PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Approximately a century ago, when I was a boy,
the Auranauts made first contact with us---
the first and only extraterrestrial communication with earth.
They had dispatched a sequence of robotic drones,
ahead of their main contingent of envoys,
to calm our suspicious fears and declare, repeatedly,
that their intentions were entirely peaceful;
they we had no resources and no technology
that they, vastly syperior to us, could want.
They simply wanted to bask in our companionship;
to seek our friendship as a foremost example
of the close relationship that could exist
between two totally different life forms.
We never knew if they were humanoid or not;
even when present among us, they retained
an elaborate set of screens to conceal themselves.
To prove they did not have designs of conquest
or imperial or political demands to make,
they offered to solve various problems for us:
agricultural advances, offered by them, eliminated
starvation and the hoarding of foodstuffs;
medical advances, provided by them, eliminated
most of the illnesses that had beset us,
including all of the known and incurable cancers.
Politicians and speculators began to proclaim
the dawn of a new age of humanity, as it had been
proclaimed so many other times in our history.
The lessons of the long gone twentieth century
had been largely forgotten except by historians:
the changes wrought by scientific advances
primarily created social and sovereign unrest.
We had gladly received the Auranauts' gifts to us:
accelerated worldwide birthrates,
decreased worldwide deathrates;
elimination of all labor-intensive occupations,
with reductions of remaininf workloads for everyone,
such burdens deemed fit only for the drones
they had programmed and launched among us.
But, despite these luxurious developments,
the crime rates---especially violent crimes---
soared beyond all predicted estimates,
for we had expected such social anomalies
to erode away, as no longer neccesary
or profitable to the perpetrators. But this
did not happen as the sociologists had hoped;
as hundred of graduate dissertations had imagined
in their pursuit, on the path of least resistance, of a degree.
In the same way, the nineteenth century's accomplishments,
had led to world wars and totalitarian dictatorships;
to pandemics and prolatarian revolutions;
and the unsinkable ship of twentieth century society
founded on its maiden voyage, and all lives radically changed.
The gifts of the Auranauts had not improved
the human spirit, but, rather, so spoiled and corrupted it,
that the animalistic instincts once concealed and controlled
beneath the veneer of civilization and courtesy,

became an uncontrollable storm of destruction;
and the social contract of mutual respect---
which proved to be a foundationless social construct---

was easily demolished by radical violence.
All over the globe, people became predators or prey.
The authorities no longer possessed the power
to prevent these crimes or to penalize them severely.
When the world's leaderships met in a united conference
to apologize for our bad behavior to the Auranauts,
our interstellar visitors began to laugh---
or to experience some emotion equivalent to laughter.
They were Auranauts, after all; they had traversed
the known galaxy seeking the auras of other, sentient beings:
the effect of which sustained and pleasured the Auranauts,
in a way (they admitted) that was addictive for most of them.
Love, friendship and fellowship---the aspects of our lives
that we have mostly abandoned since their Auranauts came---
produced only a tenuous aura, not worth their trouble.
But human violence and mayhem---the expression
of all our inner flaws---created the intensest, most pleasurable
aura that the Auranauts had discovered during
their many voyages around the galactic rim.
(In the same way, the strides of twentieth century science
had made possible the jackbooted deathstrokes
of three world wars and uncounted societal upheavals.)
And in this process, the expert Auranauts, declared,
the human race provided the finest example,
the most delicious performances they had ever witnessed,
and a summit of sustenance they would not soon abandon.

Starward