Flickering Green Light

The green traffic light blinked on and off, the slight tick of its transition echoing in the silence. Only green, over and over. The street seemed utterly abandoned; its shops dark and forlorn. No one walked on the paved sidewalk and no car headlights lit the road. Nothing existed except this strange, solitary, flickering green light. On and off.

Still, an air of intrigue lingered in the square, a hint that this night held something more. The street waited, its emotion palpable despite its inanimate nature. Any second now.

With a pop, a man appeared. Blue tongues of energy encircled his body as it materialized. His eyes glowed with the same intense blue, highlighting his stern expression in an unexpected way.

As the lights faded from his form, he moved toward the flickering light without a second’s hesitation. He pulled a pad of paper from his pocket, licked the tip of the accompanying pen, and positioned himself directly under the light, hand poised to write.

“27,” he said after several minutes of observation, the annoyance on his face growing more intense.

He glanced around the square and scoffed.

“Where is that man,” he said under his breath, “late as usual. Of all the irresponsible…”

He looked at the light again, pen poised once more.

“32! For the love of Thursday, where is he?”

The slight sheen of sweat appeared on the man’s head and he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Anxiety practically poured from his skin now and droplets of sweat trickled down his cheeks. This too was familiar, but no memories of him remained in the street. How odd.

The man looked around again, his eyes flicking from side to side.

“I swear I will kill him,” he muttered as large beads of sweat worked their way from his skin, “of all the inconsiderate, childish-”

With a pop, another figure appeared in the street. Red and yellow lights and a cacophony of laughter and heat accompanied this one. An unsteady woman hung from one of the man’s arms and the other held a large glass of bubbling, golden liquid.  

“Ah, Annamus, so nice to see you,” said the new arrival, “it’s been what? A day?”

The man laughed then, a deep, chest laugh that made his whole body shake. The woman tittered along with him, but she didn’t appear to understand what was actually going on.

“Magmus,” Annamus said in response, his face a serious and unamused as ever, “nice to finally have you on hand, but did you really need to bring an outsider, you know what kind of danger that could put us in.”

“Oh relax,” said Magmus, “she won’t remember anything in the morning, and she’s such a pretty young thing. Don’t you think?”

“An unnecessary risk.”

Magmus shot him a bored expression.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to live a little.”

“On the contrary,” Annamus said, “it could hurt me. It could hurt a great deal. It could also hurt everyone else. Did you ever think of that? Did you even consider the damage a late reset could cause? People would have no guidance, no lives, they’d just be empty, blank slates. How could you do that to them Magmus, how could you condemn them to a life of such misery?”

Magmus raised his hands.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, waving his hands in a hushing motion, “I haven’t done anything. I’m here, aren’t I? But there’s a reason I’m the one programming the storylines. So, if you don’t want to wind up stuck as a light counter for the rest of your life, you might consider letting go of the reigns a bit.”

“Someone has to keep you dreamers on track.”

“Hey, whatever floats your boat.”

“We’re up to 47 now, we don’t have time to lose. Do you have the lifelines prepared?”

Magmus tapped the side of his head.

“It’s all up here,” he said, “safe and sound.”

He wrapped his arm around the drunk girl.

“I even dreamed up something special for this little lady. I think she’ll like it.”

“Whatever, I don’t care.”

Annamus knelt on the street, pulled white chalk from a fold in his jacket, and drew several sweeping lines. Within a couple of minutes, the street was littered with an intricate, interlaced design.

Magmus watched him work while he sipped at his beverage. As Annamus drew the last few lines, Magmus stepped into the middle of the design and downed the remaining liquid. He sighed contentedly, smacked his lips, and threw the glass down the street.

“Good stuff,” he said, followed by a burp, “just what I needed.”

“How people like you wind up with the responsibility to invent the new storylines I’ll never know. Half drunk and mentally immature, no wonder so many people wind up in such terrible situations.”

“A certain percentage of that is required, you know. I doubt anyone could do this for long without some kind of drug enhancements. Some sociopathy is a good thing sometimes, ‘them are the rules’ as you say.”

Annamus grumbled but didn’t reply. He stood, slipped the chalk back into the fold in his jacket, and wiped the sweat from his face. He gestured for Magmus to continue.

“Let’s finish this then,” he said.

Magmus shrugged.

“Whatever you say.”

He raised his arms, closed his eyes, and chanted something under his breath. A gentle wind blew through the square and gathered strength as it went. Dust swirled over the chalk designs and a few stray leaves joined the motion as Magmus’ voice rose through the night. Soon a swirling vortex encompassed him, twisting around like a mini-tornado, a perfect harmony of wind and chant.

Tendrils of rainbow energy flicked through the vortex, and stray bursts of energy lanced out in every direction. The world seemed to fracture, as if displayed on a million tv screens, and then everything went fuzzy.

Millions of images flicked into light, every person who’d used the street in the past week. They melted together into a confusion soup. And then the world went blank.

-

Two men stood on the street. One had a smug expression while the other just looked annoyed. They seemed familiar, important, but there were no memories of them held in the street.

Something had passed through, something had shifted. The green flashing street light seemed to slow its blink as the men stared at each other.

“Happy,” the smug one said, “everything’s as it should be.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the annoyed on, “as it should be. How about next time you show up on time so we don’t have to scramble so much.”

“Seems like we got it done it plenty of time. You shouldn’t worry so much.”

The smug man looked down at his watch and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, well, look at the time. It’s the start of a new week, after all, time to party. See you later.”

Without a word from the other man, the smug one disappeared in a flash of red and yellow energy.

“Damn cosmic programmers,” said the annoyed one, “there’s no living with them.”

With a pop, he disappeared too, leaving only the faint traces of blue light as he went.

Only the flashing green light remained, its pulse slowing with each blink. It was such a calm night, the start of a new day. The light in the square turned green one last time.