Log 42: The Ouroboros Effect

"Captain, there is something on the long range sensors you should see." Ensign Butterbrickle reported. Captain Bort Jombloski leered at the Ensign. Oh, how he hated him. His golden hair, straight teeth, symmetrical face, could he be more perfect? "Show me." Jombloski growled.

“It’s moving very quickly directly at us, captain. It is accelerating. It is the size of Amsterdam. It is shaped roughly like a banana. It will reach us in 23 minutes. It is broadcasting an Enya song over all audible frequencies.”

At that moment, everyone in the whole world heard Enya's "Orinoco Flow" over their speakers & headphones. The plucky "Sail away..." refrain wormed its way into everyone's mind. For the first time in human history, everyone was thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time.

As bewildered people around the world suddenly turned off their devices or threw headphones to the ground, they realized the song was still playing…in their ears. Animals scratched at their ears. A Boeing 737 descended at a too sharp angle as tower communication was lost.

The angels and birds and the insects wondered as they all lost the sense of their own wings in a single second. All flapping stopped. They could look behind, but it wouldn’t matter. Instead they all looked down as they fell.

The scientist looked down their clipboard glibly, oblivious to the subjective experience of a multitude of tiny beings suddenly robbed of flight, facing death. “It’s time to meet with investors,” the scientist said, addressing their nontechnical colleagues. “The device is ready.”