[#039] Two More for the Sky

Rain splattered blood on the windshield as I rolled over the sedan and slammed into the asphalt behind it.

Death didn't come as quickly as you might think. I laid inside my body for a long moment waiting for something, anything, to happen. I heard the brakes squeal and the car door fall open as the driver raced to my side, and a handsome fellow leaned into my field of vision while a small child wailed in the background.

Of course. Even in my last moment I'd managed to ruin everything. Be it an evening's drive through the park or ten years of marriage, I always knew just how to end a life. I was right to step into the road, then. Perhaps the people in the car would overcome this pain, and it would all be worth it for the world ahead.

The man leaning over me drew a cell phone from his pocket, and my prayers for a slow ambulance almost distracted me from the swirling sky above. The storm cracked apart and split open, and a black tube like the proboscis of a titanic butterfly stretched into the dome of the world from some place outside. A great, slow voice dripped from the golden void behind it, loud enough to shatter the windows in the sedan and spray the passenger with shards of glass.

"N-O-T... W-E-L-C-O-M-E... H-E-R-E..."

The man beside me clutched his skull and crumpled, blood dribbling from his nose as he spasmed on the pavement. He was gone by the time the sky sealed up and the color returned to my eyes.
I climbed to my feet and wept for the young boy screaming in the car. I closed the almost-killer's eyes and wept for the price he paid. I pulled the knife from my belt and approached the car, and I wept for my work. I wept for all of you.

Despite all the gifts I've sent, Death still won't take me back. And now you're trapped in here with me.

[#038] If You Blink

I was thirteen when my reflection disappeared in a blink at the bathroom mirror. Four men in suits shoved me into a black sedan that night, and I spent the next five years trapped in a small, reflective glass box, in which I saw absolutely nothing.

Younger me couldn't handle it. Often I would sit and stare into a mirrored wall, which of course would only reflect the wall behind me, which would only reflect the wall in front, on and on forever like an illusion of a corridor trailing off into infinity. Under a kind of spell, I would spend all my waking hours simply sitting and staring into oblivion, imagining that one day my reflection would return and free me from this prison.

But this morning, something changed. Looking off into the distance, I noticed a distant speck fleeing up the hall of mirrors toward me. It grew in size over several hours before I could finally recognize it. Now, I don't know why it left me, but I can guess why it's racing back with a look of such terror spread across my own face. Knowing won't save us, of course, because now I can also see what's chasing it.

[#037] Rapa-tap-tap

I finally leapt from the bed the second time the tapping came, and my hand already grasped the edge of the curtain before I stopped myself.

Rapa-tap-tap came the sound against the glass, and then it drifted back into the haze of rainfall and wind pounding against the roof for the last three hours. Several minutes passed as I considered throwing the curtain aside and tearing open the window before finally I set myself against the terrors of an unmedicated imagination and crept back into the empty covers.

I tossed and turned for hours, never sleeping longer than an instant at a time. I woke with her pillow in my arms twice, clutching it for warmth against the momentary dreams. By 4AM I had nearly given up on rest and wallowed in my thoughts, arms and legs spread out across our giant bed as I listened to the storm song raging outside. The smell of sweet spring rain drifted across my face when the breeze poured in, and I caught myself smiling in its wake and just feeling ready to close my eyes again when I thought to wonder the draft came from.

Rapa-tap-tap came the sound against the night stand.

[#036] I Sort the Good Ones Out

Fog curled through the corn across the road as I listened to the crickets chirping in the grass. Rain had filled the pavement with diamond streaks that glistened in the moonlight as far as I could see, and the sweet scent of summer mingled with the humming bulb to put my troubles in their place.

The clock hanging over the gas pumps read three in the morning, but I couldn't remember how fast it ran. I took another sip of my whiskey and shook the ice around in a circle, tinkling against the glass while I mulled over the day's visitors.

A lot of folks don't think we get the news out here, or maybe they think we're too ignorant to read it. If any passer-by ever noticed the degree hanging on the wall behind my counter, they probably assume it's some podunk certificate I got from the mail. What's a fancy doctorate doing in a place like Stoan, Illinois anyway? They don't know, so they shut it out.

And that makes it so much easier to keep 'em at ease. People tend to notice things that confirm their bias first. Then they notice the degree. Then they notice the air smells a little different here and the radio hasn't been actually been playing since they drove past the county line, but a recording of static played to mask a gentle voice whispering words like "klondike" and "victor" at random intervals.

Then when the ground shakes and they start to panic, I point at the paper on the wall and say, "Relax, I'm a doctor." And by then they're too confused to do anything but listen. That's when I turn them around and send them back to the highway.

Because they're no good to us if they notice.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

My name is Ron, and I sort the good ones out. My checkpoint sends the smart visitors away, and I let the ones who won't escape keep driving into town. Lately we're all caught up, so I just warn them all away. The really easy pickings don't care to listen to an old country fogey like me anyway, so it doesn't hurt to tell you this now:

If you ever stop for gas on a long, empty road and the attendant tells you to pack up and move back where you came from, you listen to him.

Or don't.

I guess your parts will keep anyway.