Inspired by the "MelonHead" douijinshi series by Awatake Takahiro.
***
The days were long and filled with the buzz of cicadas. After the last class set them loose, the youths were allowed a pause to relax before matriculating into the next stage of their lives. Once they reached the cracked levee, the group walked along it to their favorite haunt in the countryside. There was water below, but clogged with the thick growth on either side. Amidst the thick green kudzu that clutched at the debris of the old world, the bone white office towers, abandoned and partially collapsed but still tall, were a reminder of a vanished age.
Once in a while, Fran glanced back to try to catch one of the boys staring at her legs. Her heart would skip a beat if it was her crush, Shawn.
He caught up to her and their legs matched stride, step for step. Fran felt like everything was in sync, just for a moment, as if the gears of the universe had aligned perfectly in their revolution.
He asked, "So, are you going to go?"
She ducked her head, contemplating her answer. Their steps gradually fell out of pace.
The former students had just graduated from the local high school, and these days there were only a handful of options for their future. Some were given the rare passes that allowed travel to different territories, far from home but lucrative in terms of career advancement. As an honor student, Fran had received one, but was debating whether she wanted to use it or stay in her home town. Shawn would most likely take a position at his uncle's shop.
Something made her blurt out an answer she instantly regretted, "Maybe Melon Head will choose me this year."
He stopped, replying sharply, "That's bad luck."
His eyes darted towards the thick wall of green, imagining a shape in the foliage. Melon Head must live somewhere out in the ever growing tangle of vegetation that had taken over the landscape. People made up tales of the beings lair, of a kingdom of vines and moss where the strange creatures made their abode but no one who ever traveled into the forest could accurately describe whatever it was they encountered in the forbidden heart of the land.
Melon Head would appear at random times, mostly, it seemed, to observe human activity and sometimes interact in mundane affairs. Other times, it would select individuals, usually women, to take back with it. There were rumors, but no one dwelled too deeply on what happened to those he selected. They all returned safely, but inextricably changed by the experience and rarely with much interest in relating any of it.
When the creatures first arrived, the Earth didn't stop spinning. It was just another day and when it was all over the next morning dawned as it always had, except everything, of course, was totally different. They didn't really like to be looked at, preferring to manage things from the shadows but when they did want your attention they appeared in sharp focus. Later, after any encounter, the exact details would blur a bit in one's memory and how they actually communicated, uncertain. Individuals would recall the conversation with bemusement, like the off-the-cuff discourse on random sidewalks or the murmur of commuters speaking but not really intelligible. Did they come in giant saucers or cloaked battle cruisers or traverse some demonic gate from the netherworld? No one knew, and later, cared to ask.
The effects of their arrival were swift, as humanity's collective industry ground to a halt after a few warnings that no one took seriously at first until the lights flickered and there was a moment of primal fear that gave way to a fatalistic acceptance. There was no violence, just a quick settling of things as factories were closed down, flights cancelled, businesses closed nearly simultaneously all around the globe.
Important functions such as power to hospitals, agriculture, municipal sewage, and so forth were maintained but most of those were wound down over a more gradual process as the scale of human life stepped back to a nearly pre-industrial age. Governments, militaries, and political organizations were disbanded without a fuss. It wasn't coercion, or even a compulsion, merely a dull sense of inevitability as men and women in power loosened their ties and doffed their coats, closed the books, and retired to their homes as if it could all start again the next day as usual.
It never did.
They were solitary beings. They liked to hide their willowy bodies with long button down shirts, their root-like legs and arms the only exposed portions besides their globular skulls which gave them their customary title: melon heads. For convenience, most were referred to in the masculine although a female of the species was rumored to have been sighted. Large cities were mostly abandoned and the clutches of townships were divided into provinces managed by a sole melon head who was the de facto lord of each fiefdom although they did not directly interfere with human bureaucracy. The exact mechanics of the division were also a mystery. Each region managed their affairs internally based on the customs and principles they themselves chose to keep except the notion of the nation state was functionally obsolete. Civics was purely local.
Each province just called their Melon Head with that name, as most people never encountered more than one. Of course, no one really knew if they even had brains in those round domes, or if they thought at all like humans but it was more convenient to anthropomorphize their behavior as if they did. Another common affectation was the straw hats that they liked to wear, as if they were benevolent retiree cultivators tending to their trophy gardens.
Perhaps that's what they were doing, cultivating the Earth since humanity had been doing such a terrible job of it in those latter years. It was a relief to most people, like a great weight of responsibility had been taken away from their shoulders.
Humanity probably knew, deep inside, that they were fucking things up and driving headlong on the road to an inevitable collapse, but drunkenly jamming the accelerator anyways and arguing like a bickering family while the cliff loomed ever closer. The people in the religion business were mightily disappointed when it wasn't one of their prophetic idols who had descended to take dominion over them, but diminutive aliens with rather mild, aloof, personalities.
Figuring out how the creatures evolved their limitless power of persuasion would require a dedicated will and scientific effort, both of which were sapped out of the human species. It was a lot quieter now, although life, for the most part, continued. People lived provincially as they had for much of human history as the infrastructure of mass communication spun down. Some nights, the remnants of satellites could be seen as shooting stars overhead against the ancient and immense background of the galaxy that lit the dome of the sky as it had in generations past. The biggest cities no longer polluted it with their light or smog. The carcasses of humanity's industry lay rotting, overtaken by the green kudzu that reclaimed the once teaming continents at the unfathomable whim of those strange, alien, beings who had wrested control from the former masters.
"Hey you two, come on," one of their friends called out to them. They hurried to catch up, leaving the levee to descend onto a connecting road that was still maintained.
The group of youths were going to picnic and swim in a grotto where fresh water flowed from an unknown source, deep underground. It was a lot easier these days not to ask how this was possible, especially after that day, when nothing mattered anymore.
