It was cold and nobody asked: a first-timer's account from the bench next to Cheryl

I want to begin by thanking Cheryl Mangan, who I did not know from a bar of soap before the night of 11 June and who talked me through the whole thing while they did the thing with the thing. If she had not been on the next bench I honestly do not know what I would have done. Probably the same thing, but louder.

I am sixty-one. I run a small engineering shop in Charleville, mostly trailers. I had never seen a UFO, never wanted to, and I have always thought the people who go on about them were, with respect, a bit much. I have now been up in one and I would like to formally revise that position to “a bit much, but right”.

How it started

I woke at about ten past two with the bedroom full of blue light and could not move a muscle. I could move my eyes. There were three of them at the foot of the bed, small, grey, heads like upturned saucepans, and they were looking at me the way a mechanic looks at a gearbox someone else has had a go at.

I went up through the ceiling. I had just had that ceiling done. Nobody said anything. That is the first thing I want on the record: nobody said anything. Not hello, not this way, not we’ll have you back by four. You get more conversation out of a speed camera.

The bench

Inside, it was grey, and it was cold. Not cold like a cool room. Cold like a Centrelink waiting area at 8 am in July. The bench was hard and slightly curved and there was a sort of drain at one end which I chose not to think about.

Cheryl was on the bench next to mine. She looked over and said, “First time?” and I said yes and she said, “Right. Don’t look at the ceiling, don’t fight the clamp, and when the tall one comes in, don’t take it personally, that’s just his face.”

Then the procedure. Warren has said this is a family website so I will say only that it was cold, it was thorough, it went on longer than it needed to, and at no point did anyone explain what they were looking for or whether they found it. I have had a colonoscopy. The colonoscopy had a pamphlet. The colonoscopy had a man named Raj who said “you’re doing great, Dennis”. These people did not know my name and did not want to.

Cheryl talked the whole time. Her son, her neighbour, the Tuesday group, a Grey called Gary who apparently owed her a phone call. I did not take much of it in but the sound of her voice was the only warm thing in that room and I will not hear a word against her.

The return

I was put back on my own side of the bed at 3:50 am with a small triangular mark on the back of my left knee and a very strong feeling that I had been assessed and found adequate. The ceiling was fine. The dog had not woken up, which I have since learned is standard and which I consider a dereliction.

The complaint

I am an engineer by trade and I believe in process. On 14 June I drafted a letter of complaint addressed “To whom it may concern, the craft” and read it aloud in the backyard facing roughly south-south-west, which Dr Faraday advised was the correct bearing. The main points were:

1. No consent was sought or obtained.
2. No identification was shown.
3. The facility was cold and the bench was unsuitable for a man with a back.
4. The procedure was conducted without explanation, anaesthetic, or eye contact.
5. I was not offered a cup of tea afterwards, which is the bare minimum for anything involving a drain.

I have not received a reply. Dr Faraday says that is itself a form of reply. Cheryl says that is Gary all over.

Where I am now

I have joined the Tuesday Night Experiencer Support Group by telephone, as Charleville is a fair drive and the servo closes at six. Cheryl puts me on speaker on the trestle table next to the slice. Last week we did a round on “what I would have said if I could move” and I did not realise until I got to the end of mine that I had been talking for eleven minutes and nobody had stopped me.

That is the difference, you see. That is the whole difference. Up there, you are a gearbox. Down here, on the phone, next to the slice, you are Dennis.

I would still like a reply to my letter.

Document U8MC-19-0300. Status: CONFIRMED. This file is retained indefinitely, or until the Men in Beige ask for it, whichever is never.

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