Contact Us by Al Macy Page A

his glasses, and spoke.
    “Greetings, people of Earth.” He, or it, had Cronkite’s voice.
    “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I am here. I am here to help you. Think of me as Glinda, the good witch in The Wizard of Oz. But I have to tell you people, this witch of the …” He put his glasses back on and consulted his notes. “… North, wasn’t really that good, right? I mean, if Glinda wanted to help Dorothy, she would have said, ‘Look girlfriend, this is all a goddamned dream, ‘cause you got knocked on the head during a tornado, so you best just wake the fuck up !’” Cronkite was speaking faster now, and he yelled the last four words.
    Charli was too young to have seen Cronkite’s news broadcasts but was familiar with his later reporting and news specials. Hearing him swear and yell was almost as shocking as seeing him alive again. And the concept of an alien intelligence spouting a semi-delirious tirade about a seventy-year-old movie … it was just too much. Everybody stayed silent, not wanting to miss a word. The president put his hands on the sides of his head.
    Walter Cronkite continued. “Instead, Glinda puts the red shoes on Dorothy, making her a target of the bad witch, then sends Dorothy on this wild goose chase to find a wizard who isn’t a wizard, and even at the end of the movie, when Dorothy finally wakes up, nothing is resolved, right? The mean lady down the road is still going to put the little black dog to sleep.
    “So, people, I’m concerned that you humans just don’t, fucking, pay, attention.” Here he stopped and looked into the camera for ten seconds.
    Hallstrom said, “This can’t be happening. What is going on?”
    “Let me give you another example.” Cronkite continued, “You’ve got, what,” again checking his notes, “jeez, 7.5 billion people on this planet? What the hell were you thinking? I know what you were thinking.” Here his voice changed to that of a California valley girl. He held his hands up and flopped them around with limp wrists. “ ‘It would be, like, so awesome, you know, to, like, have a cute little girl to sit on my lap while I, like, watch Wheel of Fortune.’”
    The voice wasn’t that of a man imitating a valley girl accent. It was a perfect valley girl voice, but coming out of Walter Cronkite’s mouth. He went back to his normal news-anchor voice. “So now you have, what, 7.5 billion people on a planet that should have a population of,” he looked down at his notes, “two-point-one billion people. So I’m telling you now. Wake up!” Another ten-second pause while he removed his glasses and glared directly at the camera.
    Visibly calmer, he continued. “Okay, so here is the bad news: The Wicked Witch of the West is coming. Of course I don’t mean the actual witch of the West, since she’s just a character in a book slash movie,” and here Cronkite made a slashing movement with his hand, “I’m just using her as an analogy so you will understand. Got it?
    “Here are some other analogies for you: The Borg, Attila the Hun, Ghengis Khan. Got it?
    “In other words, the Bad Guys are coming. The Bad Guys are a civilization of warlike beings that do bad things to unprotected planets like yours. For right now, let me just say, ‘You don’t want to know.’
    “My Mission Impossible is to travel around helping underdogs like you. In this case, I have to say ‘Mission Freaking Impossible,’ but I’m going to give it my best shot.
    “That is all for now. I have to let you folks process this.” He said the word “process” in an exaggerated, mocking way, and made little bunny rabbit quote marks with his fingers. “But I’ll be back ,” (perfect Schwarzenegger accent), “to help. I’ve uploaded some plans for devices that could be of assistance. You’ll find them on WikiLeaks.org.”
    The camera moved in closer.
    “And one more thing,” he paused dramatically and then threw his arms out and