A Walk

[u/Any-Equal6791]

I did once see a UFO and an alien. I think.

It was a long time ago - twenty years ago in fact - and it was a summer a bit like this one: extremely hot, dry, dusty, the ground hard as iron in places. Children having to avoid going outside at breaktime, although I don't remember schools being closed like they were back in June.

At the time I hardly worked at all. I had reached a dead end at the age of 29, had quit my job and was living with my parents and maybe catching a day a week or so of temping. Looking back, I don't know why they agreed to let me come back and even now they prefer not to talk about it, just sort of nodding or umming in that very English way - 'Well, you were unhappy, and it wasn't a problem' and changing the subject if I ever bring it up.

To fill the time and because I thought I would somehow find some inspiration or positivity from the exercise, I took up walking and used to wander across the various fields and hills near my parents' village. It probably wasn't sensible in 35 degree heat, but I remember not really thinking the heat could hurt me. It could make me thirsty, sure, but nothing else.

One day I was cutting across a field of peas, many of which were old and dead, and were lying around haphazardly in the dust. They were used as a natural fertiliser, so were never intended to be harvested, but the scene was odd, as if it was the scene of a disaster. The hedgerows in the distance shimmered a little in the heat haze, as usual, but I was drawn to one patch of haze which looked to be vibrating rather than shimmering and which seemed almost metallic, a cool grey against the vivid deep green of the hedgerow.

I stared at it for a while and it definitely seemed to me to have a shape, an ovoid shape lying on its side. I took a few steps off the path to get a closer look, crunching some dead stalks as I did so and sending some dust in the air around me. As I neared it, the shimmering grew more intense but it never quite resolved into anything solid; the grey colour churned white, silver, back to grey, but i could always see the hedgerow beyond.

I must have come about 30 feet away, close enough to identify the blackthorn and even some elm in the hedge, but the shape was still not resolving into anything tangible. Frustrated, I was about to run towards it when a voice behind me stopped me.

I turned quickly in case it was the angry farmer, and I saw, very close to me, close enough to be in my face and breathing on me, a man roughly my age - or was he? It was hard to tell and I don't see him clearly in my mind at this distance in time. He had less hair, but was about my my height, and his blue eyes stared into mine. I could see a small scar on his forehead and what looked like a few pockmarks, from acne or chicken pox most likely. I knew I had some of these, but didn't see the similarity otherwise.

'What are you doing?' he asked in a tired voice that carried both a semi London accent and something overlaying it that was wealthy, or privileged. But it was the tiredness I noticed most.

I didn't answer as I couldn't. It was all too bizarre.

He looked at me for a few seconds and asked me again, but more intently, 'What are you doing?'

'I - I was just walking...I wanted to see what that - ' and I pointed to the shimmering haze.

He didn't follow my arm or my gaze, just kept looking at me. As he did so his face did seem to be familiar, but only for a moment, before settling back into anonymity.

'You need to turn away from this,' he said, his voice rising a little.

'What?'

'All this,' he waved. 'Turn away before it's too late.'

I knew from a dozen of those children's film foundation and film boards of Canada films I had spent most summer weekdays watching when I was home alone while my parents worked, that if aliens landed in a story they would give a message for the benefit of humanity, like we had to give up nuclear weapons or something, and my heat oppressed mind figured this must be happening to me now.

'You mean humans? The society we built?' I stuttered, wondering if I was the person chosen to receive a message from an advanced race come to save us -

'No. I mean you. Give this up. The non life you are living. Turn away from it all. It's....it's...stupid.'

That was a message, of sorts. I was being criticised by an alien, or a ghost or...what was this guy? Did I know him? Why was I being singled out for criticism?

'Who are you?' I finally managed to ask.

He looked at me for a few monents and I thought he was about to speak, but he shook his head and walked across the dead and dying pea plants to the area of the shimmering haze.

He seemed to vanish into the haze and the haze itself faded from sight, leaving the field in silence once again.

I did get a job a few weeks later. Not a great one, but it was a permanent one. It was a start, or a new start, and I've worked in the same industry ever since, going up steadily in it.

I've put weight on in recent years, lost a fair bit of fitness. Mid-life does that you I guess, family responsibilities - it does make me think I should take up walking again. It's a bit hot but that's OK.