Johannesburg, March 2007, District 9.
District 9. A panorama of squalor and dejection, dominated by shacks, cracked concrete, and piles of rubbish, where over a million and a half refugees from beyond the stars scratched out what livelihoods they could manage, getting by from one day to the next.
But the life of a poleepkwan was by no means completely without pleasure. And on this Saturday afternoon, one two-thirds grown male, Gordon van Osten, was in a happy mood as he sat on a pile of old bricks, idly watching the world go by.
There was a light breeze in the air, dispersing the nasty smoke and the putrid odor of trash, and the day was pleasantly hot. Stimulated by the heat and the cloudless blue sky, Gordon wanted very much to play.
Frustratingly though, there was no one around to play with. Under a special work permit, his father, Fritz van Osten, and older brother, Theo, were currently working on a farm eight miles outside the city, driving tractors, hoeing crops, and what not. They would be gone until 8 in the evening, Gordon knew.
As for his mother, Marion, who drove a forklift at a scrap metal processing plant, she'd worked a night shift, as was often the case. Needless to say, she was sleeping in their shack, far too tired to oblige her son's demands.
His attention was diverted by a muffled whirring of wings as a flock of seven pigeons landed about 70 feet away, to his right. The sight made Gordon's mouth water. Like other poleepkwan, he found pigeons excellent eating, consuming everything right down to the feathers and feet.
And with their speed and agility, prawns could and did seize the birds in mid-air, in a performance that would do a caracal proud. With their lighter body mass, younger prawns like Gordon were the most successful bird catchers.
Silently, carefully, his malachite eyes locked on the spot where he'd seen the pigeons land, Gordon slithered down off the brick heap, and got down on all fours. Pressing his yellow ochre body against the dirt and cracked asphalt, the adolescent prawn used shacks, crumbling curbs, straggling bushes, and tufts of grass for cover, stalking ever closer to the flock.
Soon, he would leap to his feet, and bounce into the group of pigeons like a rubber ball, grabbing at least one of them, maybe even two. How delighted it would make his mother, to receive a gift of an entire pigeon when she awoke!
As he came closer though, gathering himself to lunge, Gordon had a change of heart. The breeze was blowing, and the sun was shining. Watching the pigeons, the prawn decided that on a beautiful day like this, where he was enjoying life so much, he just didn't have the heart to take that of another fellow creature.
He sprung upright and darted forward then-but this leap was in mischief, not to attack. The terrified pigeons exploded into flight, a brief maelstrom of gray and black, leaving a pleased Gordon giving the poleepkwan equivalent of a chuckle as he watched them bolt away.
The perimeter fence separating prawns from human society was not far away, and Gordon decided to head over there. It was that time of day when most of the humans either would've recently finished their lunch, or were in the process of eating it.
The important thing about that to Gordon and his fellow poleepkwan was that a fair number of humans would then bring at least some of the scraps or trash from their meal to the perimeter fence, flinging them over or through the barbed wire to any prawns inside. Whether a human did this out of altruism, or simply for amusement, ultimately made little difference to the lucky prawn who received the offering. They got extra food to eat, and that's what counted.
As Gordon reached the fence, he saw that there was a family of humans already there. A "man," a "woman," two male younglings, and a female youngling. From their almond-shaped brown eyes, the woman's clothing, their sleek black hair and dusky black skin, the prawn knew that they belonged to the racial designation the humans called "Indian."
Reaching into a cardboard box his father held, the older male youngling's hand reappeared holding the breastbone from a roast chicken. Expertly, he threw it over the topmost rung of jagged barbed wire. It crashed to earth six feet to the hungry prawn's left. Darting forward, Gordon grabbed the fat-slick bones and eagerly stuffed them into his mouth, his dangling wattles holding them in place as he cracked and crushed them in his teeth, shutting his eyes in pure enjoyment.
The edge taken off his hunger, Gordon watched the family leave. They'd given him a good meal of chicken bones, some chicken skin, two banana peels, some stale bread, a stale cinnamon roll, and best of all, a small can of cat food!
Although he wasn't sure if they could understand a word of it, he clicked and burbled a message of thanks and gratitude anyhow. "Thanks for sharing your food humans! I have not eaten this well for many days! Good luck upon you."
Turning, the adult male raised his hand and moved it back and forth in a curious gesture, which Gordon suspected to be one of acknowledgement and goodwill.
Moving on, the prawn spied a bare patch of dirt, where, content and well-fed, he stretched out on his back, luxuriating in the South African summer sun. Putting his hands behind his head, he watched a pair of pied crows gliding overhead.
Sporting beautiful patches of black and white, like a magpie, one bird good-naturedly swooped down at the other, lightly striking it on the back with spread feet before ascending just as swiftly. Uttering a sharp croak of surprise, the second crow chased after the first, tweaking one of its partner's tail feathers.
A smile came over Gordon's yellow face as he realized that both crows were playing a game, one that he'd seen human younglings play. Tag, they called it. He just wished he could be playing with someone too.
Then the prawn heard a hollow, thumping sound off in the distance. It was then followed by a sort of deep, sharp, swoush noise. He'd never heard a sound like that before!
Curiosity aroused, the poleepkwan got to his feet and trotted towards the source of the rhythmic, thumping noise, becoming ever louder and clearer as he drew closer. Then, as he passed a copse of acacias growing just outside the fence that had been blocking his vision, Gordon saw an amazing sight.
With a mid-sized building in the background, a young black man, his head shaved, was running over an expanse of asphalt not far from the fence, using the palm of one of his hands to repeatedly smack a large round object against the ground as he ran. Gordon cocked his head and twitched his antennae in puzzlement as he regarded the curious object.
The size of his head, it was orange in color, covered in what looked like little soft scales, like those on a lizard. From the sound it made each time it hit the pavement, it was evidently hollow. A curving black line ran around its surface.
Even more mystifying though, was the black man's behavior. Why was he hurling this object against the ground over and over again? Where was he headed with it? Why was he weaving back and forth?
Then, as Gordon watched in confusion, the black man drew close to a tall steel pole on the edge of the asphalt rectangle, with a large white sheet of metal located on top, and a large metal ring protruding from the front. Grabbing what the prawn suddenly remembered was called a "ball," the human went into a squat, gathering himself for a leap, and then jumped upward, throwing the ball at the pole as he did so.
With a dull, metallic thud, the orange ball bounced off the sheet of metal. Landing on the metal ring, it rolled along it briefly, and then fell into it, passing through a sort of white net below with a hushed, swishing noise.
At that, eyes focused on the ball, the young man smiled, saying "Yeah!" as he threw his fists up into the air, evidently pleased by his performance. Running down the ball as it rolled away, he picked it up and brought it back to the asphalt, facing the curious pole as he began to throw the orange rubber sphere against the ground again, moving in the pole's direction.
So that was what the human was trying to do. His goal was to move the ball close to the pole by bouncing it in a controlled fashion, pick it up, and then try to throw it into the metal ring! Gordon felt like a genius for figuring it out.
Aware that he was being watched, Bill Gabuka glanced over his shoulder at the fence separating humans from the aliens in District 9. Just as he'd thought, there was a lone prawn, dressed in a pair of oversized denim shorts, regarding him intently with its hooded green eyes while he shot baskets. That was really no surprise in itself.
Whenever the 24-year-old played basketball on this particular court, whether by himself or with a group of friends, curious prawns would often stroll over to stare at all the activity. Usually, after a few minutes or so of watching, the aliens would get bored and wander off to sort through garbage, collect scrap metal, plan the latest riot against MNU, sleep in their tumbledown shacks, or whatever the fok the creatures did in their spare time.
Dismissing the young prawn, Bill returned to playing basketball. Not only was it fun, it was a great way to limber up and let off steam after punching out from his shift at the meatpacking plant, chopping up cow livers all day long.
Suddenly, a disaster happened. As he threw the basketball at the hoop, it ricocheted off the metal ring in such a way and at such an angle that when it landed, it shot straight for District 9's boundary fence!
Desperately, Bill tried to chase down the ball and get a hold of it before it went under the barrier. He'd never had anything like this happen before, and if rolled into the prawn's reach, the chances were excellent that it would either be destroyed or stolen. Prawns loved to steal things, and everyone with half a brain knew it.
To his horror, even as he made a frantic dive for it, the basketball went rolling under the bottom strand of barbed wire. This was bad.
Helplessly, Bill could only watch as the ball came to a stop and the yellow prawn went over to it, picking it up and thoughtfully examining the orange sphere. He knew that the prawns had a bizarre fondness for eating tires, and suspected that a rubber basketball would be devoured just as readily.
"Please," he levelly begged, "just give it back. Don't you dare start gnawing into my ball!"
At the sound of his voice, the prawn raised its hideous head, a puzzled look in its green eyes as it regarded him, then the basketball, then looked at him a second time. Instead of chomping down into the valuable ball with an explosive pop, or turning around and making off with it as he'd feared, the prawn evidently had no idea what to do next.
Hoping he could sweet-talk the alien into giving the ball back before it was too late, Bill reached into his pocket and pulled out one of several wrapped rectangles of beef biltong. Holding it in his left hand, he carefully crept forward to the wire fence, offering it to the perplexed prawn, its eyes lighting up at the sight of the dried and spiced meat.
"Here, I'll trade ya," Bill soothingly proposed. "You give me my basketball back, and you can have this tasty hunk of biltong. You like meat, don't you?"
Gordon was very confused. By sheer chance, the strange human ball had gone under the fence and come into his possession. On seeing this, the black man had become very alarmed, speaking to him in a concerned, desperate manner.
Now he was coming up to the fence, holding out a wrapped chunk of dried meat in one hand as he pointed at the ball, then gestured at his own body with the other. He wanted it back in exchange for the meat, that much was clear.
But what if the human was actually trying to get Gordon to play a game with him instead, and was offering the meat simply to display his friendly intentions? It was hard to tell.
Memories flashed up into the prawn's mind of times when he'd watched human children playing outside the fence. All their games seemed remarkably similar to him. They essentially involved throwing or kicking a ball to each other. There were different ways to do it and different objectives of course, from what he could tell, but it invariably involved that.
Gordon racked his brain to remember the names of some of them. Soccer, baseball, catch, tennis.
That was it! Catch! Does that mean the human wants to play "catch" with me?
The poleepkwan was suddenly very excited at the prospect. But what if he did it wrong? Who knew how the rules of human games worked? And what if the human just took the ball and went back to what he'd been doing before without a second glance?
Gordon simply didn't know what to do. Taking a leap of faith, he crouched, holding the ball in both hands, and then jumped into the air, hurling it over the fence with all his might. A satisfied smile came over the black man's face, and he chucked the dried meat through the barbed wire before turning and running off to retrieve his ball.
He began to bounce it against the tar again, and Gordon's hearts sank. The human didn't want to play with him after all. But should that really be a surprise from such beings? He gave a hopeful, lonesome cry of "Human, please don't ignore me! Throw the ball back so we can both have fun together on this wonderful day!"
As he got back into the rhythm of dribbling the basketball, filled with relief that it had been returned undamaged by the yellow prawn, Bill hardly noticed the sudden clicking and burbling from the alien.
When he heard it a second time though, louder and more insistent, the human stopped and turned it its direction. The prawn was still watching him, the biltong slightly protruding from its right shorts pocket.
That was odd. Usually, when you gave one something like that, you could expect to see that meat be devoured within seconds. But this one hadn't touched it.
Realizing it had gotten his attention, the yellow prawn then pointed at his basketball. It pointed at itself a second later, and then, to Bill Gabuka's astonishment, squatted down and did a forward somersault on the ground before getting back to its feet.
He'd seen even younger prawns do that through the fence a few times before. Just like when Shumba, his Rottweiler, made a jerky bow, legs splayed and tongue lolling in excitement, somersaulting meant a prawn wanted to play.
Bill laughed out loud. Could this really be happening? He didn't, couldn't, fully believe it; this hideous alien from another planet was actually trying to get him to toss the ball back, to play a game of catch?
No, these prawns are supposed to be dangerous, surly, untrustworthy hoodlums. They scrounge through rubbish, steal from us, sit in their shacks, stir up trouble with the MNU forces, and occasionally even kill one of us. Can this prawn really want to be friendly?
He wondered suspiciously if the prawn had changed its mind about the basketball, and this was all just a ploy to trick him into giving it back. He wouldn't put it past the alien.
But it had such an eager, innocent look in its eyes...
What the hell, Bill mentally shrugged, and tossed the ball over the fence.
Enthusiastically, Gordon chased after the ball, grabbed it, and then dashed back to the fence, where he hurled it back over to the human. Each time, the man would hurl it back. A smooth, burbling laugh, like the sound of a brook over gravel, came from the poleepkwan's throat whenever he saw the black man get ready to pass the orange ball back over.
This has to be some fantastic dream, Bill Gabuka marveled. And yet he knew it wasn't. This prawn is playing a game-with me. And I'm playing a game with a fooking prawn! Have we both lost our minds? No matter how absurd and exotic the situation was, Bill still found himself grinning from ear to ear and gleefully returning every toss the prawn made.
He kept the game interesting in all sorts of ways, faking the prawn out before throwing, tossing the basketball while leaping into the air, throwing it over his shoulders while facing backwards.
Bill felt embarrassed, even self-loathing, to admit it, but this was actually a lot of fun, the most fun he'd had for ages. And it was with a prawn! But that's just because everyone else around here is too busy sleeping, getting drunk, minding their totos, or talking on the phone, he told himself.
It was only when the sun began to touch the horizon that Bill realized that he'd better pack up and go. His girlfriend, Buki, and their two children were probably getting worried about him, wondering where he'd gone off to. Deep down, he knew that he was really leaving before he actually became fond of the damned thing, but would never dare admit that to himself.
Just because one of those creatures is playful and...entertaining, doesn't mean that it's safe to mingle with them. They can't be trusted to live peacefully among human society...sometimes they have a mean streak. And anything with thumbs can grab a ball or play catch, even chimps or kids with Down Syndrome. It's nothing that special, he told himself.
The young man turned to leave, and went to a nearby bench, where he put the ball back in his pack. Looking over his shoulder at the prawn while he stood up, he hesitated for a few moments. Then, as silly as it made him feel, Bill awkwardly waved goodbye to the alien, doubting if it would understand.
It cocked its head, puzzled. Then, it clumsily waved back, uncertainly. It got the message.
With a low, contented clicking, Gordon watched the black man go before turning and quickly heading back home. It was not safe to be out after dark around here.
As Bill walked down a street away from the fence, an MNU agent casually approached him. "So, what were you doing over there?" the young British man sneered at Bill.
Bill winced, sighing; he'd hoped that nobody would notice him fraternizing with one of those creatures. But this soldier had.
He managed to throttle his embarrassment however, as he met the soldier's harsh gaze, demeanor cool as he replied, unable to keep a strong hint of wonder and fascination out of his voice, "I think I played a game of catch with a prawn."
The MNU goon laughed. "Catch? It played catch with you? Like a child?"
Bill snickered along with him. "Yeah, like a child," he confirmed. "Like a trained baboon."
"And to think," the soldier chuckled in contempt, shaking his head, "there are people in this city who want us to give them rights, to let them mix freely with human society."
"I know," Bill agreed. "Utter foolishness, right?"