By Frampton Jones

Those of you who saw Rob Rowell fall from the sky during the blood rain can be excused for thinking it was his blood. It wasn’t. Those of you who were alive and present for the previous rampage of giant slugs will remember the sinister birds and the blood rain. This is clearly a natural cycle and we should not worry ourselves overly about it.

This cycle however has now brought us two gentleman, neither of whom has had the pleasure of being a Hopeless Maine citizen for long. Rob Rowell lived long enough after his plummet to tell us his name, that the Martian Expeditionary Force needs us, and that terrible things are happening in the skies over Hopeless Maine.

Of course terrible things are happening in the skies over Hopeless Maine. It’s hard to work up any specific enthusiasm or anxiety over something so routine as that!

I tried my best to interview Rob Rowell before he died – I for one would like a better sense of where these fine gentlemen are plummeting from. His speech was sporadic, but he held on heroically, determined to tell me how important it is that we, as an island, enlist to fight the Martian menace. I tried to explain to him that any menace coming here will have to deal with the assortment of menace already living here and that we usually leave them to fight it out amongst themselves.

It is my understanding that at this very moment, there are people in some kind of sky craft above us fighting with something fairly unspeakable. We may see more of them join us – however temporarily – as a consequence of this fight.

As an aside, this blood rain seems to have brought on the flourishing of red plants, the like of which I do not recall seeing before.

You can join the Martian Expeditionary Force on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1826177650991929/ 

Or help Hopeless Maine see off the red menace by backing the kickstarter (we’ll work on how this functions as a causal relationship, bear with us…. ) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/countrostov/tales-of-hopeless-maine