They Are Everywhere
By Neil Vogler
Some will think me mad. I have come to accept this. That is an obvious and understandable reaction to what I am about to tell you. I’m all too aware that it’s impossible to swallow some things unless you have experienced them for yourself. Once you have experienced them, however, your entire existence and outlook changes.
I’m a typical thirty-one year old product of my generation. I enjoyed an extended adolescence, lived at home as long as I could, got wasted a lot, grew up as technology grew around me, and then, reluctantly, finally got an adult’s job in my late twenties. Nowadays I work in an office answering customer service emails for a company dedicated to providing IT networking solutions. It’s tedious, but the work is easy and I am only sporadically busy. As a result, I read a lot on the net. And I consume a lot of audio-visual media online.
I mention this last point because it is my belief that, buried in one of the many thousands of video or audio clips that I have seen and heard, there was a subliminal message. I think some part of my brain has been activated that wasn’t activated before.
Because now I keep seeing ketchup bottles everywhere.
They appear in all shapes and sizes, from the little ones to the huge family-size squeezy bottles. Upside down, upright, on my desk, in the toilet, on the bus, on my girlfriend’s head, on my mother’s lap, in my brother’s glove compartment, in my underwear drawer, and all over the street, anywhere. Hovering in the air, nestling in the gutter, spinning on the wall... you name it. They appear for approximately one second – enough time for me to register their existence -- and then they are gone.
This has been happening for almost eight months, and I’ve been over and over all of the possible reasons in my mind. The first and most inescapable conclusion is that I’m barking mad, and that will likely be your conclusion too. Perhaps I have suffered some form of mild brain damage, possibly brought about by the sheer amount of soft drugs I have used in the past. I have to admit that it’s a very plausible explanation. But why ketchup bottles? Ketchup bottles are not an item I have ever previously had any special affinity for. And why do they all have the same exotic, mysterious label, a label that I have been unable to match against any known ketchup brand in the world?
The label is green, with vivid yellow lettering. It says, simply, Atacar Sauce. After many thousands of tries, I have still not been able to discern any other text or information on the label, or elsewhere on the bottle. Atacar, as you may already know, is not a recognised brand of ketchup anywhere on the planet. It is a Spanish word. Tellingly, in English the word means ‘attack’.
I have come to believe that I am witnessing an invasion. I don’t know yet whether I am observing the precursor to the invasion, or the actual invasion itself. What I do know is, I am staying a long way away from tomato ketchup.
On several occasions I have witnessed well-known brand ketchup bottles suddenly phase into Atacar bottles right in front of me, only to phase out again a second later as people use them. As if the alien ketchup is hiding within, in plain sight. I have also witnessed people spreading the infected ketchup on their food, or squirting it on their plates and ingesting it shortly thereafter, satisfied smiles on their sauce-smeared faces.
I don’t know yet if it’s bacteria in there, or nanites, or spores, or some other kind of virus... all I know is that there is a force at work in this world, hiding directly beneath the surface of our usual perceived reality, and appearing to those who can see them – either symbolically, or literally – as ketchup bottles. And they are everywhere. They are scouts, or they are soldiers, or they are voyagers, explorers, or tourists. There is no way to know.
I’m mad, though, right? Of course I am.
But I look at the world, and I see deception, destruction, wars, seemingly random and inexplicable violence. I see people dead who should not be dead, people attacked who should not have been attacked, and people acting out of character, doing horrible things they would never normally have done.
And a lot of them, if they live and go to court? They say they can’t explain why they did what they did. A lot of them say: I just snapped. I wasn’t myself. ...
To read the whole of They Are Everywhere buy the e-book "We Are Now" for Kindle, Kobo, iBooks or through Google Play
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Comments & Feedback
This makes me laugh!
Friday 9th November 2012
I can't explain why I'm writing this comment... well, apart from this is a great story!
Saturday 10th November 2012
Shame; I really like tomato ketchup...
Tuesday 13th November 2012
really liked this one! made me laugh :)
Friday 16th November 2012
Don't really like sauce anyhow! Great story
Friday 9th November 2012