The Day the Earth Moved

It was a quiet spring evening in Louisiana, and Robert stood looking at the starry night outside his Crew Lake house. He shifted his weight on his feet, listening to the wash pea gravel give and move underneath his boots. The only other sound was the bullfrog's deep croaking, amplified as the sound carried across the lake's surface. Robert's hands scratched on the material of his jeans as he shifted his hands from his coveralls to his pockets. He unwrapped a peppermint candy, dropping it in his mouth without taking his eyes off the night sky. With the porch lights off, he could see the whole Milky Way on a clear night like tonight, and he never missed an opportunity before bed to step out and stare at the stars. The sky connected him to his younger days, lying in the green grass of his childhood home, staring for hours into the inky abyss with his brothers after a long day working in the fields. Robert had grown up farming. After the war, he came home and went back to what he knew best. He comfortably owned the land around him and worked it for the last four decades.

In that time, his children had been born and grown before moving to other parts of the country to pursue their own dreams. But everything he had ever needed in life was right here in front of him, and as he breathed in the night air, he felt complete. He looked at the full moon in the sky and marveled at how, this evening, it seemed closer than ever, hanging huge in the night sky. The loud hinge of the door signaled that he was no longer alone, and he waited for his wife to join him in the drive. She came to his side and stood with him, staring into the moonlight. “You plan on coming inside before the mosquitos carry you away?” she asked, and he chuckled. She had probably asked him that same question a thousand times, and as yet, the mosquitos had not removed him from the property. He stared at the moon again before giving in to her urging, but his gaze lingered.

There was a spot, a small smudge on the moon, he thought, and before he could ask, his wife pointed to it, confirming he was not seeing things. “What is that?” she asked, but the spot rippled outward before he could venture to guess. It looked like someone had thrown a rock into the pond but it felt all wrong because the sky was rippling. He could feel his heart beating faster as the ripples grew larger, distorting the moon and stars above as they went dark and disappeared. The ground shook beneath him, and the couple grabbed each other for support. The trimmer was only for a moment, but they continued to hold on to each other. There was a strange sensation and an overwhelming darkness all around them. In the distance, Robert heard a rumbling.

He squinted forward, peering into the blackness. A blue flicker appeared at the edge of his view, like a wave, but not of water, like electricity, he thought to himself. It closed on them, and the earth under their feet rumbled again. The shaking grew more intense, and Robert swore that he saw the ground roll up before him about three feet in height, carried by the blue wave. It rolled under their feet, lifting them off the ground and knocking them over. In the darkness, he struggled to hold onto his wife. They landed hard on their backs as the gravel from the drive was thrown about, peppering them in a hail of small stones. Robert steadied himself, rising to one knee. It was suddenly bright, and he shielded his eyes from the light. As his vision adjusted, he looked out at what appeared, to his surprise, to be dawn, but no dawn like he had ever seen before. In the sky were two suns, one bright yellow and familiar looking, but also another blue in hue and smaller in size. Above them both were three more spheres that looked like larger moons, but instead of dull and gray, they were bright with colors of green and blue. Robert and his wife stood looking into an alien sky in their front yard. They were in their yard but far from home.