Text: Odilius Vlak / Artwork: Eddaviel

Case of the Martian Invasion in 1492
Cacibaquel’s Prophecy

^{Country: Dominican Republic.
Location: APEC University, Santo Domingo.
Date: 11/24/2016.
Time: 2 p.m.}

  The first bad omen was the heavy rain. One would say it was the apocalypse making pee with a witch’s vagina. Inside the building was falling another kind of raining —words; seemingly inspired by a drunk cemí:

  Nan Chevalier paused suddenly, dumfounded by his speech deviation but, even more, by that perfect Victorian English accent. The attendants to the Extremophile Caribbean Congress couldn’t make head or tail of it. Three times his neurons had sparked.

  But, as if nothing had happened, he composed himself and went on:

    «—I was telling you that errrrr…, representing Apeeeeec…, I thank the organizers of this Congress for invade this university with good Alien ideas. Also to the Ministry of Culture for backing it…»

  The new pause stirred an «oh my God, not again.» 

  Eddaviel [Dominican host and illustrator], with his graphic sensibility, imagined his brain like a Christmas tree celebrating the return of the electric power after a long blackout.

  But the following words showed that Nan’s brain was shook with 220 volts.  And he couldn’t unplug it in time. 

  «And they say this chieftain swore to had spoken with Yucahaguamá, who reveled to him that every one that outlived him will rule for a very short time, for a dressed up people were about to invade their country in order to dominate and slaughter them.»

  «We won the lottery of Guanajo with this dude, chico,» exploded Yoss [Cuban guest writer]. «First quoting the opening of the novel The War of the Worlds with a English that no even H. G. Wells can match, and now…»

  «Indeed!» Odilius Vlak’s face [Dominican host writer] cosplayed a thinking black emoticon, «and now quoting fray Ramón Pané’s Cacibaquel’s prophecy. He was Guarionex’s father. It’s not that his brain is a school bus drove by Freddy Krueger —something uses him like a medium to send us…»

  From somewhere: «Hey LOOK!»

  Nan sleepwalked right to the Congress’ poster. Its scene, a Taino yucayeque attacked by three space ships, was projected on the opposite wall of The Apec Cultural Hall José María Boneti de Burgos. He was babbling incoherent phrases about a supposed menace and invasion:

  «A pulp adventure is waiting for us; Martian invaders; QUISQUEYA not Britain; the Taino people needs us; not dressed up people; not cannibals; not Spaniards; not… ARGGGGG!!!»

  A metallic snapping sound resonated across the whole hall.

  The tentacle holding the woman in the poster’s foreground, got rid of her, whipped out of its space time and caught the author of the paradoxically story: Invasion in the Silver Port. Panicked eyes saw his abducted figure shrinking as it was taking to the farthest ship hovering in the background of the illustration. Somebody cried: «Shit! The drawing it’s alive; ALIVE!!!

  And it was true. The burning bohíos’ glow casted creepy shadows over the present reality. The attendants ran away, but a sudden resolution masked the writers and illustrators’ faces.

  «Ok pals,» said Leorian [herald of Moro Studio Kingdom], «it seems that the past is begging our super heroism.»

  «Yah, but only ours,» pointed Erick Mota [second Cuban writer] looking around the hall. «Our allies are empty chairs.»

  «Don’t forget coffee and water bottles,» added Manuel Antonio Gonzáles Cabrera [a freaky manufactured in the Cibao] nearing to a table to serve himself. «It’s getting damned hot here,» he remarked motioning to the poster’s fire, writhing in a 2D animation repetition.

  Markus E. Goth [writer and necromancer with a Zothique ID] stared at him surely thinking: A perfect sacrifice for Thasaidon!

  «The fandom prefers to read fantastic adventures, not to be part of them,» sentenced Joel Morales [knight of the Mentes Fritas Films Order].

  «Calm down people, we aren’t totally by our own,» intervened Eddaviel pointing to three ghostly figures —holograms?— that appeared before the poster: H. G. Wells, the Taino warrior Caonabó, and Hugo Gernsback. They invited them to get close with a motion so perceptually confusing like a M. C. Escher’s engraving.

  «Shit WHAT A TEAM!» desecrated an anonym the moment, even if everyone was convinced that Caonabó approved the exclamation with a Caribbean smile. 

  At the foot of the portal, Eddaviel bowed in reverence before the three messengers coming from their respective hereafter.  They spoke:

  H. G. WELLS: Your art unveiled me what not even my after death access to the fourth dimension did —that Martians invaded Earth centuries before they did it in my imagination. But such invasion repeat itself ad infinitum in its own space time continuum, of which your poster, by a lucky chance, turned out to be a portal.

  HUGO GERNSBACK: By that reason, we confer to each one of you the Pulp Power in order to combat those maggots from the red planet. Go on and make their lives so miserable, that HELL be the only place left for them to invade. I’m sure your feat will be a unique AMAZING STORY.

  CAONABÓ: The subject and information of your conferences, will turn out into super power once you set foot in Quisqueya’s soil back in 1492. Connect yourselves with your inner cemí —it will awaken you. The COHOBA POWDER is a time machine waiting to carry you to your mission: turn the balance in favor of the Tainos in that war of the worlds.

  In order, each one of them kneeled before the Maguana chieftain and sniff his tickets to the past.

 YEAHHH!!! This mess is getting better than an episode of Rick & Morti. And, as we aren’t Looney Tunes: «THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS!»

Next week: A GUAZABARA AGAINTS THE MARTIANS.

And meanwhile, in a parallel Caribbean, words define the future of this war:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4G3VWlhcKVI&feature=share