A Family Affair

It was all he had ever wanted: to be in that cockpit, slicing through the heavens. Even in his final moment, he was grateful. He had graduated top of his class from the Naval Academy twenty-eight years earlier with a chest full of medals and the admiration of superiors and subordinates alike. It was one of the greatest moments of his life, second only to the birth of his child and only marginally more overwhelming than the moment he breathed, “I do.” More awe-inspiring than overwhelming, when he thought about it. As a matter of course, he didn't get overwhelmed. Not when he first saw it, and not when he realized it was the end.

There had been sightings off of the Atlantic coast for some time – reports of a “silver bullet” around the size of an F-16, or perhaps a small house. Fifty feet seemed to be the estimation most often thrown around. They appeared sporadically at first, and then more consistently as the weeks passed. Strangely, despite the US military’s best efforts, they never allowed domestic aircraft to get close and appeared to have no interest in making themselves known. This is why it surprised him when he happened upon one off the coast of Charleston during what had been an otherwise uneventful training sortie. He was about seventy clicks from shore when he first saw the shimmer on the horizon; he realigned the nose of his jet and quickly closed the distance. As the mystique around them had grown, he had become uneasy about the idea of intercepting one, but he felt completely calm now as he watched it hover above the ocean’s surface. It appeared to be coated in a gleaming, monochrome substance and reminded him of a rattlesnake egg magnet, a child’s toy he remembered seeing in a Sears Christmas catalog a few years ago. Although it displayed no markings or overt signs of intelligence, he was struck by the impression that it was fixated on something just below the surface of the water. As he barreled toward it, however, it suddenly maneuvered its axis so that it pointed directly at him. Without warning, it launched itself in his direction and appeared to reach Mach 1 within seconds, even though he was unable to detect a sonic boom nor the telltale vapor cone of transonic speed. He yanked on his side-stick and attempted to renegotiate his trajectory, veering leftwards in a tight semicircle. Straining mightily against the G-forces, he rapidly leveled out and engaged the thrusters. He quickly reached Mach 1 himself - 761 mph provided him a communion more profound than any he had experienced at church as a boy - and checked his radar. No blip whatsoever. He exhaled and congratulated himself on his prowess. A premature celebration, he found, as the shimmering pod instantly appeared in front of him. He immediately released two AIM-9 missiles and attempted a dive to escape the imminent blast. Before he could perform the maneuver, however, he felt the locket fixed securely around his neck, the one he never took off, burning a hole through his flight suit. He glanced up at the silver craft as the missiles connected and, in that moment, felt himself slipping uncontrollably, not only into his own subconscious but into the entity that hovered before him. He braced himself for the maelstrom, but it never came - the pod appeared to swallow the missiles whole and subsequently released an all-encompassing, globular pulse of its own. He felt a white light encapsulate him, and he knew serenity.

Naomi lay sprawled over her kitchen table, her right arm supporting her throbbing head. An ashtray sat in front of her, patiently waiting for another smouldering deposit. She groaned. She couldn’t decide whether she needed coffee or an Alka Seltzer. Or eggs. Her stomach answered for her. She dragged herself up from the table and ambled over to the stovetop. The burner clicked on, and a pan boasting two dark yolks descended smoothly over the flame. Morning news blared from the living room.

“...on top of the fact it has now been three weeks since the detonations, or whatever they were. The country’s best and brightest still can’t seem to come to a census about the precise nature of the event, Brian. We now know that these things were in airspaces across the world flying around undetected, and it’s clear that the first missile contact from one of our own precipitated a chain reaction, but were the blasts nuclear? Some electromagnetic pulse? A combination of the two? It certainly appears to be beyond our capability to positively ID. Half the country’s power grids are down, at least a quarter of the world population seems to be suffering various degrees of radiation poisoning and SARS-like symptoms, and the euro is essentially worthless due to France and Germany’s crumbling economies.”

“Terrifying stuff, Tom. Diane, how’s the weather today in New Y--”

She turned it off. The weariness she felt hearing about it magnified with each passing day. The explosions, or whatever they were, were all anyone talked about anymore. Not surprising, given that it was the most bizarre thing to have happened since the pandemic a few years ago, but still…there was only so much to be said. She returned to the table and continued picking at her eggs. Organic, local, and fresh; her migraine really brought out the flavor. Possibly the last ones she would ever have, she thought. She heard the baby cry from the other room, requesting to be fed. She threw the eggs in the trash, walked to her daughter’s crib, and gently scooped her up. Ruthie was heavier than she remembered. Her love for her daughter seemed to grow in direct proportion to her size. She recalled the first time she saw the two pink lines on the off-brand strip she had purchased on a whim. She hadn’t been exactly thrilled with the idea of being a mother, but found herself surprised not only by her maternal instinct once she welcomed Ruth into the world, but by the sheer love she felt for her child - a love that had only flourished since the moment she first saw her. How could someone who had simply not existed only months before so radically alter her perception of the most fundamental aspects of emotion, of the human experience itself? It was almost incomprehensible. As Ruth lay curled in her mother’s arms suckling contentedly, she gently pawed at the gleaming, heart-shaped locket dangling from her neck. Naomi calmly took hold of her child’s arm and tucked it back into her muslin wrap before fidgeting with the locket herself. She twirled it around in her fingers, feeling its heft, its warm, dusky platinum seemingly molding to her fingertips. It had been a gift from her mother, a brilliant cosmologist who had it crafted from a segment of the Chicxulub meteor that had landed off the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula sixty-six million years ago. For years, geophysicists had only been able to detect asteroid dust at the crater site, but her mother had journeyed to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Mexico before Naomi was born and had met a “friend,” as she had called him. She never talked about him, only that he had given her a “special rock that made the dinosaurs disappear,” which she had turned into two heart-shaped lockets - “for the two most special people on Earth,” she had said. Naomi recalled the day she gifted her the locket: they had taken a trip to Central Park, just the two of them, since her dad was on deployment. She remembered missing him so much. She had always gotten the impression that her mom was able to sense just how much, even though Naomi had never discussed it with her. They had just bought two strawberry ice cream cones and were sitting on a bench in the middle of the park when her mom draped it over her neck and clasped it gingerly.

“For you, my love,” she had whispered, her kind, playful eyes dancing around her face.

Naomi had inspected it as she ate her ice cream, noticing the way it caught the light, like freshly-polished chrome. It had an odd warmth to it, both in appearance and sensation. Almost as though it possessed a soft, undulating glow, but she couldn’t be sure if it was an illusion brought about from the sunshine streaking through the tree branches above her. She savored this, one of her last memories of life before her world collapsed; her mother had embarked on a return trip to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve a few weeks later and, to the bewilderment of her family, friends, and colleagues, was never heard from again. As she played with the memory, she absentmindedly twirled the locket around in her free hand, her daughter’s bright blue eyes tracking every movement. Naomi’s daydream was gently interrupted by an unusual sensation in her hand; she realized that the stone was getting warmer, its glow more luminous. At the moment this occurred to her, she felt herself begin to slip. In college, she had developed a passing interest in shamans and their ceremonial use of Ayahuasca in the rain forests of South America; she imagined the spiritual brew prized by traditional healers might produce a sensation comparable to the one presently overtaking her. She had never really believed in an afterlife or astral projection, but wondered whether she was now experiencing an amalgam of both. She tried to fight but ultimately let herself lose control, her psyche transported to a foreign realm. As though in a trance, Naomi stood up, placed Ruth in her crib, and removed the locket from her neck, draping it across her daughter’s small body. Ruth merely stared at her mother, unblinking and inquisitive. Naomi silently looked upon her daughter’s face before opening the door and exiting the room in one fluid motion. Without pausing, she walked out of her apartment, down the stairs, and into the streets of New York City. Garbage and abandoned cars filled the streets - it was amazing how quickly a city could be thrown into decay even with half of it still technically functional - but Naomi paid no mind. She moved briskly toward Central Park, following the prompts imprinted into her psyche. She was struck by a vague notion, a glimpse of another childhood memory - she saw herself watching Sesame Street after school, felt a naive dread permeating her mind…it was the day she realized that her beloved friends were not real, or at least not in the sense that she had always thought. The notion quickly dissipated as she approached the epicenter of the park. There it levitated, completely silent and motionless save for an almost indiscernible vibration. A soft, amber-like glow emanated from its entire body, beckoning her. She knew it was there even before she saw it. Waiting, with all the time in the universe. She sauntered toward it, simultaneously and inexplicably calm yet overcome with a burning wistfulness, a longing she could not identify. She paused at the opening and turned to glance at the oscillating, platinum-chrome surface. It was reminiscent of the thin layer of saltwater the tide left as it retreated from the shore at sunset - dynamic, fluid, bright, and beautiful. With a combination of apprehension and homesickness, she suddenly realized she was staring into the faces of her parents. She recognized her father’s sharp, handsome features, weathered by years of stress and exposure as a naval aviator, and peered into her mother’s kind, playful, intelligent eyes. After a moment, she allowed herself to be drawn into it, a coruscating seal of dusky silver forming soundlessly behind her. She was enveloped by a serene, white light, and it was the last thing her corporeal consciousness knew.