300 Dei Verbum: Part 1

A peculiar monstrosity: it floated so gracefully to the ground, implying an otherworldly sophistication that went beyond mere arrival. Yet, it was obvious that Earth was its destination and Earth's people assumed to be the reason.

Its shape was one that could only be conceptualized by anatomy so alien that no one could pretend to guess function from form.

That was 43 years ago.

It sat, inert and impenetrable, occupying most of Piazza San Pietro in Vatican City. It had alighted perfectly equidistant from all of the Doric columns of the colonnade. In fact, the Egyptian obelisk was no more, as if the craft had absorbed it on descent.

It's landing spot was subject to heated debates. Politicians, think tanks, and the clergy of all religions weighed in. Yet, imagining an alien sentience that appreciated the significance of religion seemed a stretch.

There were noises emanating from within the craft. Metallic noises, arrhythmic, and seemingly random. Sometimes they beat out imagined patterns, but the best AI could not come up with a plausible analysis regarding the possibility of communication.

The Vatican Observatory Jesuits, by decreed edict of the sovereign city-state, were the first to officially evaluate the strange spacecraft. After four years they gave up, the ship's hull being completely impervious to any type of man-made breach.

Invitations in all the world's languages, on all bandwidths, went unanswered. Stroboscopic lights invited replies to mathematical sequences, but the visitors remained deaf, blind, and mute.

Four years after the Jesuits had given up, the inquiry team from CERN returned to Meyrin, Switzerland, with no information.

Then the noises stopped.

Perhaps whatever machinery was at work had finished priming itself and the craft would finally open.

But the silence continued long past the visiting team from Pasadena returning to their Jet Propulsion Laboratory—no wiser to the craft's details other than what could be seen with the naked eye or measured with calipers.

The Pope himself, in his weekly addresses from his apartment balcony, always closed with the following:

"We've been patient and faithful for two millennia now for the Second Coming. Certainly we can muster patience to out-wait our visitors."

The people were haunted: What if neither ever happens?

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

ALTHOUGH THIS IS MEANT AS A STANDALONE SUBMISSION, RELATED PART 2 IS AT https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/300-dei-verbum-part-2%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

For Saturday, October 26, Day 300 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

DAY 300! WOW!

366 WORDS (without A/N)

66 DAYS TO GO! THIS CHALLENGE CONTINUES, 366 WORDS A DAY.

There are currently three Vocal writers in this 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge, biding their time:

• L.C. Schäfer (Impatient)

• Rachel Deeming (Impulsive)

• Gerard DiLeo (Catarrhic)