - they let off everything they had, including the most secret
types. And yet...

Damn all. Do you remember, sir? You must remember. How a few days
later - or maybe it was only hours - you know, I am never sure about
that... How we crawled out and the first thing we did was look up - at
the sky - not at the ruins all around. There they were, of course.
Motionless, shining. Those lousy golden cigars, insensitive to the
world that had all but disappeared just a few kilometers below them.

I don't know how many of us got isotopic strontium in our bones in
the days, months and years that followed - I never did understand all
that stuff very well. But the main thing for me is that I'm still here
and still alive. And there are quite a few of us. You know what I mean,
don't you, sir? We're scattered in little groups, it's true, we live in
caves, we suffer from all kinds of illnesses, cold and hunger... But
we've preserved our invincible human spirit, sir. We're still here,
they didn't manage to destroy us completely and we still hate them.

D'you get me? You should understand what I mean! As long as we're
here, there's still hope.

Hope that one day we'll pay them back for everything. For all they've
done to us. You know, one day...

Though in the meantime... hum... Just look at them, sir, calmly hanging
up there. Those bloody, lousy, golden... Doesn't it make you feel sick? 