Nibiru

“Wig an’ Mitre, eight o’clock, important meeting!” Wearing large, black-framed glasses, Derek resembled Stephen Hawking.

“What about?”

“Nibiru.”

“Oh.” I nodded acquiescence.

That evening I climbed Lincoln’s ‘Steep Hill,’ passing intriguing old shops and cafes. Attending were Derek, several earnest young men, two tittering teenage girls and an old gentleman, ridiculous in shorts.

A hush fell and a neat, grey-suited man appeared. “Ladies and Gentlemen, a star known as Nibiru and its four planets are approaching Earth. This is being suppressed!”

A murmur of surprise swept the room.

“These images are from the International Space Station.”

The brilliant northern hemisphere filled a screen. Against the blackness of space, he indicated something resembling a dull red Catherine wheel. “So what can we do?”

The decision, optimistically reached, was for us to disseminate the pictures on social media.

A year later, I stood in Castle Square, watching a green-uniformed WW1 soldier parade evil-looking owls. Above, in the clear blue sky, opposite the sun was a smaller, less brilliant object and four pinpricks of light. The governments of the world had finally ‘come clean.’ They ‘hadn’t wanted to cause panic’ and anyway, ‘the system would bypass Earth.’

I wondered.