102617

virtual post-its
gave us the first clue
messages were rude and strange
"Up yours, human" one of the mildest I saw
then they seemed like whoever
posted them was drunk, or stoned
"Elephants, man, with scales and fangs"
or "Bubbles, billions of  'em, don't let 'em in!"
finally, they devolved to gibberish:
funky characters; letters with
diacritical marks not used
by any known language
I'd need custom software
to reproduce them
by this point the global net
was moribund
we hardly noticed the space invaders
it was already too late, anyway