Two days ago it was warm so I took myself down to the sea front and just sat their gazing just beyond infinity, a pencil and some music paper on my lap. I awaited the muse - a musical muse I hoped but anything to a-muse would do. Anyway, quite suddenly this flying saucer whizzed up and hovered above me then landed. This green person, no racism intended, lowered the window. He had some kind of translation device that turned his home language into English.
He said, "Hey, I'm from Pluto. Maybe you can help. I came here to learn things because of a rumour that earth people are among the most intelligent in this solar system. But....there are things I can't understand. Between about 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. people leave their houses and pace off to a place called the railway station. They travel anything between 50 and 100 miles then alight the trains and go to these large buildings where they sit at tables they call "workstations", stare at these little screens, press buttons and push papers around. Then at between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. they shuffle the papers together. turn off their little screens, then go back to the houses they started from in the morning. Then they eat then sit on sofas and stare at larger screens that flicker with all kinds of things including things called "ads" that seem to be firms blowing their own trumpets about how good the things they sell are. Some time later they go to bed. And the next day the same happens.
"What's going on?"
I frowned, puzzled. All I could say was "
But that's important. It's their life, their purpose in life. It's how they enrich themselves."
"Are they having fun?" he asked.
"Oh, definitely," I told him.
He said, "Okay. You could have fooled me... but thanks for the edification."
He raised the window, got his flying saucer in gear and flew off. Quite put me off my stroke, turned down my offer of a beer at the nearby bar....
...