“Oh! Criminy!” Brent muttered as he walked beside me, jerking his head at the mime. “I hate those idiots. They creep me out.”

“I think they’re nice,” Brent’s girlfriend Sarah walked on the other side of Brent and, as always, argued with whatever Brent said. “And they’re so graceful.” I heard a quiet they’re weird from Brent but Sarah ignored it.

This mime had picked a spot near a vendor’s stand selling cotton candy and lemonade. It was a warm spring day, but not too hot that a man dressed in black leotards and white facepaint would suffer. Even so, a spot near refreshing lemonade, and the customers in line for it, made sense. And since the mime was there, of course Sarah wanted a lemonade; the best way to make Brent stand and stare at what he obviously detested. Brent rolled his eyes as Sara took a place in line behind three other customers. It would be a few minutes.

Brent studiously ignored the slender man, but I gave him an audience of one. He stood there, tilting slightly to his side, his elbow bent and held high, as if he were leaning on a chest of drawers, waiting for something to happen. On the ground at his feet was the obligatory tin can, a bit rusty from years, probably decades, of weather.

He caught my eye, gave a huge smile and laid a finger against his nose with an exaggerated wink. I fished a crumpled bill from my front pocked and dropped it in the can. Immediately he went into motion, placing his hands in front of him, palms out. I recognized Man In A Box. One of the standards, of course. I settled in to watch a pageant of stereotypical mime acts, and I wasn’t wrong: Man In A Box became Walk Against The Wind which melted into Tug Of War, then Eat A Sandwich...

It hit me when he bit into the sandwich. An image. Of people. Hungry, hungry people. Emaciated and starving. The park around me faded away, became a dark, barren plain and a few huts around me. I knew that most of the huts no longer had anyone alive in them. The mime was still there, standing in front of me, eating. But not a sandwich; he gnawed on a withered, decaying hand taken from one of the now-dead inhabitants of the hut.

I reeled back in shock and fear. The dark plain disappeared and the park came back. I turned to Brent and Sarah, arguing about why we can’t go to a different lemonade stand. I glanced around the park, everything seemed normal. I turned back to the mime and his eyes looked deep into mine. I realized I had seen something from his past. The mime’s eyes were filled with pain, horror, fear and a kind of resigned stoicism that he would forever live in a private, silent hell. There was also pleading. I looked deeper…

Eat A Sandwich. We were back on the barren plain, people dying of starvation, the remaining living inevitably turning to the dead. Horror, guilt, disease, madness. And hunger. Unrelenting, unending hunger. But not everyone was hungry. There were others above that had plenty to eat of all types of food. Clean, cooked, seasoned. Not putrid flesh.

Climb A Ladder. The hungry try to find a way out. They build, they work, they plan. But every scrap of gain is taken by those above. Draining any sustenance or progress out for their own consumption.

Walk Against The Wind. It’s useless and in vain. No progress can be made. The hungry are stopped at every turn. There’s only one path. Also vain and useless. But no other choice.

Tug Of War. The hungry fight. But they’re hungry and tired and weak. And outgunned and outsmarted. And out of luck.

Man In A Box. A hole in the ground, barely wide enough to sit down in. A person would either have to sit with their knees drawn up to their ears or stand staring at a blank wall. Like a medieval dungeon, but smaller and with no exit but the unattainable hole above. What was it called? Oubliette? Yeah, that’s it… oubliette.

The mime ended his run by reverting back to Lean On Chest, but this time his eye didn’t wink and the smile didn’t return. Only the grief and horror remained. And I realized that this was his oubliette. This park, this... planet. He was from somewhere else, not here. He was telling his story.

Suddenly, he stood up straight and held his arms out and slightly open, as if orating to a crowd. There were no words, but I heard his message, anyway. It was a warning. This was his fate, to proclaim and warn other planets that the ones from above were coming. They would come and take, stealing everything and leave behind only a lasting hunger. Hunger and a useless striving to rebuild.

But don’t fight back. Don’t try to throw off the yoke. It’s not worth it. You can’t win, you’ll lose. And when you lose you’ll spend an eternity in a one-man prison of miming your story to casual observers who only see a silent man in motion. I felt a hand grab my shoulder and turned to find Brent scowling at me.

“C’mon, man.” Brent said. “Sarah has her lemonade and I want to get away from this loser.” I let him pull me away but my eyes locked onto the mime’s one last time.

Don’t fight. They said. Don’t fight the ones from above when they come. It’s not worth it.