The dark and secret ways of The Pressfield Eleven, or, small stories from a place no gone, or, the group at the end of the establishment, or, how we came to find out about love in the time of full disclosure.
Most citizens of the sort that follow this type of thing have concluded that the Pressfield Eleven were, and I mean this without insult, a bunch a drooling inbreds not fit for God or country, but we’ll get to that later. Now, and I mean in this instant, the Pressfield Eleven, or P11 for short, were a haphazardly formed collection of drunkards and drug takers involved in conversations about all things philosophical or Fortean. They gathered at a bar on Tuesdays to discuss recent UFO sightings, chupacabras, reptilians, ghosts or the newest episode of whatever television show contained any or all of the above mentioned topics. They gathered on Saturday nights to dismiss the other pub patrons as “amateurs” and “weekend warriors” while sharing quips with one another about the various and often-displayed faux pas of these strange and convivial end of week drinkers. The Pressfield Eleven, or P11 as they eventually deemed themselves, lived the kind of life often memorialized with bad jokes in a eulogy or sideways glances in the office on Monday hungover mornings.
The P11 consisted of, quite counter-intuitively, five permanent members; well, more like three permanent members, one girlfriend of the aforementioned three, and one random drifter from the rear of the facility who sometimes would find himself on the wrong end of a debate, 4.5 on one. They names themselves after a half in the bag argument over quantum theory and whether or not tachyons were real or just part of the Star Trek universe. A mumbled phrase, which in its authorship was meant to say, derisively, “PHOTON SHIELDS SET TO 11, MAXIMUM WARP!”, actually came out more like “THE PRESSFIELD ELEVEN, MAKES WARF!”. That conversation happened 4 days before they would gather for the first time as the P11 to mock the weekend soft drunks.
The point of all this exegesis is that this group of men, bold and free of the bonds of regular society, were actually just a bunch of drunks dull-shitting their late 20’s away. That was until they made first contact. And, let us be clear here, I mean first contact with an alien race. Like, from not Earth alien.. seriously, sender gray fellows with large eyes and not from here aliens… clear? Good. As I was saying, it was August of 2017, an impressively hot in a so-far unimpressive year. They boys and one girlfriend were gathered together in a bowling alley, for the 3rd time ever. John, the lead most of the bowlers was throwing a ball or the bowling variety; Bill and Even were sipping on a light domestic beer, Alley and Jeff stood somberly as they waited for round 3 to begin on the ancient Street Fighter machine. The next blink, as they were aware, went as follows: John, in just released a bowling ball pose, has just tripped a man in a league shirt as he was approaching the line\ Bill, now holding a cupped hand around air is on a large bold man’s lap, we would read his shirt to know he was called Larry; Even is in a similar pose, though sitting on a jacket, not his, on a plastic seat; Alley and Jeff stand somberly in front of a Street Fighter 2 arcade machine now playing a demo fight, urging for coins. All at once, they screamed.
