Dangerous Evolution

It was immense, shaped like a large triangular wedge pointing forward, with every square inch covered with brilliant colors that danced across its surface with a hypnotic effect. A perfectly focused beam of cold blue illumination emanated from its core, highlighting bits of debris that swirled about in the atmosphere. At the end of this lance of light was the car that he had been following at a discreet distance for some time now. It was too far away to see the number of occupants, but he was certainly glad that he was not among them. Clarke opened his door and stepped down onto the asphalt roadway and turned his face skyward. He slowly walked to the front of his vehicle running his right hand along the freshly waxed fender. The low-pitched hum from above reverberated inside of him and he could feel his gut quaking, or perhaps it was the trembling in his knees that he felt. He was only vaguely aware of his shuddering and was far from caring about it as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He took a few more steps out in front of his truck but then froze as he unexpectedly saw four thin figures appear in the light around the other car.

Suddenly, his fear outdistanced his intrigue. "Ok, Ron, time to go buddy!" he said out loud to himself as he decided to get back in his truck and leave as quickly as he possibly could. However, he stopped dead in his tracks as he turned around when he suddenly found himself face to face with three creatures of slight build and decidedly not human, standing between him and the door to his truck. They were tall, perhaps six and a half feet tall or so and stood erect on two thin legs. Two slender arms hung at their sides with long, spindly fingers and their oversized heads held not a hint of hair. They had two large oval shaped eyes as black as obsidian which never seemed to blink and which hung over a tiny slit of a mouth. As for Ron Clarke's mouth, it hung open agape as he beheld something which could not be, but was...they looked like us! Just as the idea that intelligent life exists elsewhere out among the stars was something that he had always held to be a mathematical certainty, the notion that they might exhibit parallel evolution to humanity, and then happen across us in all of the vastness of the universe was all but a mathematical impossibility. Yet, here it was, as big as life and staring him squarely in the eye.

Clarke tried to speak but no words came to his stunned mind, and even if they had, he was too shocked to utter even a single syllable. They stood side by side, wearing shiny black bodysuits that hugged their willowy frames but left their long, thin arms bare, and flat-heeled boots that came half way up to their knees. Their skin was an ashen grey and smooth as silk without a crease anywhere to be seen. As he helplessly groped for something, anything to say to these fantastic beings, Clarke's attention fell on the individual who stood to the left as they faced him. This one was slightly taller than the other two with a strangely mesmerizing look to his expressionless face. An eternity passed as an instant while he stared into those deep, black-as-midnight eyes which reflected, not only a radiant consciousness behind them, but Clarke's shocked expression on their gleaming domed surfaces.