OFF

Barry was hiding under the table. He didn’t understand what was happening. He looked at the cupboard in which his mother was hiding, and gasped �" it was on fire. He got out of his hiding spot, and ran towards the cupboard. He heard his dad yelling at him to get back inside. He turned around just in time to see his father get shot down. His dad called out for him to run away, as the creature stood over him, aiming its weapon at his father. Just as Barry stepped out of his house, he heard a blast.
Gasping for air, Barry woke up from his nightmare; the same nightmare he had been having for the last twenty years �" the night his parents got killed; the night of the invasion. The aliens came down from the sky without any warning, and left a trail of bodies on their wake. Soon the government managed to drive them off the planet, but everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before they returned. The government started every step to protect the planet from any future alien threats. Taskforces were formed to study the aliens �" their biology, their home, their culture, their language, even their habits. The childhood trauma drove Barry to join these missions. He was an alien linguist, whose job was to decipher the language of the aliens. Years of hard work and dedication made him the leader of the taskforce that was working on translating the operation manuals of the alien technologies.
In his previous missions, Barry had translated a lot of their records, which gave valuable insight into their culture and way of life. The aliens were a parasitic race, stripping any planet they settle from its resources. Once the planet was barren, they would abandon it and move to the next one. They had been doing this for so long even they didn’t know their home planet. They were essentially space locusts. They were a curse on the galaxy.
One fine morning, Barry woke up mid-sleep, hearing his beeper. He was instructed to report to the Mass Weapons Laboratory at once. The tone of the instruction excited Barry. These types of prompts were given out only when major discoveries were made. His mind went on a rampage on its way to the lab, trying to guess what the urgency was.
The Mass Weapons Laboratory was the place where the deadliest weapons of the aliens were studied. It was speculated from the aliens’ records that these weapons could vaporize entire cities instantaneously. His team informed him that they had finally found a way to disarm the weapon. They had already deciphered the alien word for ‘OFF’, and today, they had found its written symbol. The operating manual had detailed passages on how to ‘OFF’ the weapon.
The next few weeks were hectic for Barry’s team. They had successfully translated the manual, and now knew how to disarm the weapon. Barry went over the translation again and again to make sure no mistake was made. The last thing he wanted was to detonate it by accident; the amount of destruction it would cause made him squirm.

Finally, after all the tests and verifications came to an end, the team started the procedure to disarm the weapon. Barry oversaw the operation carefully. He did not want any mistake to be made. Despite his nervousness, the team performed admirably, and succeeded in their task �" the procedure was now complete. As they began to rejoice, the weapon began beeping. A morbid feeling took over Barry. He racked his brain trying to figure out if he had made any mistake. Little did he know that the humans had very different meanings for the phrases ‘SET OFF’ and ‘TURN OFF’. All he could do was try covering his eight eyes using his tentacles, as the nuclear bomb went OFF.