Gray Rights Now!

Sensitive issues made
ever more delicate

Daniel Joseph Pezely

17 July 2020

“Hello, and welcome to the show!” A celebrity talk show host runs through her opening monologue and announces that as a special, there is only the headline guest today.

A brief series of news clips run with our host’s image superimposed while she’s talking.

The first clip shows Gray aliens with picket signs displaying slogans like “Gray Rights Now” and “Gray Pride”.

Another has social media hashtags, “#Gray #ComingOut”.

“Well, folks,” Hellen begins, “you’ve heard about them for a few weeks now, so we wanted to bring one in for a get-to-know-ya chat.”

As the music swirls and curtain pulls back, Timberley has an awkward walk by our standards. Then again, most of us haven’t seen a Gray this close before.

The two sit in the big comfy chairs, and they exchange pleasantries as with any other episode in the show’s long history.

“Let’s start with your name,” Hellen says. “It’s Timberley, which sounds to me like a cross between Timothy and Kimberley. But what’s the significance of this name in your culture?”

“Well, we don’t really have gender– we’ll keep it family-friendly here– and I wanted to pick a name that was unique yet felt familiar.”

“Wow. No male, no female…”

“Correct,” Timberley says.

“Lots of questions there, but you picked your own name. Obviously not from birth, so when and how do you choose?”

“Actually, we do pick it at birth, so to speak. I’ll come back to that in a moment. While we have names in our native tongue, the name Timberley was for something each of you might be able to pronounce.”

“How do you pronounce your other name?”

Timberley utters a sustained tone sounding like a low growl with an intermittent hiss and two clicks.

“Ummm… May I call you Tim for short?”

“Certainly,” and Tim smiles.

“Okay. Back to the thing about no males, no females. Umm… how do you– I mean, are you both, then?”

Tim smiles again, “We’re grown, not born. Let’s begin there.”

“Grown!?!”

“Yes. We are gown in husks not unlike corn, maize.”

Audience reaction gets hushed quickly by the host.

Tim continues, “My pod sprouted 17, but 22 is the more usual count. Answering the next question likely to come up, yes, we are closer to vegetable than mammal by your zoology.”

Tim explains that this process accommodates knowledge transfer from a common root– literally– and gives them the benefit of the accumulated learning of nearly all their ancestors. It works much like the Pando tree, sometimes considered the largest organism on the planet that shares a common root. The difference being that Grays can walk around and must return to some part of the root system for depositing knowledge. Another may convey spores in lieu of another physically returning.

“So then, you knew from birth that you would be coming to Earth?”

“We’ve always been here,” and waits for the inevitable audience reaction.

“What do you mean, ‘always’?”

“We’ve been underground for hundreds of thousands of years.”

“And you don’t mean lost in the London Tube?” Audience laughs.

“No. DUMBs– deep underground mouldy bowels– of the Earth, as we call them.”

“Why now?”

“We were woken by your Manhattan Project and the Trinity Test. The nuclear blast triggered our alarm clock and wouldn’t let us hit snooze, you might say.”

“Back in 1944? Why wait so long before coming out?”

“Well, Hellen, as one who ‘came out’ yourself–”, interrupted by hysterical laughter from the audience, “just a few years ago relatively speaking, I had hoped that you could understand, which is why I agreed to this interview.”

“That, yes…”

“But actually we did appear here and there.”

She gasps, “Roswell?”

“Yes, Roswell.” Several audience members punch the air with a hoot or howl.

“The Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting of 1940’s?”

“1947 near Mount Rainier, just south of Seattle– yes, that was us too.”

Tim reveals that they indeed were testing the waters for public reaction. They worked with governments around the globe to plan the inevitable. Gender fluidity debates circa 2015 were also, in part, a means to ease this transition.

“So that brings up a hot topic. Many Grays are marching demanding their rights, but they’ve appropriated slogans from the LGBT community.” Hellen shows a photo of a Gray holding a placard, “I’m so gray, I can’t see straight.”

“That one has a bit of backstory.” Tim takes a deep breath. “You see, while underground, we feed on a nutrient solution.”

“A drink? What’s in it?”

“Yes, a drink. It’s like plankton. Tastes awful, yet you think you’d get used to it but really can’t.”

“Wait. If you’re more plant than mammal, isn’t that like cannibalism?”

“No more so than one species of mammal eating a different one.”

Hellen looks to the audience, “I think there’s an argument in there for being veg–” but interrupts herself.

Glancing back at her guest who is now wearing a prompting expression, “For being?”

“Err, for humans to… not be… eating… meat…”

“Complicated. Isn’t it, Hellen?”

It’s one of the rare moments when the host is at a loss for words.

Relieving her from that awkwardness by returning to the earlier point, “But once we return to the surface, photosynthesis begins again.”

“You can make your own food? I mean your body does?”

“Yes.”

“How cool is that!?!”

“But we turn green in the process.”

“So the other fella’s sign is in reference to being malnourished?”

“Quite so.”

Audience lets out a sympathetic sound in unison.

“How long does it take to restart photosynthesis?”

“About a year or two for it to be self-sustaining again, depending upon how long it’s been for the individual.”

Helen holds back laughing at her own joke, “Have some been ‘getting their green on’ already?”

“Some, yes. Going out in public in certain places has been easier than others. Montréal in winter is good– bonus points for being a little weird there– but snow goggles don’t allow enough sunlight.”

“So no–”

“Right. No little green aliens there.”

Audience laughs.

“Northern universities in the US with an association to the Smithsonian Institute have been some of the best places. Many of those research labs provide entry to our tunnels.”

Hellen prompts, “But still, with a disguise?”

“Yes, of course. We were the most free to move about during the COVID-19 virus panic due to prevalence of wearing surgical masks and eye coverings.”

“I suppose that was one good thing to come from it,” Hellen says.

“Long before that,” Tim says, “in many cities, we started the meme that surgical masks in public were immigrants suffering from allergies. Nobody makes direct eye contact. Nobody noses into your business.”

Hellen says, “But I know a few Japanese- and Korean-born individuals who always wear those masks during allergy season, actually.”

“Yeah, we started all that, too. Our propaganda– err, Public Relations– people are that good. Worked for years!”

As Hellen repeats Tim’s statement, “For years,” media clips depict Gray protesters holding signs like “No Gray Bashing” and humans protesting misappropriation of LGBT slogans.

She continues, “For years until the big coming out three weeks ago and then the so-called ‘Gray bashing’ incident a few days ago, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So we know about the technology-exchange program, as that’s been all over the news. Self-flying cars, ‘yeah’, and all that.”

“That’s not my pod, so I can’t speak too much about that.”

Hellen asks, “But what do you guys get out of the exchange?”

“You mean other than living on the surface and without feeding on amoeba smoothies?”

“Yes, I assume there’s more to it than just that.”

“I guess you could say that I’m more on the arts and communications side. My pod would like to contribute our music to society at large.”

“That’s noble.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I think we have a clip to play, don’t we, Stan?” After glancing at the control booth, “Okay, as our audio guy sets up the track, do you want to introduce it?”

“It’s a soothing melody for these difficult times.”

“Hit it, Stan!”

As the audio emerges with increasing volume, Hellen looks a little concerned. There’s a tone that might be described as white noise, familiar to those who recall a time before digital tuners when one would pass at their leisure through the frequency range between radio broadcasting stations. Little patterns of interference fade in and then out more quickly.

Hellen interrupts, “Umm, Stan? We’re gettin' nothin' but static down here!”

As the audio ceases, Tim’s head raises from its orientation of lowered chin as if having been in meditation.

“Hellen, that was the music. My music. I composed it. My pod performed it.”

“I’m– I’m–”

Tim laughs, “It’s actually a binaural beating track, which works best with headphones.” Then, mimicking a two handed pointing gesture that might be best paired with wearing a 1970’s wash-n-wear leisure suit, “Gotcha!”

Hellen forces herself to laugh and feigns being amused.

“Seriously, though,” Tim says, “listening to these tracks while wearing even the cheapest of headphones or earbuds will soothe tension. It works by sending slightly different frequencies to each ear, and the Moiré pattern– French word, sounds nicer than ‘interference pattern’– essentially massages the brain.”

“Is it subliminal?”

“Not like listening to certain albums backwards, no. While it works on the subconscious level, no, there are no veiled instructions here, no thanking demonic characters. None of that.”

“Oh, good. Wait, which albums?”

“We could be here all day. Another time, perhaps,” Tim says.

“Is this part of your culture, or did you invent it?”

“Eons ago, we had to ease our own stress. Our masters–”

The audience reacts in horror to the use of that word, but Tim starts again, enunciating, “Our masters gave it to us, and we’ve given it to you.”

“Let’s talk about them,” Hellen says.

“The Anunnaki, as some of your books call them?”

“Yes.”

“Long story, short: they missed their scheduled visit, and we don’t know what happened.”

“Maybe their flight was delayed?” with intended outcome of audience laughter.

“They don’t exactly have that level of control over Nibiru’s orbit, again using the name that your audience may possibly know.”

“Then, what?”

Tim says, “As has come out in your news, we were both their advance deployment and mop-up crew. But what hasn’t been discussed much: on their prior visit 11,500 years ago, Nibiru nearly collided with a transiting comet. But it was a really big one– think dwarf planet, much smaller than Pluto or even Sedna. The result is the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Well, that’s less than half of it. When bits of it streamed passed Mars and then Earth, electrical discharge left scars on each planet.”

“The canals of Mars?”

“More correctly, Valles Marineris, which you can see on on high-resolution NASA imagery. And the Grand Canyon in the US. Part of the Badlands in Alberta, Canada. Caves in Portugal, and so on.”

Hellen asks, “So that effected their orbit?”

“It would seem so.”

“That would have been your ride home?”

“Basically.”

Hellen says, “So then, you’re just trying to make a home for yourselves.”

“Yes, to share this world with you.”

“But you’re tired of being on the bottom bunk of the world?”

Tim nods, “No more bunk-beds.”

“Where would your ideal area to live be?”

“We’re healthiest near or on the edge of a rain forest. Canada is giving some pods there much of lower British Columbia, which resolves the matter about how to make reparations for the Unceded Salish Territories.”

“How so?”

“We were here first– by a few hundred thousand years,” Tim says, “yet like the First Nations and many indigenous peoples, we also view ‘land ownership’ as more of a custodianship. It’s about sharing the land.”

“Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Tim nods.

“Doesn’t that include Vancouver?”

“Yes. They’ll continue to operate the Port for container shipping and things like that, but we’ll help them build a new cluster of cities further inland where most of the existing population will be relocated.”

“Wow! And in the US?”

“We would like to do the same with Seattle.”

“The whole city?”

“Actually, the greater metro area from Everett down to Olympia– more days with rain there than any other city in your country. Well, we love tulips, a tasty delicacy! So I’m personally hoping, we’ll get Skagit County as well.”

Copyright © 2020 Daniel Joseph Pezely
All Rights Reserved.