It walks!

We should have known better. No one reacted when the pine cones started to walk. To be fair, how could we? What can you do but freeze when events overwhelm your understanding? There was nothing else to do but ignore and block out a truth that couldn’t be. Acknowledgement would have meant admitting the loss of your own sanity. We all pretended to our individual selves it was the wind, and together we simply wouldn’t mention it. Only the odd supernatural magazine would and we all laughed at it of course. Until that timelapse video was published on vimeo.

The usual clouds rushing through, forming and vanishing on the spot, the light smoothly changing while the grass blades shook frantically. Then, in the middle of the night, it entered the frame. A pine cone going against the direction of what was merely a gentle breeze and couldn’t have pushed it anyway. Brazenly moving with intent, it went across the frame and back, changing directions and angles.

Everyone called fake, obviously. Some said it was a hedgehog after a food trail, some said it was the work of a very skillful stopmotion and compositing artist. Yet, as we all tried to play clever, in the back of our minds were crawling the images of undeniably increasing amounts of crushed pine cones on every road. While no one believed in that nonsense, no one would miss the opportunity to give it a good kick when they came across one, or train their dogs to attack them, just for a laugh. ‘That one didn’t ran away did it?’ Ahah.

And because the internet is terribly bored, it wasn’t long before someone realized that the now famous pine cone was not moving just randomly. If you retraced its trail, it spelt ‘fuck off’. This video became the one online phenomenon, and Psy got quickly forgotten. People started to believe and freak out. It was just like back in the days with the Blair Witch Project and the cairn jokes. Only this time it wasn’t a joke.

Scientists studied their moves and concluded they were indeed purposely and autonomously moving. Somewhat like caterpillars, they would patiently unfold their scales one after the other to push themselves forwards.

You’d think it shouldn’t have mattered so much, if rude at times they were harmless after all. And to be fair, that one got famous but another one in Albania wished people a happy new 2013. Just got less exposition because of the language I suppose. Most of the cones didn’t left messages and simply moved resolutely in a straight line. To me, these ones just couldn’t be bothered but who knows? Maybe the majority is illiterate. Nevermind. The thing is, the cones themselves didn’t represent a threat as such but their new behaviour clashed so hard against the models and representations we relied on, it fucked up everything we believed in. 

And it was only the beginning.