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Hallo Strange fam. Last time, we listened to Before the Scream, the first part of the Wally K. Daly science fiction trilogy called Scream. It was about a guy who was kidnapped by aliens, and then sent back with ESP powers. We also learn that this selfsame thing happened to other people, presumably also dudes, in other cities. All these dudes were telepathically convinced by the aliens to walk to their respective capital cities and do some naughty thing. But they did not do this naughty thing because they controlled their ESP powers. And then they realised everyone was going to get these powers so everyone had to learn to control it or the aliens would take over. I’m not going to pretend I recapped that correctly. Anyway, now we are going to embark on the second part of this trilogy, which is called The Silent Scream.

The Scream Trilogy


This is an hour and a half long wtf I don’t even have any snacks.

Anyway, the aliens that talk like old white dudes still want to take over even though it didn’t work the last time #nevergiveup

Now a chorus of creepy children are singing ‘we’re going to get the aliens.'

This is horrible.

What the actual fuck.

Remember that guy Smith from the first part who kept showing everyone his ID and making them say it was a nice picture of him? Well he is either at a newspaper or at a typewriting school. And the Prime Minister is there.

The Prime Minister is not there?

We’re just 5 minutes in and I’m already very confused.

Anyway, Mr Tom Harris and his fellow Blue Light Men are still trying to ESP train the people, but the people are not into this because you know why? ESP is fucking creepy you guys.

Why are they called Blue Light Men tho?

On the plus side, the kids seem to like this whole ESP training thing, which is why they are now badly-behaved creepy kids. This is not a plus at all.

The creepy kids are wreaking havoc on the police.

These kids are the worst. POOP OFF YOU GROSS SMALL PEOPLE

Meanwhile! In a cabinet meeting, the PM has just pulled out a machine. Its special power is that it can accidentally kill 50000 people.

The creepy kids have said they are going to do something terrible and Mr. Harris is doing absolutely nothing about it.

Bro, this is not the right response to this situation.

Anyway, that machine that kills so many people doesn’t do that anymore, which is great.

Apparently, it blocks all kinds of communication like an umbrella so this could work to keep the aliens out.

Why didn’t you guys think of this earlier?

The PM said they will test it on Mr. Harris but then he also said he was hiding the truth WHAT TRUTH WHAT AREN’T YOU TELLING US??

Meanwhile! Back home, Mr. Harris has discovered that his baby Sam has ESP’d himself and is presently walking in other people’s minds.

How did they teach a baby ESP?

Should you teach a baby ESP?

No wait, Sam is lost in his own baby mind? Anyway they found him so whatever.

Meanwhile! The creepy kids have sensed that Smith has come to see them.

Y’all sound like demented parrots when you keep repeating things in unison.

One of the kids said they had ‘plots and plans’ and Smith said that sounds like Chinese kitchenware because that is an accurate reflection of how the world was back then and not because Smith is fucking racist.

The creepy kids are torturing Smith now.

This is like Children of the Corn, but it is also not like that.

Meanwhile! Smith has been sent back to … wherever he came from.

Mr. Harris believes that Sam was sent back into his head by someone else who is not Sam. And Sam’s head seems to be filled with images of paradise and the message ‘you’re too early go back’ or something like that. Let us make a note of that because it seems significant.

Mr. Harris and some other adults have finally decided that something has to be done about the creepy kids.

Did Mr. Harris just say they are not his responsibility???

Wtf Mr. Harris. What the actual fuck.

Did I mention there was going to be some kind of village meeting?

Did I mention there was a village?

Anyway, there is a meeting in this village and the kids, who are now called group mind, are going to go there and kill everybody.

The kids are then going to space with their minds to hunt the aliens.

I don’t hate this idea.

So just to recap, we have Mr. Harris and the PM’s underground surprise, creepy killer kids going to space, Sam the baby getting lost and then sent back into his own mind by someone and everyone hates Mr. Harris.

Ok wow Mr. Harris has embarked on a really racist analogy about white people and indigenous people.

Bro, if you say ‘simple’, ‘ignorant’ or ‘native simplicity’ one more time I shall write a very strong letter to The Times.

Anyway, what Mr. Harris was trying to say was that aliens are like white dudes.

The creepy killer kids are going to attack something? Aren’t they supposed to be in space?

Smith, the entire Harris family, and someone called Brian are in the PM’s underground surprise, which is basically an underground bunker I guess. I guess they are going to die now.

Soldiers are now surrounding that other village from before.

The creepy killer kids have realised that they need to kill all the other 6th sense people because they are a direct link to the aliens.

I never thought of that. Solid plan, creepy killer kids.

Something has happened to all the soldiers but no one really cares about them right now.

The creepy killer kids scared away the aliens!! I’m not sure how, but they did it!

You know what? Those creepy killer kids are alright.

Anyway, Harris and co have been freed and have gone back to that village. So I guess they aren’t dead.

All the other 6th sense people seem to be dead except Brian, who is “physically present, mentally absent”, as my old teachers used to say when they referred to me.

I guess Brian wasn’t in the underground surprise then?

Ew what is that?

Fam, there is a creepy kid talking and I don’t like it.

It’s Sam the baby!

The aliens are actually already here and they are in Sam’s head.

Wow, all of them?

So I guess the aliens won. And the creepy killer kids are just flying around in space for no reason.


I enjoyed that fam. I really did. It was solid time-pass and the kids were just horrible, which is something everyone can enjoy. And we can’t really complain about the racism because we just can’t and besides, the white dudes ended up being compared to aliens so if anything, this was racist against white dudes. Anyway.



Kuzhali Manickavel's collections Things We Found During the Autopsy, Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings, and chapbooks The Lucy Temerlin Institute for Broken Shapeshifters Guide to Starving Boys and Eating Sugar, Telling Lies are available from Blaft Publications, Chennai. Her work has also appeared in Granta, Strange Horizons, Agni, Subtropics, Michigan Quarterly Review, and DIAGRAM. She used to blog at http://thirdworldghettovampire.blogspot.com/. She's now at https://www.kuzhalimanickavel.com.
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