It was scarcely ten years ago to the day when Melanie was abducted by little green aliens.  It was autumn.  You could taste the season in the air—oranges, reds, and yellows in a breath.  She had just come back from a hard day of work on the farm shucking corn and taking names.  Melanie wasn't talking to anyone in particular, just the surrounding corns and vegetation, but they were her best listeners, and never played Devil's advocate when she informed them that crop circles are a hoax, so she didn't mind.

 

She was munching absently on some malt oats on her way to the outhouse, when all of the sudden, she heard a furious whirring sound and tearing as the wheat was slashed down at the roots in an intricate collage of symbols that spelled out, "Who's a hoax now, b*tch?"  Melanie's heart would have caught in her throat if it weren't for the malt oats in the way.  She clung to a spike† of wheat, but against all rules of physics and logic, it was no match for the force of the alien tech.  The extraterrestrial beings beamed her up to the vessel with a beam that could only be described as indescribable, and her world went white.

 

†Spike  (n) — Also called the ear or head, a spike forms at the top of a wheat stem and usually has 35-50 grains (or kernels).