Prism

A stream of post-bomb show patrons poured through the double doors, flooding the bar with sun-scorched, sweaty glee.

The Bomb Show Happy Hour had begun.

“I’ll take four Bombshells and a slice of The Black Death, Red! Didya get a decent view of the show?” One of the bomb show regulars perched across from the bartender, Red, who poured the shots in a single motion with one hand and passed a slice of chocolate cake with the other. “I always do. Whether I like it or not.”

“Just magnificent. Can you believe these morons out here trying to shut us down? Lunatics claiming people're falling from the sky. So they blame the one thing we all enjoy. The one thing uniting us!”

A crowd gathered at the end of the bar, brashly belting a tune they’d all been raised to sing: “The blast that unites us all! Unites us all! Unites us all!”

Then they took turns speaking broken poetry about the beauty of the show they had all just attended.

“Burning, drowning, yearning eyes, begging to stay wide open. The desert blasts into a blinding breeze followed by a gentle snow.”

After several rounds of bombshells, Red was relieved to see the fall of night repel the crowd.

Their cars roared and squealed into darkness. Some skidded far off into the distance while others circled the bar, racing with their headlights off.

She locked the doors once the last remaining lingerers stumbled out and crunched through the gravel lot towards their cars.

Even if she had a place to go home to, it was a death wish to leave. The drunk night racers were ruthless.

***

The following morning, the news barked above the bar while she jumped into an icy shower; another day, another bomb-show broadcast, a huge crowd gathered on screen; children joined hands with elders and waited anxiously to watch the bomb drop just a few dozen miles to the North.

“In a time where people can’t agree on anything, everyone seems to agree on the bomb-shows!” The anchor on screen beamed. The whole ordeal disturbed her as if she were watching a public execution.

She threw a leather jacket over yesterday’s bombshell stains and clicked off the broadcast.

The bomb wouldn’t be struck for hours; between the vicious night racers and the daily bomb drops, dawn was the only window of opportunity to enjoy the desert roads anymore.

***

She closed in on a steep hill, taking the motorcycle airborne, soaring blindly through bright morning fog, wind ripping through her clothes and rippling her skin. She closed her helmet and sped up, entering the center of a sonic boom.

The land surrounding her seemed endless. Foggy orchards of trees were scattered off in the distance.

From miles away, she saw someone limping on the side of the road. As she coasted nearer, she realized they were in rags, covered head to toe in dirt and blood.

Red shivered and slowed down next to them.

“Hi there...Do you need some help? Need a ride to the hospital?”

“I need out.” The sound of her own voice seemed to startle her as if she’d never spoken.

She kept scowling and smiling and bending her features, uncertain of what she was manipulating. Every movement looked unfamiliar as if she was relearning how to use her limbs.

“What’s your name? Is there anyone you can call?”

She looked at her banged up arms, touching her wounds, perplexed by the blood.

“Are you hurt? Do you want to get out of here?”

“You’re speaking to me in some strange code,” she said. “What are you asking?”

“What’s your name?” Red repeated.

They stared back as if she’d spoken gibberish.

“What do they call you? How are you called? How would you like me to address you?”

“You may call me Cria.”

“Beautiful. You may call me Red.”

A side hatch popped and she pulled out a black bowl to replace the helmet on her head. “You’ll want this for your melon,” she said, handing her the real helmet.

“Pardon?” Cria fastened the helmet.

“Just hold onto me. Is this okay?” She guided their hands around her waist.

“Yes.”

“You sure, you know what I’m saying?” She asked.

“Not when you speak in code, no. I’ll hold on,” she said.

“Wanna go fast?” She asked.

“Yes, please,” she said.

Her open wounds and retinas were burning as they watched the trees blend into a stream of bright, lush life; stunning, blinding unknown colors she had never seen were stinging the sockets of her skull. Dizzy, she held the stranger a little tighter. She closed her eyes and tried to let the breeze explain everything.

The violet shadows behind her eyelids could still see the world she’d been taken out of mere moments ago.

She was on a morning flight through the cosmos alone when suddenly she was crashing into scorching hot soil. As if in a single instant, someone had flipped a switch, burned the entire world she knew, and replaced it with another.

She opened her eyes to a narrow slit. They were speeding beside a river. The water here looked like lava. None of the colors made sense.

They sailed airborne and exhilaration filled her lungs.

She shouted at the back of Red’s helmet. “Are we dead?”

“Not quite yet.”

Not yet...so she expected it.

“You think that you are dying?”

“We all are. Aren't we?”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Are you religious?”

“Not to my knowledge. But you’re using code words again, so I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Where are you from?”

“Here, it seems, I am from the sky. I don’t know how else to answer such a question.”

“Is that how you got all banged up? Did you fall?”

“I crashed,” she said.

“Plane crash?”

“No. I said I crashed.”

“I’m worried you may be concussed. Let’s find a doctor where I can drop you.”

The code words the stranger kept using confused her, so she stopped talking. She thought of the way she had crashed here as she dangled one arm out and let the wind hurl it backwards. She brought both arms in, tugging herself close. “Go fast!” She shouted.

Red punched it.

“Faster!”

The trees along the horizon liquified.

She let go, soaring backwards into the sky.

***

From far above, the crowd looked like tiny droplets coming together to flood the desert.

Sweaty bodies eagerly slipped past one another for a better view of the show. Their fingers dancing, their heartbeats racing, their tongues falling out of their mouths at the end of every guttural cackle.

Excitement permeated through the breeze; gathering in the desert to watch the bomb-shows was a daily event for some families. People waited all day long to get the best view and while they anxiously melted in the blistering desert heat, refreshments were served, along with a carnival running all day long to pass the time until the big event.

A megaphone shouted into the crowd, “Hello, Monroe!”

The crowd erupted with joy.

“Are you ready for a remarkable show?” The megaphone shouted.

They stomped and roared with the enthusiasm of children tearing through a theme park.

“Let's light 'em up!” The megaphone shrieked and popped off into silent exhilaration.

All of them felt compelled to remain still and mute. Light hushes brushed through the crowd as parents coached their children accordingly.

A silent match struck miles away quickly transformed into a blinding light that sprawled across the horizon.

Spots collected in their vision like clouds as the burst of light collapsed into a mushroom cap in the sky. That was when the legendary BOOM! happened, blasting out at the stunned and paralyzed crowd.

The beginning of the explosion was so piercing, the crowd never heard the entirety of the impact.

***

The ground was finally cold against Cria’s skin, and the sun was finally low enough that she could see.

She pushed through agonizing pain to stand on tattered, twisted bones.

A siren of screeching tires whipped past like a centrifuge, forcing her to dive into a ditch.

Someone whistled at her. “Hey baby, you wanna party?” A group of them howled with laughter.

More code words to ignore, she reasoned.

The man shouted again. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

She continued into the shadows and he started following her. “I’m talking to you, ditch trash bitch!”

She stopped. “Is that what you call it? Talking?”

Her silhouette approached him, streetlights skimmed over her face, and he started to see that she was covered in blood.

“Is that the creature I am? A bitch? I couldn’t possibly begin to understand your senseless, passive code.”

“I’m just trying to have fun, sweetheart. Calm down.”

“I don’t know what it is to calm down. And I’m not having fun, so stop trying.”

“Go crawl back under the nasty rock you came from.”

“I would, gladly.”

“Hey boys,” he shouted, “Get over here. We got a wild one on our hands.”

She tilted her head to one side like a reptile detecting an attack.

“Are you aware of the difference between you and I?” She asked.

“You’re a rude nasty bitch that lives in a cave?” He replied.

“That sounds nearly accurate. But no.” She grazed her knuckles over his chest, knocking, surprised he wasn’t hollow. “Full of thick, illusory substances, aren’t you?”

“What’s the difference between us? You want to show me?” He asked.

“The difference,” she twirled her fingers near his throat, clutching a heart-shaped locket, “I’m told that you...can die.”

***

The man laid unconscious as the locket twirled in the wind like a carousel in reverse. She started towards a barren field.

“Murderer!” One man rushed over to the body and started shouting when suddenly his legs were ripped from the ground and he was sent hurling through the air by a blind racing vehicle. The car screeched off into the night.

Another vehicle approached. The sputtering engine slowed and silenced.

“Hi there.” A familiar voice said. Red struck a flashlight next to her head, pointing it at the sky.

“You want to get out of here, or are you going to...leap off the back of my bike again?”

“I was trying to leave the same way I entered. There’s only one more way I know to try.”

Cria limped over to collapse on the motorbike.

“Please. Go fast.”

The sky was lilac and starless when Cria asked to stop along the coast.

She waded in the sea, swimming deeper as the sun rose higher.

The undertow carried her out into the open ocean, pulling her deeper into the abyss until the emptiness painted itself with galaxies again.

She was home, even if only for a little longer until the next crash.