Breaking News!!!

To the untrained eye, the landing of that little speck of a spacecraft, on a teenager infested coffee table might have gone completely unnoticed.

And true to form, no one really paid much attention whatsoever, as lattes and the like continued to be consumed. But beneath that microscopic exterior, there lurked a technology that would make earths finest seem utterly Jurassic.

The First Officer O1 activated the systems that sampled the immediate environment. The sensors threw up large cups, cookies and cuties.

"Hmm, they do seem to indulge in a lot of pointless banter," said Them, the commanding officer, "We have much work to do to restore this planet to any semblance of order. Let's begin by finding out how should we announce our impending takeover?"

First Officer O1, expertly set up the system to analyze the communication mediums in use on the planet, as the visuals flashed across the flight deck's sensor screen, Them had an almost instant fix on the situation.

"They seem to believe a lot in what gets classified as 'breaking news', but what is really amazing is what this species seems to classify as news."

First Officer O1 grunted in agreement, never budging from his task.

"Hmm these seem to be the top three channels that we might consider", remarked Them, as the screen neatly was divided into three triangles that seemed to magically fit together, even as a Fibonacci sequence started doing the rounds about their edges.

"Let's just pick the top one, the others merely seem to be aping it, by the way 'aping' seems to have an evolutionary context here." Them felt quite chuffed about the humorous remark that he had randomly stumbled on, the First Officer O1, sported the cursory 'boss has made a funny crack' smile that seemed to stretch to other dimensions and galaxies as well.

"Permission to pull in the anchor?" enquired the ever diligent First Officer O1, as he began to position the cursor on a rather comely person who seemed to be in the middle of a profoundly important revelation.

"What's her name?"

"Bhagarika Josh!"

"Probably sounds like she is adept at quickly jumping to conclusions and completing other peoples' sentences," remarked Them, nodding his head in approval.

Then there was a brief turbulence in the room and

"In breaking news, two super stars had a fight at a party over who had more six packs."

Bhagarika Josh, felt like she was abducted mid sentence, hurtled through space, time and dimension at a mind boggling rate, and ended up feeling much the smaller for it all.

"They have decided to settle their scores by having a race to the fourteen pack abdomen" That was from the inertia of having begun the next sentence.

"Greetings, earth lady, hope your experience of our drag and drop feature was memorable!" First Officer O1 started in its best baritone.

"Hell, I've had better rides on roller coasters before," retorted Bhagarika with typical newsperson spunk.

"Bhagarika Josh, you are the top newsperson in this world?"

Bhagarika's face lit up with a smile, "I would like to thank my producers, my channel, my millions of dedicated viewers, even those psychopaths who wrote me those blood inked letters, my sponsors, my parents, 'I love you guys', my neighbor's dog who always takes a fancy for my leg, my."

"I was only asking to confirm" interjected Them, "as I had suspected this species does not need very much stimulation to trouble the airwaves."

"Earth lady, you are on a space craft, we have landed to take control of the earth?" began Them in a markedly condescending tone.

Bhagarika's brain suddenly kicked in, the reporter's instinct began to survey her surroundings; maybe there could be something here because the ship was way beyond anything ever seen, even by science fiction movie standards.

"If you landed a space ship why didn't anyone see it?"

"That's because we are on a coffee table, and your species is just too involved in pointless conversation." Them answered.

Show me!" demanded Bhagarika with typical 'anchors disdain'.

First Officer O1 clicked the flight deck screen; it showed what seemed to be the outer surface of a distant hostile planet.

"Whoa! You have kidnapped me, and we are in space, which planet is that?" screamed a jittery Bhagarika.

First Officer O1 clicked his fingers again and the planet seemed to zoom out to what it was- a rather messy coffee cup.

"We are on a coffee table as the commander said," explained First Officer O1,

"you have now been scaled down to our size."

Bhagarika let that sink in for a full minute, the official record for silence for any television anchor anywhere across the world.

Then she started laughing. Both the aliens looked at each other with some surprise.

"Even if I believe that there is no trickery involved and you are the real thing, who will believe something so small can actually threaten the earth?"

"When will you earthlings realize that the real threats are from quarters that you can't see?" questioned a rather philosophical Them, "do you know that the micro organisms on your planet have always held the upper hand against the human species? That whenever you thought you had conquered all known disease, a new one always emerged. Don't you people spend time studying anything?"

Bhagarika's mind had already jumped somewhere else.

"How is it that you know English?"

First Officer O1 chuckled "Communication is all about concepts, you only think we are speaking in English, this has to do more with the universal nature of thoughts and our advanced interpreting systems."

But Bhagarika's fertile though distracted mind had already moved ahead again.

"So you want to address the world, but we already have so much to pack in today, I was doing this fantastic story on the two super stars of our film industry and we have enough footage for three hours there. And then"

"Are you seriously telling me that squabble is more important than what we have to say?" Them asked with absolute amazement.

"Frankly yes, we don't have that much of an audience for things related to space, you know people just blank out, besides anything about actors always gets people watching, but maybe I could fit you in some time later."

"What is the next slot?" First Officer O1wanted to know.

"Well after that segment, we have a section on how rains are paralyzing life in most of our cities, that's kind of mandatory because the public expects it."

"But it isn't even raining that much."

"All the more reason, we debate on when it will and what traffic and other problems will arise because of torrential downpours, everyone tunes in to that before leaving home, hell we scare people so much that even at the slightest trickle they call in sick, office attendances are down by 41% because of our erudite analysis."

"After that?" both asked perfunctorily

"And then yes, there are large sections we will be doing on what the high society types will be wearing for the weekend party," chirped Bhagarika

"And then?"

"We then need to look at regular news, what happened in the day, in politics, business, sports, match fixing you know regular stuff, and yes there is this crisis because the toilet paper in one really large company ran out and so there is going to be a one hour panel discussion on basic amenities and how the entire corporate toilet experience can be made more productive in terms of organizational efficiency and profits, that just about is the whole day. I really can't fit you in."

"Which means?" asked Them, his thirst for conquest already sinking.

"Maybe we have space a week later, you know that's not really bad, because we can work on your appearances and make you a little more 'earth presentable', I know these really good makeup artists that can do wonders"

"Zap her back, let's go somewhere else" boomed Them and instantly First Officer O1 gladly hit the right controls to transport Bhagarika back to her studio.

In the blink of an eye, the speck zipped off, the high speed thrust coming close to speed of light or thereabouts, but the people on the table only were able to appreciate the manner in which it evenly stirred all their coffees.

"Really primitive race!" remarked First Officer O1.

"I'm not really sure, maybe they have discovered secrets that we haven't, maybe there is more to this 'ignorance is bliss' thing that we can think of, perhaps this is their defense mechanism to any threat," pondered Them as the hexagonal speck bolted out of the solar system in pursuit of more amenable targets

Back at the office Bhagarika, stirred in her chair. The producer walked into the room, and put a coffee cup in front of her

"Is everything ok?"

Bhagarika smiled back slowly.

"I think I had a really wild dream, problem is all I remember is that it had a lot to do with coffee cups."