“Everything you know about ISON is a lie.”
“What’s ISON?’
She was eager to explain. “People say it’s just a comet, you know, but it’s actually a biosphere. I watched a video about it on Youtube. An alien expert, well he’s not an expert, he’s communicating with the biosphere’s Andromeda Council directly, so it’s not hearsay or anything like that, said so. What the media is calling the comet ISON is really the Biosphere Xanterexx. It’s home to over 30 species including members of the Ventra, Nikotae, Toleka and Rital races. And they’re heading for Earth.”
I was slicing onions and my reaction looked more dramatic than it actually was. “Should I be worried about a spaceship civilisation masked a comet that’s headed for Earth?’
“It’s a biosphere. And no. They come in peace.”
I wiped my blurry eyes with the back of my hand as she continued. “Are you sure?’
“Tolec, the guy who communicates with the Andromeda Council, said that the biosphere and its two satellite ships are configured in the shape of a triangle. And, according to the Universal Symbols of Sacred Geometry, a sphere in the centre of a triangle is a symbol of peace. The whole universe knows that.”
I tried to draw a picture in my head. “But you just said the biosphere was part of the triangle, not in its centre.”
“They can’t be too obvious. Humans would freak out if they knew a biosphere was heading for Earth. Picture the configuration. Don’t draw a line between the satellite ships and the biosphere. The lines they form cross paths behind the biosphere. The point where they intersect make the third angle of the triangle. Then you have a sphere inside a triangle. Get it?”
I didn’t, really but Iggy was touching on something that often troubled my thoughts. Humans make phallic-looking spaceships. We get to the moon. Aliens make flying saucers. They travel light years and zoom past the stars. What troubled me now was the prospect that our faulty approach to space exploration had left us so far behind universal knowledge that every single other living thing in the galaxies knew the meaning of sacred symbols, except us. “I doubt anyone knows what a biosphere means. Anyway, you’re saying the entire universe knows what the symbol of peace looks like but us Earthlings are the only ones to associate the triangle with the Illuminati? Or Jay-Z? Or both.”
Iggy looked solemn. “Now you too know the Truth.”
She stared at me with evident sincerity and handed me the cloth and the note. I unfolded it. Written in plain text in the middle of the page were the words ‘ISON LOVES YOU’.
On November 18th, 2013, thirty-eight days before the good beings of Xanterexx finally encountered Earth, Iggy tied the silver cloth in a cape, around my neck and I was officially inducted into The Cult of ISON. The next day, our Supreme Leader made the cross-country train trip back to her home on the west coast of Norway.
Lisa walked into the kitchen as I peeled back the now perforated patch of tinfoil marking the 11th day on the Advent calendar. Someone else had got to its chocolate-like contents first. The calendar’s sweet contents didn’t taste like chocolate, even though the package promised a “New, Improved Chocolate Taste!”
“Iggy called from Bergen. She wants us to make an appearance at some kind of space-themed gallery exhibit here in Oslo,” Lisa said.
I examined the coming days on the cardboard calendar and found that according to someone in the house, we were now three days away from Christmas.
“Did you eat all the chocolates up to the 21st?’
“Some. But they all tasted terrible,” Lisa replied casually.
“’I’ve heard that it’s bad luck to read horoscope calendars ahead of time. Do you think the same applies to eating these chocolates?”
“Eh, it’s all bullshit. Someone selling bullshit to make money.”
Lisa had grown up in Russia. I’d grown up in California. Our conversations reflected our disparate origins.
“That’s probably true, actually. Okay, so what about this exhibit?” I asked, returning to reason Lisa had come into kitchen to begin with. “Iggy wants us to go in full garb??
“Well,” she replied, “we do represent the Oslo chapter.”
Two weeks earlier, hurtling towards the Sun, ISON was supposed to slingshot around and back towards Earth, where it would be most visible on December the 26th. Its light was predicted to be so bright in the Earth’s sky that it would be visible by day and shine as brightly as a full moon at night.
But ISON never made it around the Sun. Well, most of it didn’t. A faint streak of light was all that made it to the other side. The ‘comet’ was officially pronounced dead today but the Cult refused to accept this as true.
Several theories were whispered amongst the Oslo members of the Cult of ISON. Knut, the eternal skeptic, believed the government was keeping the truth from the public. “They’re lying because they’re hiding something. We all saw that small tail make it past the Sun’s halo. Xanterexx is just environmentally-friendly. Instead of shedding its waste in space, it dumped it into the Sun so it would melt. That’s why the comet looks smaller. The biosphere lives because ISON loves you.”
Jørgen said the Sun was actually a wormhole. “We can’t see the biosphere anymore because it was transported to another dimension,” he declared. “The biosphere lives because ISON loves you.”
Lisa didn’t need a reason. Iggy would never lie to her.
We entered the gallery in Sacred Symbol of Peace formation. The existence of the comet ISON or the biosphere Xanterexx didn’t matter to us. We believed in peace, in space, in time, in aliens, in humanity, in the absurd, the superb. We believed in the fantastic and the fabulous.
We were sent to save reality from itself. And we had the capes to prove it.
