The Scar

Tom the intern knew his job
Watch the panel all night long
Should the red light start to blink
Call for help, no need to think

Hours into days
Was he being hazed?
Weeks into months
Not a blink, not even once.

Then one night, nearly his last
At a time best suited for a nap
Did he see a blink? Was he losing his mind?
Some kind of focus he had to find.

Blinking the light, a vivid red
He fixed his eye, focused ahead
Ear to the phone, he heard a ring
Someone picked up and said, “Oliver King.”

“Tom the intern…my last name is Fink
The red light before me just started to blink.”
The phone was hung up and an alarm sound
Strangers rushed in and circled around

Someone had a manual
Said his name was Samuel
Opened to a page that had a chart
Said, “Have to call Art.  He’s pretty smart.”

“Oliver King, my name is Art
I’m the one who made this chart.
It explains the red light
That stayed dark ‘til tonight.

This was a project some years ago
We used a device that was just so-so
It was the first and was oh so small
But truth be told, it didn’t work at all.

Was to look at the human brain
To understand the thoughts it contained
We‘d learn how they think, that‘s the place to begin
But all it really did was get under their skin

Most just itched and then they’d scratch
And we thought to send out another batch
We just agreed the project would go to waste
This species perhaps wasn’t really our taste

It was easy enough those aliens we’d abduct
Not much smarter than the chickens they plucked
Just snatch them up while they slept
Never believed, always told it was dreamt”

This day on earth a man first shaved his head
He noticed a scar and watched as it bled
Art watched a screen as the light kept a blink
He knew what the man was about to think

The implant was working, should they turn it off?
All this because a man had shaved his coif?
Before deciding, he needed to know
What was this thought, the man could not let go?

From this idea the human’s brain was so perplexed
So Art asked other Martians, “What is sex?”