The Something
Issue #405 Keith’s SciFi Musings November 5, 2023
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Bobby (he was pretty sure that was his name) woke up one morning, yawned loudly, and then rubbed his large eyes before opening them. Bob had unusually large eyes for someone so small, but it was his mother who always felt it necessary to point out that for someone with such large eyes, he missed an awful lot.
“Son, you have the biggest, prettiest eyes of any child anywhere. But I swear I just don’t understand how it is that you still can’t see.”
To which Bobby would respond with a grin, “Momma, I see you just fine. So what’s the problem?”
After which they would both laugh, although Bob’s mother seemed to always be laughing with noticeable discomfort. Because she knew her son wasn’t at all understanding what it was she was trying to tell him.
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But on this particular Sunday morning, after Bob opened his eyes, he had a sense that things were about to change because of …something. He wasn’t quite sure what, but there was just that feeling stomping around in his stomach with boots on. And it made him uncomfortable.
After staring into the dark for several long moments, trying to maybe get a preview inside his consciousness of what was this something that was going on, he gave up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. Slowly, he felt himself waking up. And the more he woke up, the more he could feel that something wasn’t right. He placed his hands on either side of him on the bed and gripped the edge tightly. Then he turned his head on a swivel to look at the curtains, which seemed to be blowing gently even though the window they covered had been tightly closed for more than a month because it was October and this was Michigan. The time for wide-open windows had long since passed.
And something was blinking beyond the curtains. Not like a police car’s blinking light, which unfortunately was a common occurrence in Bobby’s neighborhood. No, this was more like the entire world had started blinking like God’s finger kept turning the lights on and off. That’s what he was thinking to himself.
And yeah, it was a strange description. Especially since at that point, he could only see the blinking from behind the curtains. But if you had seen what Bob saw, then there’s a good chance you would have arrived at the same description. Because it was…something.
Bob got up and walked slowly toward his curtains. He stared at them for a while, making up his mind. Then he reached forward and yanked the shades aside in definitive fashion. Because his mother had always said that if you’re gonna do a thing then do it.
“Don’t nobody like half-done nothin’,” she would always say.
And so there Bobby stood in his underwear, looking out into a strange new world that could only be described as something far more dramatically altered than a cosmic universal light switch being turned on and off. Because, my God, this was truly…
Something.
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