The Day the Martians Never Came

 

                                                   

By William M. Balsamo

 

     I noticed the changing of seasons then. Spring had come early that year. The crocuses broke through the soil in early March, announcing the beginning of a new birth of season. We did not have much land behind our aging brownstone home in Brooklyn, just a small plot large enough to grow a few vegetables mostly tomatoes and squash, and several rows of flowers. Our home, once a well fortified structure, was now in bad need of repair, having survived the bitter blasts of a cold winter and years of neglect.

 

   I was only eight years old; an age when the adult world seemed remote and daily life was still a process of discovery. I believed then with a simple faith. I naturally accepted people on their word. The world had been divided that year by a cold war, the chill of which had yet to inflict our lives with undue tension. It was the year of togetherness, fraternities and uninspired TV. It was also the year that flying saucers were seen soaring over America making men aware that the universe was a mysterious cosmos of unexplored depth.

 

   What had begun for me as an uneventful spring day in April became a journey into the world of fear brought on by the power of imagination. I had left early for school. It was a brisk spring morning. The clear sky, dotted with an occasional cloud and flight of a sparrow seemed to suggest an inner peace of cosmic order. I waked unhurriedly through the streets flanked by rows of familiar brownstone homes, and soon came upon the schoolyard where little herds and clusters of animated children were gathered.

 

    “They said it landed during the night.”

 

   I immediately recognized the voice of Bobby Baxter.

   “My father said it was near Chicago,” he continued in a voice of mounting excitement.

   “They already killed hundreds of people and are heading towards New York.”

   What it was and who they were remained unknown to me at first, except that I was triggered with alarm at the intrusion of the unknown. As the day progressed I was gradually made aware of the fact that during the previous night a reported flying saucer had landed somewhere near Chicago and that a small army of horrible creatures was working its way to New York spreading destruction in its path. This was no mere rumor because Bobby Baxter told us that morning, and he should know because his father worked for the Daily News.

 

    Now, at eight years old I believed all this. I believed what I was told. I believed, for example, that if you ate too many pickles your blood would turn into pickle juice, or if you didn’t drink three glasses of milk a day, your bones would blend into your muscles and become mushy. I believed that all Communists hated God and beat up little children who dared to pray. I believed because I took it for granted that people would never want to deceive me.

     During lunchtime I went up to the teacher and asked her.

 

     “Is Chicago near New York?”

     “What?” she answered.

     Chicago..is it near New York?”

     “Well,” she replied, “It’s not near. But you can fly to Chicago from New York with a few hours.”

      “Oh, my God” I thought, “If a plane can make it in a few hours then surely we will be invaded by nightfall.”

      After that I couldn’t concentrate on afternoon classes. Everything seemed so out of proportion. The teacher’s words were lost in the anxiety of the moment. Upon dismissal I hurried home by passing a usual stop at the candy store, and quickly rushed through the house and into the garden. There my mother was turning over the soil with a small shovel breaking the top layer of winter frost and preparing the earth for the flowers of spring. She had a way with soil that made it yield to her care. She was of the earth and I felt suddenly secure in seeing her so calm.

 

    “Home so soon?” she inquired.

    “I came right home. I didn’t stop anywhere.”

    She seemed so calm. She was always calm. I wanted to tell her of my fear, but I was equally fearful of alarming her as well. I quickly ran back into the house and up to my room. I felt it at first necessary to prepare myself for the oncoming invasion. The more I thought the more futile it all seemed to me. One knows quite well that you can’t mess with Martians and other creatures from outer space. They carry around these ray guns that break down walls and disintegrate people. Their lizard-like, bulletproof skin defies assault, and their superior intelligence gave them an omniscience known only to God. Their rotating eye and beaklike mouth made them a horror to behold.

 

    I finally resigned myself to my fate. I felt consoled by the fact that I shared this destiny with eight million other New Yorkers, not counting all those who had already met their destruction on the New York thruway.

 

    That evening our family was gathered at dinner table. I was very quiet throughout the meal. I wanted to ask so many questions but was unable to do so. I wanted to ask them all if they were aware of what had happened. My oldest sister spoke only of her poodle cut and her boyfriend’s new Edsel. Mom wondered if there would be enough rain this spring to take care of the flowers and pop was always enveloped in a conspiracy of silence.

 

    Later that evening, after the dinner dishes had been put away, we sat don to television and watched the evening news. No mention was ever made of any Martian landing or space invasion, but I was convinced that our kind government did not wish to alarm a doomed populace.

   Finally the dreaded moment was upon me.   

   “Time to go to bed, now. You’ll have to get up early tomorrow for school.”

   I pleaded for a ten minute extension of time, but was firmly refused.

   “Let’s hear none of that. Come on now, up to bed.”

   I ascended the stairs into the darkness. My room in the afternoon did not seem as forbidding as it did now. The darkness, like the primeval unknown, had a way of confirming my fear. The objects in the room seemed to deride me. As I lay in bed I noticed that the street lamp outside my window cast an eerie glow upon the wall of my room, and in my imagination the clown figures on the wallpaper seemed to have come alive in silent pantomime.  The footsteps of night people on the outside pavement beneath my window were magnified in my mind as I identified them with the emissaries of doom. I fought against sleep until sheer exhaustion finally claimed me into the world of dreams. 

 

    The Martians never came that night nor any other night and today I feel somewhat cheated. When one considers the atrocities and tortures Man has wrought upon his fellow men, I think in retrospect that Martians would have been quite congenial and humane. Needless to say I no longer believe that man will be invaded from outer space. It is the constant invasion from Man himself that needs to be feared.