When Everything Changed by Edward M Wolfe

 
     
    Have you ever noticed how sometimes just before your life changes
in a really big way, you kinda sense a change coming, but you don’t know what
it’s going to be exactly? It’s almost like there’s a hint of something in the
air, but it’s not really in the air. It’s something you can feel, but you don’t
know how. At least that’s the way it is with me, so I’m guessing other people
might experience it too.
    Sometimes I feel it in the weeks before I’m about to lose a job,
or shortly before the end of long-term relationship but at a time when
everything seems to be going just fine. I feel like something, somewhere behind
the scenes has changed, like in a copy of our universe where the designing
takes place, but the effect hasn’t reached our world yet. It’s as if a grand
architect made a decision and now it’s just a matter of time until the
execution takes place.
    And since the change is inevitable and it’s going to happen no
matter what, it’s like there’s a ripple that moves through the ether and you
can sense the pending change. Or maybe it’s just people who are sensitive to
that sort of thing - whatever it is.
    I don’t know really, but the thing is – I didn’t sense any
upcoming change in the weeks or days before the aliens came and everything changed.
    I really shouldn’t be referring to them as aliens though. The word
is actually banned. The Guardians, as they prefer us to call them, say it
causes division. They’re really smart about a lot of things, but I wonder how
they can be concerned about the possibility of problems arising between us and
them over a mere word, but they don’t seem to care about everything else
they’ve done that divides us - like banning words for example. I don’t know
about other countries, but in America, we’re used to being free. Well, we were
anyway.
    They also say that we shouldn’t refer to them as aliens because
they claim they aren’t aliens, and that they lived on earth long before we did.
They even offered proof. They showed us some of mankind’s oldest hieroglyphics
and drawings of spacecraft and cosmonauts and then compared them to images of
their ancient pilots and ships.
    They also pointed out where they’re mentioned in our Bible and
demonstrated how easy it was for them to build the pyramids, the heads at
Easter Island, and explained other things we’ve never understood like the Nazca
lines and stuff like that.  But that doesn’t change the fact that when
they arrived, all we saw were alien space ships coming down from the sky. You
can’t just order people to not think the way they do or to not have the
feelings they have.
    I think they know that though, so what they do is make changes
that result in us thinking and feeling differently.  Like using buildings
for their operations centers instead of their ships that they used when they
first came. And wearing suits, which is kinda funny. I mean, sure, they already
look a lot like us, and wearing suits and ties kinda makes them look like
typical office workers – except for the fact that the shortest among them is
eight feet tall. But you can tell they’re trying. When you see them walking
down the street or in restaurants sitting in custom-made, oversized booths,
they’ll be doing things like walking Great Danes or reading  newspapers.
    As for our freedom, or lack of it really, they say we’re not
responsible enough to govern ourselves and that if we were, they wouldn’t have
come and taken over. So for now, we’re not exactly living like slaves, but we
live under a lot of restrictions. In some ways, nothing is like it was before,
but in other ways, everything is like it always was, but better. I know that
sounds confusing, and it sounds like what they’ve done hasn’t been bad for
humanity.  I mean, why am I complaining if everything is better, right?
    Everybody who is able to work has a job now, if they want one.
There is always something that needs to be done, so