sock dragon 2

She had all her toys in her little red wagon
And her favorite one was her purple sock dragon
She had a pink zebra, a yellow gazelle,
A polka-dot fluffy gorilla as well,
A cat that meowed, a dog with no tail,
A hammerhead shark, a huge, fuzzy whale
A tiger so old it belonged to her dad
And also a seal that her mommy once had
A lion now missing a half of its mane
And one mangy bunny she found in the rain
The toys were all squished in the wagon with care
And Bernadette Anderson gave them some air

She took all her animals out for a walk
A pull in the wagon around her whole block
It took a long time and she walked very slow
For animals like a nice walk, don’t you know
She listened to birds and the sounds of her ‘hood
A nice sunny day and her toys. She felt good.
The sidewalk, uneven, had ridges and bumps
The toys were all jostled with jiggles and thumps
They shifted and flopped as the sidewalk went by
And Bernadette smiled and let out a sigh
But one special toy softly fell from her wagon
Her favorite toy. The purple sock dragon.

When she got home and she took them all out
She realized that one was gone with a shout
It wasn’t just any old toy that she’s lost
Her favorite, the dragon! It must have been tossed!
She asked her parents if she could go look
And search for her dragon before someone took
It and gave it a new different home far away
Her parents both thought and they said “okay”
They searched the whole sidewalk, they searched in the park
But they didn’t find him and now it was dark
With tears in her eyes and a heavy, sad head
They all went back home and then she went to bed

In the morning she slowly walked out of her room
Thinking of dragon out there in the gloom
Scared in the dark with no person to hug
No one to squeeze him to feel warm and snug
When there in the kitchen! Her parents! Asleep!
Snoring so loudly and dreaming so deep.
Wearing the clothes that they had on before
AND PURPLE SOCK DRAGON NEAR THEM ON THE FLOOR!
She rushed with a scream and she scooped him up quick
Her parents both woke with a jerk and a flick
They’d took turns all night just to find her old toy
And Bernadette Anderson hugged him with joy





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The key was a virus

The alien space invasion we’d all feared came in the form of a virus that invaded our minds.

It was a clear day when the first strike happened. It was a small meteor storm with seventeen tiny ones making it all the way to earth, impacting harmlessly away from populated centers. Being somewhat unusual, enthusiasts and professionals went to the more accessible sites to record what had happened.

They came back changed, a little dreamy and unfocused. Nothing too alarming. Most put it down to the wonder of seeing an event like this up close.

It wasn’t until their colleagues and family became bleary as well that the center for disease control got involved. But by then it was too late.

The disease spread over the planet in a matter of days. One hundred percent communicable and airborne, it even survived in the water table and plant life. It went up and down the food chain into the animals as well as us humans. Total absorption.

And then it switched on.

As one, the earth became one mind. But no one was in control.

The virus didn’t destroy us, its host, and it didn’t have a directive. It wasn’t out to annihilate the planet. It had done this to thousands of planets so far. We had the memories of those conquests in our heads now, along with the thoughts and secrets of every person on the planet. Our miniscule senses of self were drowned in a tsunami of other identities.

We became a groupthink with the added data of nearly three thousand other planets’ worth of animals, plants, and data we couldn’t even begin to classify.

But the virus had never taken over a lifeform with a consciousness. Up until now, it had taken over the equivalents of plants and simpler, baser beings.

Now it had a brain. Now it could reflect. Now it could plan. Now it could track where it had been and it could catalogue all that it had seen.

It was an overwhelming moment of sentience for the virus and a deeply religious moment for us humans.

For the first time, we could act in accordance with complete efficiency and a complete lack of secrecy. Money disappeared immediately.

First off, we organized enough food for everyone and kept our numbers sustainable. That took four years.

Then we built ships.

We had the maps in our head. We could backtrack to those previous worlds and colonize them.

The virus continued to spread forward and we backtracked where it had been.
It was the dawn of a new age.



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