A Plea and Parcel from Planet Foxglove
By Bella Rew
Tinfoil-Tim: This letter was written in a simple substitution cipher and when decoded, appears to be in English[!]. The message I’ve translated, therefore, could all be an error produced by my Anglophone bias, OR a VERY EXCITING development in the mystery of where these artefacts are coming from. I had assumed most arrived on Earth by pure chance or were fitted with a kind of google-translate mechanism that made them intelligible to anyone who read them (the limitless possibilities of alien tech!), but this cipher would have been impossible to DE-cipher without knowledge of the structure of the Latin alphabet. This means at least some of these messages and objects WERE intended for this planet and perhaps even this specific spot on the shore. What an incredible thought, that so many intelligent alien lifeforms are reaching out to Earth, turning to humanity in their hour of need! Perhaps some are looking down on me right this minute. I hope they’re not all in such dire straits as this writer is…
The unconventional prose-style of this letter makes it a little difficult to understand. It might be relevant that it arrived in a well-insulated crate accompanied by a small collection of bones, wrapped in a patchily-dyed pink blanket. Maybe someone on this forum can make more sense of it than I can! I clearly don’t rival google-translate quite yet.
Greetings. Greetings. Greetings. To System Sunday and Planet Sunflower.
Bad tidings for Planet Foxglove. Bad tidings for System Monday. The fruits of our labour are rotten and everything is collapsing in our hands. The tide changed too late, the bad taste won’t leave the water – we are very hungry. Please feed of us.1
We have very little fuel left. The land is barren. The air is hot. Green power has been muddied by the red of blood and nations have been swallowed by the deluge. Our song is the nightingale’s: lament and endless night.
All the good is already gone. The innocents, the little children, the honest people with the busy hands and flimsy houses. The last of us are deep-buried cankers and worms, eating our own tails.2 Please feed of us.3
This is not life. I dream of your beach. I fill it with my people. I feel cool water up to my ankles, cool water that I do not need to drink. I dream of lights in the sky, sparkling off eyes and bright teeth. I dream that everything is gathered up into the kindly arms of the sea, but all my belated longing is thrown up like bile on the returning tide of consciousness. Please, this cannot possibly be life, preserved in the amber of agony.
All the good is already gone, but what is in this box. I have put my heart in here with this message. If I cannot set foot on your beach, let my heart rest and play there – let her run free. We sent the little creatures to the stars first, and called it success when they never came down. I call it success that no good thing should die on Planet Foxglove.
My name was Belinda. My heart is Pom.
Farewell. Farewell. Farewell. To System Sunday and Planet Sunflower.
Please. Please. Please. Feed of us.
TFT: The cipher says ‘of’ but surely it makes more sense for it to be simply ‘feed us’? Have kept the original translation for posterity.
TFT: This line is accompanied by a shakily drawn ouroboros in the margin, only the snake has a nozzle-like mouth with two sets of teeth, and weeping eyes. Creepy!
TFT: This stubborn typo again!
Planet “Foxglove”… Interesting title. Foxglove is the source originally of digitalis, a heart (and maybe soul) medication. The metaphor of Foxglove for Earth’s careening demise is apparent to me; and the thrashing end of hope there, is a clear message here.
Are you still living in that beacon less lighthouse…and is there hidden meaning or despair in your tale.