Farmer John Paulson's father (Paul) had once taught his son that there was a wide spectrum of bad days. There were five different main types of bad days, he would explain to his young son. First, were crummy days, where the weather was too cold or windy or rainy, and where you just felt bad about everything. After that were bad luck days, when it seems like nothing ever goes your way. After that are curse days, when literally nothing goes your way. After that are catastrophe days, when the whole world has just one big bad day. These where days like October 29th, 1929, when the stock market crashed, or June 30th, 1908, when a large chunk of the Tunguska river exploded in Russia for undiscernable reasons. So far, John's father explained, catastrophe days where the worst kind of day any many had experienced.
But Paul Paulson was something of a theoretician, and in his drunker moments would tell John of the feasible fifth kind of bad day: revelation days, when someone, or all of mankind, comes face to face some kind of horrible existential crisis that has the potential to ruin everything forever. This day, Paul would say, would mark the end of mankind, one way or another, and John would have to prepare for it. John mostly shrugged his father off, as he was not a child burdened with too much imagination, and went back to his knock-off legos.
Years later these memories would come flooding back into John Paulson's head as he stood out in his field, watching the flying saucer touch down just outside his backyard, crushing half a plot of corn.
The starship looked slick and glowing, as though someone had digitally remastered Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was thin, ridiculously thin, so thin it could not possibly fit a human being standing comfortably inside of it except maybe in the bulgy dome that jutted up in the center of the ship. The edges spun rapidly, emitting a low whumwhumwhumwhum sound. Lights danced around the edges, like a spinning raver. John stared, momentarily forgetting he had a body.
Legs detached from the undercarriage of the spaceship, forming a quadropod beneath it. The lights dimmed, then congregated, forming the outline of a rectangle across the front of the saucer. With a noise like a deflating hydraulic, this rectangle swung off from the ship to the ground, forming a ramp, down which a strange being , silhouetted by the light. John involuntarily stepped backwards, the monkey part of his brain shrieking incoherently to climb a faraway tree.
The thing was vaguely human shaped, with two arms and legs and a head. Only as it stepped out from the ship's light did John begin to notice what was wrong with it. Instead of hands, dripping tentacles protruded; the same for the head, which was nothing but a mass of squirming tentacles, two that looked like eyestalks swiveling about, scanning the area before settling on John's slackjawed self. It's feet where undoubtably tentacles as well, but where stuffed into a pair of very finely polished leather shoes. It was also wearing a bluish pinstripe suit, complete with a shirt and tie.
The thing extended one tentacle hand to John. "Well, howdy there champ! What a pleasure it is to be here on... your planet!" The thing chirped, a rapid, artificial voice emanating from deep inside it's chest. "I know it's a cliche and all pal, but I'ma need you to take me to your leader, mkay? can ya do that for me ace?" It had now taken John's hand and was vigorously shaking it up and down with far more force then was necessary. "Ah...buhh...?" John replied.
"C'mon now sport, this is no way to start off a new business venture! Who owns this little burg? We gotta do a bit of the ol' networkin' and let you lil guys know what we at Vthryllpongo Commerce Brood can do for you! You like reproduction? We can make it better no matter HOW it works! You like conflict? Oh man, we got stuff that could probably kill each and every one of you! If that's not you bag, how about-"
"I-I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you here." John interrupted, raising his hands like a shield. "We uh, we don't have a ruler yall can really talk to."
"Ah, the ol' hive mind deal, eh? Alright then, get as many of yourself over here, we can still do business!" The tentacled monstrosityy bubbled happily. "Over at Vthryllpongo Commerce Brood we're all a bit hive mindey, if you know what I mean!" The thing ribbed John with its 'elbow' at the 'I you know what I mean,' knocking most of the air out of his lungs and doubling him over.
"No-" *cough* John said, clutching his stomach "Not like that- we ain't got a world leader er nothin, there's just a buncha countries. Yer in America."
"Countries?" The alien looked confused, or what John interpreted as confused. "Are you telling me that you guys still have nation-states?"
"Er, yeah? I guess?"
"So instead of one big scary intrusive authoritative state you've got a whole bunch? Alla' whom will pay out the ass to make sure that they aren't obsolete from a buncha cheap exciting new technology?"
John stood there, quiet, not really sure if the question was rhetorical or not. The alien stood quiet as well, and John coulda sworn that the thing was doing it's equivalent of smiling. After a while, it said one word, softly: "Jackpot!"
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