This story won first prize in UK Writing Magazine’s Science Fiction competition 2003.  It appears here by kind permission of Writing Magazine / David St John Thomas Charitable Trust Competition

Little Green Men

There should be an obvious warning of what is about to happen – but there never is.  The atmosphere should glow red.  The rivers should dry up and the deserts flood.  Rabbits should stop mating and birds scream in fear. That is how it should be. Things should not appear as normal.  But then we would be alerted, wouldn’t we? Ready to fight back. And that is not the way. To be taken over we have to be taken by surprise.

It all began one morning not so long ago as I sat in the local library.  I was deeply engrossed in a book, completely oblivious to my surroundings, when someone pushed past me.  She then proceeded to sit opposite me, noisily scuffling the chair as she did so.  I glanced at her in some annoyance. People are usually very quiet and respectful of others in such an environment but not this woman.  She blew her nose with gusto and then, stuffing her tissue into her pocket, grinned across at me.

“You should try it,” she said loudly.

“What?”

“Writing.  Writing a book. I reckon you’d be good at it.”

“Me!”  Now I was surprised.  “What makes you think that?”

“You’ve got green eyes.  All girls with green eyes are creative.  I bet you paint.”

“As a matter of fact I don’t.”

“In that case you should write.  I can see it in you.  Try a short story.”

I stared at the woman in amazement.  “I don’t think so.”

She laughed. A laugh which echoed round and round the empty library. Then without another word she got up and left.

I watched her go.  Middle-aged, grey-haired, colourless – I probably wouldn’t recognise her again if I saw her.  But she had given me an idea. I had never thought of writing for myself. Yes, I liked to read, and had devoured book after book since my early childhood. But my creative essays at school had always been less than brilliant. ‘Try harder,’ was the usual comment from my teacher – ‘five out of ten’. Hardly encouraging.

And yet when I got home that day I started thinking.  Maybe instead of doing work for my history degree on the computer I would have a go at something else.  Everyone can write, I have been told, and I have green eyes – so perhaps that did make me special.

I sat for a while watching the blank screen. This was stupid, I thought; much better to get on with my essay, get it finished, and please both my mother and my tutor.  But as I started to type in information, something really strange happened. Instead of facts about the Corn Laws appearing, different words materialised on my screen. I could feel the summer sun warming my fingers as they sped across the keyboard, creating, creating. The young family emerged from nowhere. They danced in the sunlight, laughing at each other – the mother with her long golden hair; the little girl the image of her mother; the little boy sweet and innocent. They walked across my desk, turning it green, like the meadow they were in. They were so happy I wanted to join them but they were merely words on my computer – or were they?

The next day, coming home from college, I decided to walk through the meadow I had featured in my story. It was another beautiful summer’s day. Soon my course would be finished, and I would at last get my degree, and hopefully a job. The grass was green, greener than I had ever seen it.  The trees were in full leaf and their greenness complemented that of the grass.  Everything was such a luscious green that it made my eyes ache. I had to close them to take away the pain. As I reopened them, I blinked hard, and blinked again, for there in the distance, walking away from me, were the blonde mother, the fair-haired daughter and the little lad!  This really couldn’t be.

“Hey,” I called.

They didn’t appear to see or hear me, but went on strolling contentedly in the sunlight.

I started to run after them. They seemed to slow down their pace but the faster I went the further they seemed to be away from me.  I ran like the wind.  But soon they were like dots on the horizon, and then they disappeared suddenly as if they were never there. I didn’t give up.  Soon I reached the far countryside, and raced out into a village. But the paths were deserted. Perhaps they had gone into one of the nearby houses?

I decided that I would never try to write anything again. But within a day or two I was laughing at myself over the incident.

Once more I sat down in front of my computer for yet another history essay. But, instead, again my fingers raced along the keys, almost ahead of my brain.  This time there was an old woman in her shabby raincoat who emerged from the screen to walk on my keyboard. Her slow step showed that she was unsure of herself. Then he came from nowhere. He jumped from the desktop and almost landed on top of her.  He pushed her viciously, and tore her green bag from her, and before I knew it he had gone, racing over to the ledge and out through the window.

I thought it was a good story. I felt that maybe I should send it to a publisher. I picked out a name from one of the fiction books I had on my shelf and decided to post it there and then, before my courage failed me. It had started to rain.  When it starts in this country it doesn’t seem to know when to stop. I remember wondering whether to take the path through the meadow to the postbox, but instead I started to walk a different route. Being so elated with my new found talents, I didn’t really take much notice of an old lady I overtook.

But before I had gone much further I heard a sudden cry from behind, and then something went past me, ripping the letter from my hand.  I looked back at the old lady who was on her knees.

“My bag!” she screamed at me, “get my bag.”  Without thinking, I was running – running at full speed in the direction that whatever had overtaken me had gone. I had to chase it, I must get my story back at all costs. I had to destroy the turmoil going on in my head. I must catch it up to sort out this chaos. But I never did. I never saw it.  I retraced my steps, expecting to see a crowd around the old lady, helping her, comforting her. But there was no crowd and no old lady.

Now I could not stop myself. Maybe I should have had tremulous fingers when I started to create my next characters, but this was not so. The weather had changed again. The rain had stopped but it remained gloomy and dull. I started to type. They came again, the little ones emerging from the keyboard, standing on a pavement in the local high street – a crowd of them.  But one woman stared at me in shock as she emerged from my screen, and then she collapsed in a heap on my keyboard. Someone helped her up, and as she looked once more at me I could see blood coming from a nasty cut on her face. A car had hit the kerb – nothing serious. It had stopped just in time.

I decided not to go near the local shops for a few days if I could avoid it.  Nothing to do with the accident I had created on my computer – or so I told myself. On the one occasion that I simply had to go that way I borrowed my mother’s car. I drove confidently through the high street, determined that my mind would not play tricks on me again. As I waited patiently at the traffic lights I felt positive.  Everything was normal. Of course it was.

But as I drove off through the green light my concentration went.  One moment I was in control of the steering wheel and the next it was as if something had yanked it out of my hand.  I hit the brakes and screeched to a halt just before hitting the kerb.  The people on the path stared at me in horror.  Someone collapsed in fright, and as she was helped up she stared at me accusingly, as if I had done it deliberately.  She took a hankie from her pocket and dabbed at a wound.

It had to finish.  And I knew how do to it.  Simple! I would write something so bizarre that it couldn’t possibly come true!  And that was when the idea of the little green men came into my mind.  They were here to take over the world. They had arrived in their millions.  Nothing could stop them.  And so I started to type, inventing them. Soon it started. They came out of my computer and they spread themselves everywhere over my desk and all over the study. They glared hypnotically at me.  Their energies burned into my brain. I ignored everything about them; they did not exist.

And mercifully when I went to post the story off to a publisher and nothing happened to me I hoped I had stopped all the nonsense.  I would never write again, I decided, and I settled down to finishing off my history degree.

It was my last essay.  It was gloriously warm. The window was open and the sun was hotter than I had ever felt it.  My fingers radiated heat into the atmosphere.  I should have been doing my history.  All the conditions were conducive to a good final burst, and yet I sat and stared. Sat and waited.

I knew I should close the window, erase those stories, switch off the machine – but I couldn’t.  I heard the tapping noise, and I knew it would come. It sounded like my fingers racing over the keyboard and yet it wasn’t. I didn’t want to turn my head to look out into the garden.  I knew the deserts were flooding and the rivers drying up. I could hear the birds screaming in pain, see the rabbits frozen to ice.  If I had been warned I had not heeded the warning.

Even before I saw them, I felt their presence. They filled the garden.  They had used me to give them birth.  They were here to take over the world and they could not have done it without me.  I was their link – my fingers had created them.  They had come alive through me.

I didn’t have to turn to see them. They came in their thousands and sat around me – tiny green things, resembling stick insects.  They invaded the room.  They all stared at me with grotesque protruding eyes. They instructed me.

Once again my fingers flew across the keys.

But this time it was no short story. This time it was something far more serious.  This time it was an email to the Heads of the most powerful countries in the world.