Skinwalkers from the 4th Dimension

I always thought possums were atrociously ugly. Hideous would be the word I’m looking for. The babies, they’re alright. Cute little furballs of the night. But the adult opossum has this sort of evil, henchmen of the dark look to it, much worse than a raccoon. When you look it up on google, it looks harmless and innocent enough, maybe even cute. The common consensus about feral animals online seems to be the fallacious reasoning that animals are much better than people hands down, and all of them are just adorable cuddly critters to snatch up in our arms and smother with kisses. Thus is the sweet and feminine nature of the online. If you’ve ever been like me, however, stumbling home from a night shift at a warehouse, exhausted, struggling to finger a cigarette out of the pack in your pocket when suddenly some beady eyed fucker scurries across the road, you might think twice about the common interpretation. 

This night I refer to in particular may be me struggling with my own insecurities, the startled fear that overtakes a man when faced with an unfamiliar shadow and its two beady black eyes. But that little varmint hissed at me, baring its lop-sided ugly teeth, and it was all I could do not to punt it into the road. I cursed back at it. I think I said “fuck you you ugly cocksucker.” All of a sudden, the possum’s furry face scrunched in confusion, and it drew back. You won’t believe me, but the little guy put one pink hand behind his back, and with the other pushed off the ground. I heard a little crunch as he stood up on both hind legs, adjusting his spine to the upright. Was I hallucinating? The possum looked straight at me, dusted his lower half with his paws, and pulled his fur up to his waist in folds as if it were pants. 

“What the actual fuck,” I said aloud.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” the possum snapped back.

I staggered backward. Now I was sure I was seeing things, and hearing them. I needed to go see a doctor or something. Normally I’d be more calm, I think. For example, I might be able to have a more civilized conversation with a frog or perhaps a squirrel. But a possum? I think he sensed my thoughts, because he then said,

“I think you’re a fuckin’ racist you know that? Most people would be glad to see a possum. Or maybe it’s cause you don’t like New Yorka’s huh?”

My brain hadn’t even registered that this uppity rodent had a full Brooklyn accent. That would have been funnier on maybe a sewer rat, I thought, but they haven’t made a Ratatouille for Possums’ yet. 

“I just don’t understand how you can talk. You’re an animal.” I went for honesty, sue me.

“You’re a friggin moron. Now I understand. Here moron, catch up. I’ll show you something so crazy you’ll be telling your little moron grandkids about it.”

He was already scurrying away into the bushes. My bus wasn’t coming for the next two hours. What did I have to lose? My sanity was clearly lost already.

I fumbled my way through the thorny underbrush and a couple trash littered vagrant camps until I got to a clearing under the highway. It was almost pitch black at the furthest end, and the glinting of dozens of eyes flashed in the moonlight. Rows heads popped up one by one, and out of the dark crawled little creatures. One by one, they transformed before my eyes. Rabbits, squirrels, stray cats and dogs, horny toads and barn swallows with tails parted down the middle. The chief was, of course, that damn possum. 

“Ok, this is some kind of joke,” I said dismissively, waving my hand in the way one does when brushing off the uncomfortable razzing of a not so unusually drunk relative. I thought of my job, of overwork and sleep deprivation, of grief-addled visions of an ex girlfriend in the night. I was just lonely and exhausted. And someone was probably playing a cruel trick on me. But isn’t that how it always starts? I looked at the animals, feeling like urban Noah before a concrete arc. It didn’t make any sense, but hey, nothing else did either. I decided on acceptance. I’d see this crap through if for no other reason than to clear it from my mind. 

“Alright alright,” I announced at last, “Someone at least explain what the deal is and tell me what I have to do.” 

The possum looked at me suspiciously, his up and down stare full of skepticism. But after a quick appraisal, he grabbed my pant leg without hesitation. 

“Follow me.”

We walked a few feet over to the dark wall at the far end of the underpass. To my surprise, there was some sort of heaping pile of junk that could tentatively be appraised as an arc, but the metallic sheen was not concrete but some sort of unidentifiable alloy. I started to feel queasy with anxiety, hoping it wasn’t some sort of human meat grinder. A few more feet, and we were right up near the concrete wall of the highway’s support column. A skunk lit a sort of ceremonial torch, and the possum pointed a bony looking claw at the light on the wall. 

When I tell you there were scribblings, it’s like referring to a Pollock as some splatters. This thing was ten feet tall and twenty feet across of diagrams, drawings, mathematics, paragraphs of writing in languages I couldn’t understand, indecipherable scripts and shapes that defied any sort of Euclidean geometry. It was all very grand, but for all intents and purposes I boiled it down to a lifetime’s work of a society of underpass-dwelling schizophrenics. But then what was I? Just a dumber schizophrenic if I didn’t get it I suppose. 

“You probably think crazy people wrote this don’t you? Or maybe you think it’s all in your head? Don’t flatter yourself, or humankind, moron. This is a month’s worth of calculations to fix our ship and get back to our home in the fourth dimension. Think of it like this, if you were playing video games on your computer, like the Sims or something, and someone told you you could pay a little extra to be in the Sims, would you do it? Just for a bit, just to try it?”

“I don’t know. I guess?” I replied.

“Well unfortunately for you, your 3D universe is a fabrication of the 4D universe. Don’t worry, the game’s so popular it’s been around for 13 billion years. Reason why is, peeps in the fourth dimension live to be 70 billion years old. Chances are, your game will stick around and keep updating until it becomes unplayable. That’s when the server runs out of memory and the Sun of the only planet containing life, i.e. yours, dies. That shouldn’t be for another five to ten years though.”

Five to ten years. I grew deathly pale and started to shake. Thoughts of my family flew through my head, my poor mother who I never called enough, my grandma’s cooking and waving to the neighbors on Christmas morning. I remembered my first dog and my friends and regretted how I never made a family of my own, how I still hadn’t pursued the career I always wanted…

“Hold on, hold on, that may have come off wrong,” the possum said, seeing my expression. It’s five to ten years for us, for you it’s five to ten billion years. Just to clarify.”

“Ok, that’s it,” I said. “I’m fucking leaving. This is ridiculous. Nice prank guys, don’t know how you did it but you got me.”

Just then, a group of raccoons scurried out into the moonlight from around the corner, their furry little bandit masks peeping right at us from the street side of the underpass. They stood up, looked at each other, and each pulled matte black spoons from inside pockets in their legs. I stood there, unsure whether to laugh or slap myself in the face. What the hell was going on with my head? That’s when the spoons started blasting.

Beams of white light flew in both directions as feathers and fur, blood and guts flew through the air. I’d ducked behind a rock and saw a spoon under the eviscerated body of a duck. I always wondered where ducks went at night, but I guess this wasn’t really a duck. Its blood was all clear fluid like ectoplasm. I knelt down and snatched the spoon up, gripping it tight so the goo didn’t slip it through my fingers. I looked at a raccoon, and it bared its teeth at me. I wanted to kill it, and as soon as I had that thought a beam of light came out of my spoon and shot straight through its head.

The battle was a bloodbath, but ultimately the raccoons lost. I looked at the possum. He and I were among the few remaining. 

“What the hell were those, thieves?”

“Jeez you really are racist, you humans just can’t help yourselves. No they weren’t thieves, quite the opposite. Raccoons are 4th dimension police. They take that form so they’re the least likely to be suspected by humans. We’re the robbers. Now stand still.”

I looked over, and when I did I felt a jab in my arm. The possum stuck me with a needle! I tried to lurch back, but two huge brown arms came behind me and held me tight. It was a bear, a Grizzly Bear. Now I knew they were telling the truth. Why the hell would there be a Grizzly Bear roaming around San Leandro? The blood extracted, the animals rushed back to the ship and transformed back into their true forms. Impossible to describe really, but let’s just say they were like colors within colors, shapes within shapes, refractions of light spinning infinite possibilities. With the blood, the ship floated into the air, and they hopped in one by one. 

“Good luck telling your friends! I’m sure they’ll believe you!” 

They all laughed, and then the ship spun at light speed and disappeared. What could I do? They were right. I looked in my pocket though, and there was the cigarette. The damn thing was covered in ectoplasm, and my lighter was gone. The bodies had turned to piles of ash, but somehow there was still a single spoon on the ground. 

“I want to kill the tip of my cigarette.”

It lit. Best smoke I ever had.