The 1st Interspecies Solidarity Fair and Parade by Bogi Takács (Rebuilding Tomorrow, 2020) is set on a future Earth that has seen three waves of alien visitors. The first destroyed everything, the second came to scavenge, and then the third (comprising a number of different races who have also been attacked by the first) come seeking allies. Against this background we watch the travels of the narrator and a floating containment sphere which carries an alien called Lukrécia.
As they pass through various regions of Hungary we see them interview various people to see if they would be interested in working in extra-terrestrial communications, but most are not interested as they fully occupied with their hard, agriculture-based lives (the pair do, however, manage to recruit a 72 year old ex-social worker while staying at an old summer camp site).
After this minor success the pair decide to detour round the nearby (and supposedly dangerous) city of Győr and enter it from the southern side. En route they talk to a trans person named Lala, who takes them to the city and, when they arrive, they find it is in pretty good shape (they suspect that the rumours that it is dangerous have been deliberately spread to protect the city).
The final part of the story is partly description of the city and the people who live there (it seems remarkably untouched by the invasions), and partly an account of how the pair try to organise a Pride parade to bring everyone in the city together—although this quickly morphs into the Interspecies Fair in the title. The event is large and disorganised, but is a great success with both the human and alien visitors.
This gets off to an intriguing start but it ends up rambling on too long, and by the end it seems more like a thinly veiled mainstream story about current-day Hungary:
‘I thought an apocalypse would finally get us to give up plastic,’ someone my age in a sparkly dress grumbles next to me. I shrug apologetically. I’m looking around for Lala. I spot him with a very tall person handing out signs. Lala gets one saying ‘FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY’ in rainbow letters above what looks like a very complicated version of the trans symbol.
I remember that slogan from somewhere—for a moment I feel something go crosswired in my brain as I dredge up the right memory from an age gone by. ‘The three Catholic virtues, huh?’ I nod at him, half-yelling in the noise. The unknown sign-maker must have been missing the march of St. Ladislas.
He looks at the sign in puzzlement. ‘Are they?’ He glances around, but the person has already been carried away by the crowd. ‘You know I’m Jewish, right?’ he yells back.
I shrug. ‘I guessed. Here, I’ll take it.’ Not that I should be carrying a large sign. It looks like a recipe for injuring others.
‘Are you Catholic?’ he asks.
‘I was baptised…’
He shrugs, too. ‘I was also baptised.’ He chuckles at my confusion. ‘My great-grandma said you needed to have the right documents.’
‘Even in an apocalypse?’ I look around. A cream-coloured butterfly lands on my shoulder, then another.
‘Especially in an apocalypse.’ But we don’t get to think about the grim moments of Hungarian history, because a large metallic sphere rolls past, the size of Lukrécia’s, but with a brass tint.
** (Average). 8,650 words.