Author’s Note.

I can’t recall if this story was just done out of nowhere or as part of my regular writing group that I attend locally. There’s a certain level of satisfaction for me in what this sets up as I could quite see both of these ladies running from an alien takeover of the planet whilst drinking tea in the process. It perhaps doesn’t quite suit a short story format as the ending seems rather too open but it’s a fun piece none the less. My main idea here was thinking about an alien invasion story that was done more as a company merger than an all out war. The description of our alien friend arriving through the letter box was a particular highlight!

The hills had been lasered away during the night. Where yesterday there were peaks with glorious views from the top there were now only vast areas of flat, burnt earth. Margaret raised the steaming cup of tea to her lips and saw the damage through the dancing vapour. The hill range that she had walked across only the day before had now been cleaved away overnight. A smouldering circle was all that remained in the place they once were. The small village below, with cobbled streets and a single post box, had seen this happen on a few occasions since the new owners had arrived.

“An entire bloody hill this time!” came a shriek from the top of the stairs.

“Keep your voice down” Margaret replied.

Thumping feet of anger came down the stairs.

“I will not be keeping my voice down at all, they’ve absolutely no right to do any of this.”

“I don’t think there’s much we can really do considering the situation.”

Doris paced towards the window, pulling her metal reading glasses down her nose and squinting for a clearer view. 

“I’ll give them something to think about, they need a good smack around the head so they do”. Her jewellery jangled along as she shook her fist towards the burnt embers of the hillside now gone. 

“David from Number 73 tried and nobody knows where he is now”. Margaret paused for though for a few seconds. “In fact nobody is very sure where Number 73 has gone either”.

Doris poured her tea and practically threw the lumps of sugar in. The liquid had hardly settled when the sound of roaring engines passed over the house. Planes used to fly overhead on a regular basis yet now they were replaced by these interruptions of deafeningly loud rumbles. Teaspoons clinked together on the stand before being drowned out by the windows rattling. A vase containing yesterday’s flowers juddered along the dining table, teetering close to the very edge before Doris caught it in her arms. A few days ago it was just one or two yet now twenty or so passed each day.

The ship floated above the fields for a few seconds with the engines still beating like a war drum. Three landing arms carved out of the hull, each with sharp gouging claws that ripped into the ground below. In turn they bundled up the clumps of grass and began choking them. The ship was gloss black, the size of a car and had lines of glowing blue light running underneath the bodywork, tiny veins to supply the bellowing heart of the engine. It gripped like a blemish on the otherwise tranquil view outside.

Doris practically pressed her nose against the window. 

“It needn’t be coming here”.

“They might not, will you stop fretting about it?”.

The ship’s door slid open and the first tentacles gripped onto the side. The bulbous main body poked out of the threshold before the gravitational pull forced it to slip along the ground for a couple of feet. Slithering to a mass it forced all six arms to heave the bodyweight upwards to a standing position. Somewhere from deep within this gel came a small, tablet like device that globbed along one tentacle to a waiting claw at the end. As if almost fighting itself the bulk shifted one limb downwards before following with another. 

“Is the front door locked?” asked Margaret from the kitchen window.

Doris nodded.

There came a clunk at the door, not quite a direct knock but certainly a limb of some kind hitting the door before sliding the rest of the way down. The first attempt seemed meek, the second more assured until the third sounded almost normal. Doris and Margaret remained where they were, clutching teacups as they stared at each other.

A hopeful silence, a shared breath of relief. 

Then the letterbox rattled.

Margaret softly paced through to the hallway to witness a grey strand seep through the gap and snake downwards. The welcome mat below was quickly ingulfed.   

“What does it think it’s doing here?” hissed Doris.

More grey strands followed, folding layer after layer onto the mat and forming a pool like fresh custard. It started to stretch upwards Once the letter box had clanged shut a final time it pulled itself upwards as one. It soon towered over both of them, touching the ceiling and rocking the lightshade back and forth. A garbled choke of a greeting was let out as the tablet once again made its way to the end of one tentacle.

“What right have you here?” blasted Doris. “What actual jurisdiction do you think you have sliding into people’s letterboxes and making a mess of their carpets?”.

Another choking noise emitted from the bulk.

Margaret remained much calmer.

“Apologies for my partner, the carpet was her choice you see”.

A quick finger raised to her lips stopped Doris in her tracks.

Something akin to a head formed, a basic mouth shape gaped and a voice emitted, sounding of all things like a frog with asthma. 

“No reply” it crowed.

“Under usual circumstances here on Earth if one does not answer the door then it usually means that one is not in” explained Margaret.

“Yet” the Visitor wheezed “You’re here.”

It heaved into something that could be considered a sigh. The maw flapped back and forth as if controlled by a drunk ventriloquist. As it did so parts of the slick from the skin flew off, splatting against the hallway pictures.

It opened the jaws again. “We are your purchasers.”

The tablet blipped into life as one tentacle rubbed against it. The screen filled with floating symbols that neither Margaret nor Doris could make any sense of. Eventually, in the middle of the display, a revolving picture of planet Earth blipped into existence. The surface seemed to have been split into various sections of different colours each with lies pointing towards them from blocks of text that looked nothing like any language they were aware of  

“The planet will be redesigned” the bulk warbled.

With that it slimed forwards, trailing past the coat hooks and umbrella stand. Doris and Margaret observed, in a half gawp, as it slid into the living room and flumped into the nearest seat.

“I will sit”.

“That’s my chair!” cried Doris.

“Comfortable” it answered as it near buried itself. “There is low productivity on Earth, redesigned this will improve, key performance indicators are unacceptable, humanity has failed”.

The house rumbled again as another ship passed overhead. It cut across the blue sky before landing with a distant thud near the houses down the road. 

”We can’t help but notice the hill has been taken, do you know where?” said Margaret.

A long sigh came from the depths of the visitor, launching droplets of slime across the chair rest.

“Better place now, more productive” it said.

The clock in the hallway marked the top of the hour as the Visitor moved one arm onto the screen. The light from the unit reflected off the skin giving it a sickly glow.

One tentacle floated upwards and manoeuvred towards the top of the head. The end point broke the surface tension and drilled within. For a short few second it stirred the contents of its own head.

“Earth is a continual example of bad planetary design, our analysis over the last thousand or so years has revealed this to be true” it said with a voice more assured and clearer than before. “Many were content to let you all be but my team and I knew that Earth could be so much more”. 

More roaring engines flew overhead. With regular booms they landed before spewing forth their occupants onto the gardens and fields. 

The Visitor continued. “I know a lot of you are saying this is the end of the world for you and it really doesn’t have to be. You’ll be allocated new locations depending on where we think will be better for you. You may be given new bodies in the process”.

“New bodies?” bellowed Doris.

“Your current ones are very much due to expire we see, perhaps the high productivity of a worker ant would serve the planet better. I ask myself what if you may be far better serving as a worker ant? You would be lifting things and rearranging them elsewhere, much more than you are now”.

Margaret reached for the teapot on the table. 

“We’ve been extremely rude, would you like a cup of tea?”.

The tablet screen dimmed as the tentacle left it. 

“I’ve never been offered this before”.

“Well consider it a peace offering.”

Margaret held out the steaming cup as the Visitor extended a slime coated limb forwards. A rounded stump soon thinned to a sharper point which then wrapped around the handle. Slowly the cup was brought closer before the mouth extended outwards, clamping the lips around the entire edge. The total contents of the cup were then vacuumed inwards. Liquid then dispersed within like a dark cloud. The Visitor smacked what passed for lips together.

“A curious taste, I’m not sure what you all see in it though”.

The cloud grew larger within the body of gloop. Spreading outwards towards each limb it turned the usual grey surface colour to jet black. The spread continued taking only a few seconds to consume the entire Visitor. The jelly like body soon solidified, cracks began to appear followed by chunks cascading towards the carpets like lumps of coal. This armchair avalanche only ended when the pile of black powder amassed on the carpet below. 

“What did you do?” asked Doris, nearly dropping her own tea in the process.

With that the engine noises outside were silenced. The vibrations through the ground instantly stopped. Then came a rhythmic, deep drumming noise from the distance. It was joined by another, then yet another. A constant pulse arrived from all directions, broken only by a piercing screech that rang out through the entire village.

“Doris?” started Margaret “we need to run”.