The Ancient Astronaut Theorist

The ancient astronaut theorist believes
there is a chance the Egyptians had help from the sky.
He believes those flying cars in the Ramayana
are more than translation errors.
The ancient astronaut theorist believes
it is folly, hubris, pomposity
to accept that you can know we are alone
in the unknowable universe.

The ancient astronaut theorist believes
the Syfy producer when she says
they are looking for a new Giorgio,
a younger Giorgio, a Giorgio for the millenials.
The ancient astronaut theorist believes the Syfy producer
but wishes she would use the word “Giorgio” less
when she tells him about her wishes.

The ancient astronaut theorist believes
his appearance on the one about Shiva the Destroyer
did not do him any favors with the department,
even though he was careful to point out
that no scientific evidence exists
to indicate that Shiva really was an alien leader
who brought advanced technology to earth,
or that her third eye was not a third eye
but a raygun that shot fire out of her forehead.
The ancient astronaut theorist believes
still that it defies both logic and history
to imagine they could have carved the entire Kaisana Temple
out of a single piece of rock,
twelve hundred years ago.

The ancient astronaut theorist believes
the other adjuncts are calling him
Shiva the Destroyer. It is not
a compliment, far from a compliment
and still--
a single piece of rock?
Twelve hundred years?
It is unfathomable, folly, hubris.
It is his curse and his gift:
he can fathom it only one way.

The ancient astronaut theorist believes
these Wheaties are becoming stale,
have become stale, are stale.
He believes the boiler
will need to be replaced.
Diapers are so expensive.
The Discover bill is due in three days.

The ancient astronaut theorist believes
he hears the baby stirring upstairs,
the birds singing, cars driving,
the baby cries her primitive cry.

The ancient astronaut theorist believes.

Dave Housley is the author of the novel This Darkness Got to Give and four story collections, most recently Massive Cleansing Fire and If I Knew the Way, I Would Take You Home. His work has appeared in Booth, Hobart, McSweeneys, Redivider, and some other places. He's one of the founding editors and all around do-stuff people at Barrelhouse.

The genre2 interview

What is your preferred genre and why?

Fiction. Short fiction is the one that I feel like I know how to do the best and that's probably just because I've worked at it more than anything else. Currently I'm working on a novel but wouldn't say that I exactly know how to write one of those very well.

Why did this piece compel you to move to this alternative genre?

I had been thinking about an idea for a poem based on the phrase "ancient alien theorists believe," which is a common refrain on the show Ancient Aliens. It's easy to be cynical and jokey about it, but I had an idea about a young "ancient alien theorist" working alone early in the morning, and really believing, and struggling with the fact that most of his colleagues and the rest of us in the world kind of look at that as a joke. I love the show Ancient Aliens and there's a moment in most of them where it kind of slides—for me, at least—from presenting a fairly persuasive argument that maybe there was something more to a story to being a kind of loopy free-associative linked collection of random conspiracy theories. We always joke that Ancient Aliens is never more than one anecdote away from Nazis or the Denver Airport (so many questions about the Denver Airport!). I kind of wanted this to slide around in that way but eventually tip toward earnestness.

What challenges or surprises did you encounter while working in this genre?

Editing. Also, I think I'm kind of a hokey poet. It's hard to edit out the hokey-ness, if that makes any sense. Much harder in a poem, for me, than in a short story, where I feel like I naturally edit any tendency toward earnestness or hokey-ness very early in the process, so the resulting story doesn't bear much of that initial impulse toward sentimentality or over-simplification or I'll just go ahead and write hokey-ness again. I thought it was really interesting how much harder it was to edit myself and those tendencies in a poem than a story. I feel like a lot of writing is just hard work and experience so I attribute the fact that I can do that in a story better than a poem to the fact that I've written so many more stories. Still, it was really eye opening how hard it was to apply the things that I've learned to do in fiction to another genre. Thanks for the chance to do that!