Instant

Instant

It was 12:47 AM. I feel as if most people would still consider that a late Thursday night, though technically, it had just become Friday. There was lightning. No rain. It felt as if all my night drives as of late had consisted of this lightning in the dusty sky. Had there been rain it would have felt cinematic. Without it, it just felt eerie, creating more of a sense of urgency to be home, safe in bed, my face clean, my teeth brushed, my pill cut in half and washed down with water.

But alas, I had fifteen minutes left on the road. Fifteen minutes of feeling like the strikes of lightning seemed…”dangerously close” though they were probably still miles away. Fifteen minutes of dragging my ailing vehicle through flashing yellow intersections as the changing traffic lights had retired for the day. Fifteen minutes of listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s greatest hits, trying to extract a sense of poetry from this otherwise ghostly drive.

And on that ghostly drive was the first time that I saw something strange in my peripherals. A glimmer of light. Something I could not look at directly. A green light. I rubbed my right eye, thinking a tear might be reflecting a shade of the night sky. But it could not be rubbed away. It persisted.

I must be exhausted, I thought to myself. The green light made me even more eager to be safe in bed.

And eventually, at 1:02 AM I pulled into the driveway. I checked on my sleeping daughter and kissed my sleeping wife, crawled into bed, and drifted off, the emerald glimmer still flickering in the corner of my eye.

The morning brought a new sense of peace, and a new sense of dread.

“What time did you get home last night?” my wife, Shelby asked me as I sat up on the edge of the bed.

“About one.”

“You must be tired,” Shelby came over and kissed me on the cheek. “Is your eye okay?”

“My eye?”

“Yeah. You keep rubbing it.”

I realized I had been. My hand was over my right eye. The green light was still there. “Mm...maybe I need to go to the eye doctor or something. I have an orb.”

“Your dad has always had vision problems. Maybe you’re getting to that age.” she said, smirking at me.

“Yeah, yeah.”

I walked out into the kitchen to see my daughter, Addie, hunched over the counter with a bowl of Captain Crunch.

“Hi, Daddy!” she called, her blue eyes aglow.

“Hi, sweetheart!”

“I missed you last night. Mommy made smash potatoes.” she said, wrapping her little arms around me.

“Oo, smash potatoes. What kind?”

“Regular.”

“Did you save me some?” I asked, my hands around her shoulders.

“No,” she giggled. “I ate them all.”

“You did?” I tickled her. She continued to giggle.

“No, no! Mommy put them in a ‘tuppa-ware”!” Addie laughed. I laughed too.

“Oh, good, good!” I continued tickling, the little girl laughing.

“Addie, time for school!” Shelby called. Addie jumped down from her spot, grabbed her purple backpack, and ran to her mother.

“Bye, Daddy!” she yelled to me.

“Bye, honey.”

Shelby kissed me and left. And shortly after, I left for work as well.

I was twenty-eight years old, and I started to wonder if maybe Shelby was right. Maybe I was just developing some issue with my vision as this green light persisted. And it seemed to be moving. It was inching further away from the edge of my eye.

There was just something so frightening about it. Like it was trying to tell me something.

I sat at my desk, trying to fill out an excel spreadsheet, the orb continuing to block my view. My eye was now inflamed from all the rubbing.

“Sam, you okay?” My boss asked me as he walked by my desk. “You didn’t bring pink eye into this office did you?”

“No, Charlie. I’m sorry. I’m feeling kind of off, kind of distracted. I’m having this weird thing with my vision and-”

“Listen, we’re all good here today. Why don’t you take off, get some sleep, see a doctor? Enjoy your weekend and be all ready to go on Monday. Yeah?"

I pondered for a moment. “Okay. Thanks, Charlie.”

“Can you drive? Or should I call you a cab?

“No, I should be fine. Thank you.”

I headed home, the green light seeming to be moving still. It was really freaking me out. But I made it to the house and got myself inside. I felt the only thing to do was sit on the couch. Motionless. The light flickering brighter and brighter. It had a secret to tell. I needed to find out what that was.

Eventually, Shelby came home with Addie and I managed to communicate without suspicion. Then, in what seemed like seconds, dinner was on the table.

“You seem quiet, Sam.” Shelby said, her fork clanking against the glass plate.

“Yeah, Daddy. You seem quiet.” Addie said, mimicking her mother.

“I’m sorry, you guys. It’s just my eye.”

“The green light?”

“Yeah. Wait- did I tell you it was a green-”

“It wants to tell you something, Sam.” Shelby said, very solemnly. Addie too stared at me with this serious look in her eye. My heart began to race. The light began to grow, until it was nearly all I could see.

“Wha-” I stammered.

“It wants to tell you that we never got married.” Shelby said, putting her hand on mine.

“It wants to tell you that I was never born.” Addie said, looking down at her plate.

“Wha-” I stammered again, the green light overtaking both eyes now.

“I’m just the girl you drove home from cheer practice senior year. And then we wrecked in that intersection. And it’s time for you to wake up.” Shelby began to talk louder.

“Wake up, Sam.” Addie said, raising her voice like Shelby.

“Wake up!” They both yelled.

Wake up.

Everything was green.

Wake up.

“Sam, Sam, are you awake?” a nurse nudged me.

I am not twenty-eight years old. I am in fact eighteen. And I woke up.

I woke up to find out that I had lived the past ten years of my life when my head crashed through my windshield after being hit by a car running a red.

The last thing I saw was a green traffic light.

I woke up broken and confused, my mother and father standing over me. My mother was crying. I was crying. After a few days of regaining my strength I found myself in Shelby’s hospital room. The girl on the cheer team I thought was cute, so I offered a ride home. She looked so young.

Eventually I got myself home, well- home in my parents’ house. My mom cooked dinner, chatting with me, desperately trying to create a sense of normalcy after the accident.

“Can you make these?” My mother asked, showing me a box. “They’re instant.”

I froze. “Sure.”

The three of us sat down to dinner. And as my mother discussed my pending college applications, a tear fell into my smash potatoes.