1
Lights By Arianna McCormick
“Or how the Jumblies went to sea in a sieve that they rowed…” I can’t help but tap my left hand against the steering wheel, road yawning endlessly in front of me, vast night sky stretching out forever around my car. How long has it been again? When will I be home? Soon. I’ll be home soon. Something blinks in the sky. Lights. They aren’t stars; stars aren’t red or blue. They blink and dance, and I expect to hear a police siren at any moment. But no siren sounds, and the lights begin to grow. What are they? Where did they come from? Questions shoot relentlessly through my mind as they grow. A satellite. Yeah, it has to be a satellite. It lands, gently caresses the earth’s skin, leaves no impression on the blueish grass. It hovers inches above the dirt, lights blinking playfully, illuminating the empty field its decided to take refuge in. I should just leave. Someone else will come through and claim it, especially if it is a satellite.
2 The car drifts toward the side of the road, parking itself. I walk on legs that feel like jelly towards it. It’s smaller than I first thought, about the size of a frisbee, with three different lights jutting out of it. There are two red ones and one blue one, but they’re all covered in frost. They begin to flash, colors muted. I lean in to wipe the frost away and recoil. Sharp, searing pain shoots up my arm and disappears just as fast, leaving my skin completely black. And it doesn’t stop there. The pain is cold, icy; it’s traveling through my veins and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t scream. All I can do is gape as everything goes numb and everything slowly starts to turn black and ‒
Cold. Everything is so cold. A trembling cold that pierces through your bones and makes you scream. The jumblies are coming for us. That’s the last thought that crosses my mind before I pass out again.
“...crash reported near highway 59. Police say they’ve never seen anything like it, and have taken it in for research. Nobody was spotted in or around it…” Nothing good is ever on this late at night, but I still flick through the channels. Something old starts playing, but it’s better than this suffocating silence.
3 There isn’t much of a drive left; I’ll be with my husband soon. We’re picking up Emily tomorrow. I absolutely can’t miss it, I won’t miss the day when I finally get to see my daughter again. The radio plays. The road stretches on. Street names become more and more familiar to me. I can’t help but tap my right hand against the steering wheel as the sun begins to rise. Ah, light. That’s one way to describe this planet in the daytime.