“We are here to protect the human race from destruction by its greatest enemy,” the voice echoed in his head, responding to the question he had just asked out loud. It sounded just like James Earl Jones.
“Who is our greatest enemy?” Jay asked while looking down at his feet. He noticed his shoes were still coated with sand from when he was picked up from Alameda Beach by the enormous spaceship that hovered four thousand feet above San Francisco Bay.
“The human race,” James Earl Jones replied in his head.
“How are you going to help us?” Jay asked. “Alien medical technology? The destruction of our nuclear weapons? A new energy source that doesn’t promote global warming?” He wondered what powered the enormous vessel that he currently occupied.
“It’s like a musical instrument,” intoned James Earl Jones. “It harmonizes with the flow of mattergy instead of interfering with it. This vessel is like a surfboard on an infinite wave, to borrow an analogy from what you think you know. We’ve been parked above this body of water for what you would refer to as fifty years. Your aerial vehicles and their passengers seem to pass right through us.”
Jay still didn’t understand how the ship worked and he still didn’t know how these powerful aliens intended to help humanity.
“The resources necessary to sustain the operating system that you refer to as ‘life’ are either being used too quickly or are being rendered unusable. The rate of overuse is highest here in what you refer to as the United States of America. We will take roughly half of your population off-line to offset the imbalance,” James Earl Jones’ voice explained.
“You’re going to kill half of us?” Jay gasped. “How are you going to choose who to kill and who to let live?”
“Self-selection. Those who are committed to destroying the Earth’s resources will identify themselves and they will be euthanized painlessly.”
“Who is in favor of using up all of Earth’s resources?” Jay asked, incredulous. “And even if they were, why would they tell you?”
“We created an avatar,” James Earl Jones’ voice explained, “Someone who exemplifies waste, injustice and the inappropriate use of natural resources. Anyone who allies themselves with this individual is allied against the human race and the balance of the entire ecosystem and will be eliminated.”
“So you’re saying that whoever people vote for will determine whether they live or die?”
“Yes. We’re just going to speed things up a bit. Those who choose life will be afforded the time to put the necessary changes into place and those who choose a slow death will receive a quick one. It will be the first election in your history where everybody wins.”
“How can we be winners if half of us are going to die?” Jay asked.
“You’re all going to die,” said James Earl Jones.
“But you said you were only going to kill those who voted for death.”
“Yes, but you’re still going to die eventually.”
Literature in Small Doses 