Visions Of Ezekiel

Visions Of Ezekiel

Emma

“There’s something wrong with the baby monitor,” my husband called from the kitchen, his voice shaking like he was riding in a horse-drawn carriage down a rutted road.

“I’ll go check on Izzie,” I sighed, taking off my glasses.

“I just did. She’s fine.”

I turned to Travis and shrugged.

“Emma, you have to hear this,” he pulled the baby monitor out of his pocket.

I took it and switched it on. Static.

“It’s probably on the wrong frequency,” I said.

“Listen,” Travis pleaded, his voice an octave higher than normal.

The static filled my ears as I humored him. A different sound began to emerge, rhythmic and flowing, like a babbling brook. A whisper that resolved into an unsettling deep voice that vibrated the plastic monitor housing.

“RĚVĒNĚO, CHAZOR, IRJA‘,” it said, then repeated the phrase until it faded back into static.

“It keeps doing that. Coming and going,” Travis said.

“What is that? Can you understand the phrase?”

“‘RĚVĒNĚO means ‘return’ in Latin.” Travis ran a hand over his eyes. I could see tears brimming in them.

“I’m sure it’s just a neighbor. Probably that old guy down the street with the big HAM radio antenna. If we switch it over to another frequency, it’ll probably go away.”

“Em, I just texted with Eric from work. ‘CHAZOR’ is ‘return’ in Hebrew.”

Travis and I had met at university, both studying archaeology. While I had dreams of being Lara Croft, raiding tombs, and uncovering ancient secrets, Travis saw studying ancient cultures as part of his duty to his faith. I had not been raised religious. My mother went to Catholic church on Christmas and Easter when I was young, but she stopped at some point, and not for any earth-shaking reason. My father was culturally Jewish but the religious aspect didn’t mean much to him. I thought Travis’s devotion to something bigger than him was admirable. He was attractive enough as it was, but the unjudgmental steadfastness helped. For his part, I think he liked what he interpreted as rebelliousness in me.

Our religious differences never crept into our home life when we were young. Travis went to church and I didn’t. I used that time to study and get into an archaeology graduate program. Travis lived his academic dream through me and also studied the Biblical lands as a very well-read armchair philosopher. He found work as a foreman with his father’s investment firm and kept us afloat while I got my PhD. Then, he opted to work from home so we could have children and save on childcare.

When our son, Albie, was born, however, some differences crept up. I didn’t want our child baptized but Travis was adamant. After all, if it was all performative, as I believed, what could it hurt? I gave in. And I gave in with Izzie, too. As our parents aged, Travis began to think more about their quality of afterlife, too. They were healthy, though, so I could usually redirect Travis’s darker thoughts.

But I knew this baby monitor was getting to him. It fit right in with what he had been concerned about lately. Some ridiculous social media trend that focused on an Argentinian woman’s “prophesies” of Armageddon had transfixed Travis. He is an intelligent man and first showed me the posts as a joke, like “look what the internet has dreamed up now”. But Fabiana Solari said the right words that made him wonder at night when he couldn’t sleep and the algorithm fed him more videos since he watched a few.

After some small, vague predictions that seemed to come true if you didn’t consider the near certain possibility of shooting stars on a given night or strong hurricanes and flooding, she made a prediction about fighting in the South China Sea and a geologic event near Greece. It seemed like she had finally gotten too grandiose for her own good. Some tension in Travis’s shoulders released and followers started calling her out. Then a Philippine ship was sunk in a dispute with China over an aptly-named Mischief Reef. Vietnam sent several cruisers to back up the Philippine ships and retake an island off their own coast. World War 3 balanced on the events in the exact body of water Solari predicted. As that crisis died down, a volcano on Santorini, Greece erupted and the world turned to watching the people trapped against the lava flows and the sea being rescued at the last minute by a flotilla of boats from the mainland. It didn’t seem to matter that Santorini had been rumbling for two decades; the spectacle of the disaster gave Solari credibility. She became a minor internet celebrity though some questioned her family ties and investments in rare earth mining companies, companies that were joint-ventures with Chinese firms and that watched seismic activity in the Mediterranean sea. Compared to the dramatic news footage seemingly backing up Solari’s predictions, those questions had all the strength of drizzling rain against the hull of a supersonic jetliner.

“Trav, let’s just bring Izzie out here with us, ok? It’s alright if she misses the next twenty minutes of naptime. We’ll just keep the baby monitor off and we can work on fixing it tomorrow morning,” I said, putting a hand on his arm.

“Yeah,” he said, distant. Then he smiled. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Too much time on your phone scrolling?” I asked.

He shook his head sheepishly.

As Travis walked off to get Izzie out of bed, I convinced Albie to turn off his video game and get ready for dinner. I opened the TV control app on my phone and debated between a streaming service or the live nightly news. I knew it was an old person thing to do but I had fond memories of watching the nightly news with my parents over dinner and discussing world events. And, I reasoned, seeing the same old crap happening in the world would calm Travis’s nerves.

I made the wrong choice.

Instead of seeing the bright blue studio with the old, goofy anchor who had been reporting the news since before I was born, the channel was filled with loud static.

“RĚVĒNĚO, CHAZOR, IRJA‘,” hissed from the speakers.

“Emma, what is that?” Travis shouted from the hall.

“It’s nothing. I’ll try another channel. It’s fine.”

I flipped up to the next channel. Static. It was an affiliate of the main channel that played old movies. I flipped to a completely different network. Static. The local independent channel was also filled with static.

“RĚVĒNĚO, CHAZOR, IRJA‘,” the voice boomed, clearer. It shook the glass in the coffee table in front of the TV.

I selected a streaming service and the noise stopped. Everything worked fine there. I could choose any of the kids’ favorite shows and they played.

“Let’s just have dinner,” I suggested.

“I want to see if this is happening to anyone else,” Travis said, setting Izzie down gently on the couch. He pulled out his phone and opened that same stupid app.

“Oh, my God,” Travis turned the phone toward me. “It’s everywhere. Cities here and there. It’s the whole,” he scrolled further down, “the whole country. They’re all hearing it. The same voice.”

I squinted at the posts. “But not everywhere. Look at that. Not Chicago, not LA. But it is happening in, what,” I poked out a finger and scrolled, “Modesto, California and Beloit; that’s just up the 39. Littler towns. You’d think big towns would have even more posts because there are more people.”

“So you think they’re making it up?” Travis asked, a little louder than his usual speaking voice.

“No, I think- Hey, I don’t want to argue with you, ok? Remember Max Headroom? When someone hijacked the TV feed in Chicago?”

Travis took a deep breath and nodded.

“Big cities have protections against that kind of thing now. Little towns – like here in Champaign – don’t. We’re too far from Chicago to have the same signals. This is probably some weird prank for social media. And the streaming stuff is fine because it’s not a signal that can be hijacked in the same way. No radio waves.”

At that moment, the little bouncing cat on the screen froze. The image turned black save for a NO SIGNAL message. The bars on Travis’s phone dropped to nothing.

The darkness of the winter evening began to glow an eerie crimson and spill in through our windows.

“Mom, what is that?” Albie asked, pointing to the sky above the backyard.

Travis grabbed Izzie, cradling her tightly. I wrapped my hand around Albie’s and we all ran outside.

In the sky, moving slowly toward us, was a rotating red disc with another, lighter disc spinning at its center. Brighter spots seemed to line the edges of the disc, like an old movie marquee. They strobed slowly, independently of one another like a thousand blinking eyes. The entire craft pulsed with energy as if an organic heart lay at the center, feeding the rings with each beat.

“Jesus, is that a UFO?” I asked.

No response.

“Trav?” My eyes refused to move from the dancing rings above us.

Travis shook his head. “‘Wheels within wheels.’ Ezekiel saw this vision from God. It’s an angel.”

Travis looked at me, tears running down his face. “We need to go to the church.”

“I need to get the infrared camera from my latest dig.”

Travis grabbed my shoulder. “Emma, we need to go to the church. We have to be safe.” His voice teetered on the edge of anger and fear.

“I don’t think this is what it looks like, Travis.”

He turned to Albie, gathered himself, and spoke in a calm voice. “Albie, come with me. We’re going somewhere safe. Mom will be right behind us.”

Albie took Travis’s hand.

“Right?” he asked, a coldness to the question that hadn’t been present.

A month ago we’d had a pretty loud, long argument about my work schedule. I pushed out a dig a few weeks longer than planned and missed Travis’s father’s birthday, then a rain delay forced me to miss Albie’s. The work was important and I had already delayed career milestones from my peers for maternity leave. I couldn’t risk my male colleagues thinking I wasn’t serious about the discoveries we were making or I’d start not getting invited on digs and miss out on tenure entirely. But Travis was right; missing Albie’s birthday was too much.

“Yes,” I said, holding his gaze.

Travis started fastening Izzie into her car seat and Albie next to her. He had been so happy a few days ago when he could first ride in the car without a booster seat. I had to turn away from his little face with tears brimming, reflecting the red glow of the object cruising slowly above us.

I ran to get the FLIR camera from my little pickup and sighted in on the spinning discs as they flew over our cul de sac.

Travis’s sedan pulled out of the driveway, my whole family leaving our home for somewhere “safer”. What could offer more protection than the team we had built over the last decade?

I watched them turn left toward the main road, then turned back to the FLIR camera. There was nothing reflecting on the screen except for a small, rectangular box shrouded in hazy static. Almost like a localized cloud. Zooming in, I could make out four stalks placed at the corners of the box. A perfectly earthly drone.

“Mrs. Nealon?” a voice called from behind me.

Turning, I found the HAM radio neighbor standing on the sidewalk, long gray hair hanging out from under a trucker hat that read UA Local 597.

“Hey!” I said, startled. “Call me Emma. Shawn, right?”

He nodded. “What do you suppose that is?” He gestured to the spinning rings, now floating further off into the neighborhood towards the university.

“Uh, I actually think it’s a drone. Like, a little remote-control drone.”

“Hmm,” Shawn scratched his beard. “Makes sense. It keeps saying ‘return’ in Latin and Arabic but I’d guess if it was actually sent from, you know, up there, they’d be able to speak English. Same if it was aliens. And, you know, it took over my radio but I was also listening to XM on my phone and it was fine. Sloppy to leave the internet stuff if you’re a higher intelligence.”

“Yes! Our kids were watching a show that stayed on until it was directly over head.”

Shawn nodded. “It’s not hard to mess with the mesh network. My old microwave knocks my tablet offline anytime I heat up a pizza. Gotta be close, though.” Shawn gestured to the FLIR camera. “Can you see the actual drone with that?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to get some pictures to send into the news or something. I think a lot of people are scared by what’s going on and I want to show them the truth.”

“That’s a good idea. My brother just called me and we never talk outside of Christmas. Gotta be worried to call when it’s not obligated. It’s getting away, though. You want to hop in my four by four and we can chase it?”

“Umm…,”

“I’ve had 64 years of experience. Well, no, more like 50. Still longer than you’ve been alive.”

I had to laugh at that. Shawn was quickly reminding me of my dad. “Ok, sure.”

Shawn smiled and jogged off to his house, returning minutes later with a boxy, blue sports utility vehicle that looked like it had been conjured from a history text book. I had to grab the handle at the top of the door to get in.

“How old is this?” I asked Shawn, eyeing the knob contraption that lowered the window and wondering if we would be able to keep up with the drone or be more likely to break down a few miles into the trip. Maybe I should ask him to drive my pickup?

“It’s a 1985 Suburban. Great vehicle. Same one my parents bought when I was 10. I inherited it when they passed on and installed a brand-new electric engine. That was about a decade ago, though. There’s a sunroof up top you can stick your camera through but be careful up there. Might be best to strap in until we get closer.”

With that, Shawn stomped on the gas and we roared after the drone.

Albie

Izzie fussed with the strap of her car seat but I was pretty sure she was sleeping. No matter what was happening, she would always fall asleep in the car. That was good tonight because the UFO was scary. Even Dad was scared, though he was trying to hide it by humming old Billie Eilish songs to himself in the front. Mom didn’t seem scared, but she was worried, just like when bad storms would come through and break branches on our tree. I didn’t know why she didn’t come with us to church. She always went if we had to go and she’d poke me if I fell asleep.

“Oh, wow,” Dad said from the front seat.

He turned around and smiled. “I guess we have to do some walking, Buddy.”

When Dad opened the car door, I could see the parking lot in front of the church was completely full. Some cars were pulled in crooked, and people were honking. Dad had to park across the street at the Schnuck’s grocery and even that parking lot was crowded. Mom and Dad liked to joke about Schnuck’s. I couldn’t hear what they said because they always whispered but it made me miss Mom when they didn’t giggle about it.

“Is Mom going to meet us here?”

“Yeah, Albie. She’s right behind us. She had to do some science stuff. Are your shoes tied?”

“Dad, I wear slip-ons!”

“I know, I’m just keeping you on your toes!”

Dad was really worried. He usually joked around but this felt different. It didn’t sound like a joke. I checked Izzie’s shoes as Dad picked her up from the car and tied one.

“Do you see the UFO, Dad?” I couldn’t find it in the sky. Maybe it was behind the trees.

“No, but don’t look at it too long if you see it.”

Someone was yelling outside the church in the grassy yard where they sat people for weddings and things. There were people standing all over the hill I got to roll down when Izzie was Baptized.

“Dad, what are they arguing about?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the church tonight.

“I don’t know but I think it’s… John? My friend from work.”

“John’s nice, though. He’s not a mean guy.”

“Well, Buddy, people do funny things when they get scared. Maybe I can cheer him up. Let’s walk a little faster but look for cars before we cross, OK?”

I nodded. I knew about crossing streets. Left, right, left again. “All clear,” I told Dad and Izzie. She was still asleep.

John was yelling at some guy in front of the door to the church. He was holding a baby about Izzie’s age. His wife had a scarf on her hair like the lady at the shawarma restaurant Dad liked and was wiping tears from her eyes because of the mean things John was saying. Pastor Tyson stood between them and held up a hand toward John like when Dad thought I was talking too much on movie nights.

“This church isn’t for them,” John yelled. “They have their own. We need the space in there for people who actually believe because this is going down right now. Do you know that prophet from Argentina, Pastor? She predicted this. Angels, Rapture, all of it. They’ll be left behind to figure out their own problems no matter what, so we need only real Christians inside.”

“I think we should question internet prophecies a little more. And the church isn’t just for worship, John,” Pastor Tyson said. I liked his voice. He sounded like the old bear from my favorite cartoon. “It’s for sanctuary. Christians, Muslims, nonbelievers – everyone – should be safe from persecution inside the walls. It’s one of the core tenets.”

“With all due respect, Pastor, that was before. This is now.”

“John,” Dad said, “chill out, my man. Tyson is right. We’ve always let anyone into our church.”

“Things are different, John. You saw it fly over us. I know you follow Fabiana. You know what this means.”

Dad grabbed my hand. It felt like he was shaking.

“Yeah. I do. They might, too,” he pointed at the family John was yelling at. “Aren’t we supposed to help everyone we can?”

“You would say that, Trav. I notice your wife isn’t here.”

“Okay,” Pastor Tyson said. Putting his hands up again. “Let’s not make enemies. John, this is my congregation. I think you might have let that slip your mind. And anyone of any faith is safe here. Do you know what the…,” Tyson shook his head and looked confused for a second, “angel or whatever said over the radio, John?”

“He said ‘second coming’ and I’m not so dumb I can’t see the writing on the wall.”

“Not ‘second coming’. It said ‘return’ in Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic. The message was sent to all three Abrahamic religions, John. The Quran is pretty much an updated Old Testament with some additions. We’re all siblings in our beliefs. Or at least cousins. If this is a spiritual event, it affects us all. But it might not be.”

John ripped his hat off his head and threw it to the ground with a loud scream. He looked like a wrestler ready to get into the ring.

“This isn’t right, Tyson! You’re going to damn us all!”

“I’m going to ask you to leave the grounds, John. This is a place of peace. If you want to come back-”

“Shove it!” John cut him off. “Have fun with your traitor congregation.”

John pointed at Dad. “You’ll fit right in, Travis.” And then he spit at us.

His loogie didn’t make it to Dad but it would have landed on Izzie if it had. Someone needed to punch him.

I let go of Dad’s hand and started to run after him.

“Albie!” Dad yelled.

Something pulled me off the ground before I got to John, who was tugging his daughter after him back to the parking lot.

Emma

“So how did you know the voice was speaking in Arabic?” I asked Shawn, making sure my phone camera was ready to record if we got close enough to the craft.

“I’m a Saudi prince, can’t you tell?” Shawn laughed. “Nah, I’m a pipefitter. Took a job with Brown and Root back during the Iraq war.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

Shawn nodded. “It was. Very dangerous sometimes, very boring others. It was, like, impossible to get good TV over there. Basically, you just had to read. Or learn Arabic to speak to our local guys.”

“That’s a good skill to have. I go on archeological digs in South America and my life would be so much easier if I could speak Spanish.”

“You’re a doctor, right? Like a professor? That how you got that infrared camera?”

“Yeah. I teach at UI.”

“That’s cool, man. My niece is working on a grad degree in bioengineering with prosthetics. You guys do some complicated stuff.”

“We do. But sometimes it’s just digging.”

Shawn shrugged. “There’s a simple pleasure in digging. Best put your seatbelt back on, though. We got flashing lights up ahead.”

Shawn slowed the SUV as we approached an intersection, the UFO still blazing crimson ahead of us. As if mirroring the apocalyptic connotations of the UFO’s message, a police cruiser sat askew on the grass of someone’s front lawn and a sedan rested on its roof in the middle of the road. The flaccid limb of a deflated airbag hung out the broken windshield of the cruiser. The front end of the sedan looked like a crushed soda can and antifreeze dripped into a puddle, the car lonely and bleeding out. The back of neck began to itch, and my chest felt tight – it was the same model of sedan as Travis drove.

I stared at the car as we approached, straining my eyes to make out the color of the car through the reflection of the emergency vehicle’s lights, the streetlight, and the UFO.

“It’s not them, Emma,” Shawn’s voice cut into my concentration.

“What?”

“That looks like your car but look over by the cop. He’s talking to a lady.”

Glancing over, a police officer was holding a napkin to his bleeding forehead and holding a bottle of water out to an older woman who sat on the ground, cradling her left arm. Dozens of people lined the streets but only a few were coming to the aid of the injured drivers. Everyone else was watching the sky or, more often, their phones as they held them to the heavens.

“I’ve talked to your husband a couple times. He seems like a responsible guy. I’m sure they’ll be safe.”

Pushing through the lump of emotion in my throat might release the tears I was holding back so I only nodded.

Shawn seemed to know when to cut the tension as he announced, “Looks like we’ve got fewer trees coming up here. Probably some farmland. You might be able to get a good view.”

He coaxed the Suburban faster, gaining on the object.

I unbuckled myself and stood up through the sunroof, steadying two legs of the tripod against the SUV frame with my body.

There it was, tiny and reflecting white against a dark background. No spinning rings, no eyes. Just human technology. And possibly cheap technology, at that.

The camera on my cell phone caught a clear view of the FLIR’s screen as I held it close. It was a little bumpy but it was convincing. I shot several still images and then switched over to video.

Little droplets again escaped from the drone’s body, showing up as white fuzz on the screen. I tore my view from the FLIR and looked at the object. Every time the droplets appeared on the FLIR, the UFO in the sky glowed a brighter red. The pulsing glow, breathing terror onto the city below – was somehow determined by these little specks.

I zoomed the FLIR in closer and took another video of the droplets.

“Road’s taking a turn, Emma. We’re gonna have a bumpy ride for a bit!”

I looked in front of us to see Shawn was turning off the road and onto a dirt access path through a cornfield. He flipped on his high beams but didn’t slow down. We were almost directly under the craft.

I turned my attention back to the FLIR cam and got an excellent shot of the drone. There would be no mistaking what was at the heart of this illusion. No doubt people all over the country were panicking like Travis at this point. The wreck we saw earlier was probably playing out in countless cities.

Suddenly, the drone picked up speed.

“Oh, damn!” Shawn yelled. “Did it disappear?”

I looked away the screen to see the red, glowing craft was gone. The drone was still on the FLIR but quickly outpacing us.

“No. The drone must have turned off its projection.”

Then it hit me.

The droplets.

“It was spraying out fog.”

“What?” Shawn asked.

“The drone was spraying something as it flew. I think it was fog. Like a fog machine. It needed something to bounce the light off to make the rest of the craft appear.”

“Oh, man. Like a laser light show. I bet you’re right. I went to this EDM thing in Vegas one time and they fogged up the whole theater. It was like living in a scifi movie.”

The Suburban coasted to a stop in the middle of the cornfield.

“What now?” Shawn asked.

“I’m going to post these videos to some social media sites and then try to contact a local news station. A reporter from Chicago did a story on a dig we did here for a new Cahokia mound site. I still have his contact info so maybe he’ll get this out.”

Shawn nodded. “And keep people from freaking out too much.”

After a few unanswered calls, I was able to get an answer from Craig Fairchild who was now a weekend anchor at WGN. He got his producer to air my videos and had me stand by for a live interview.

With a click, my phone came to life after ten minutes of silence. It had now been almost a half hour since the drone stopped projecting its image.

“We go live now,” a female anchor said on the other end of the call, “to our own Craig Fairchild and Dr. Emma Nealon, professor of archeology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Craig, can you tell us what Dr. Nealon has discovered?”

“Thanks, Kayley. Yes. Dr. Nealon has produced footage she claims is the…,” Craig faltered a beat, dropping his reporter voice, “object or entity we’ve seen so much of tonight. Dr. Nealon, can you tell us why your footage looks so different?”

“Thank you, Craig,” I said, fiddling with the strap of the FLIR camera. “It’s FLIR images. Um, that’s forward-looking infrared. So, basically, what you see with your eye and typical cameras is light in a wavelength we can see but this camera looks for reflections outside of what we can see. The UFO, um, sorry.”

What were they calling this thing? “The, uh, object looks large and red to us but that seems to be just something shining out. My video shows what’s actually producing the light.”

“I see. Can you,” Craig cleared his throat. “So you’re saying this big craft – or what some are calling an angel – isn’t actually there?”

“Correct; it’s just an illusion.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Nealon,” the first reporter interrupted, “we’ve seen footage from Urbana that shows the craft blocking the stars. It’s much bigger than what I’m seeing in your images.”

“Yeah, I was outside- It flew over my house tonight,” I said. I could feel myself getting flustered, so I took a deep breath. “I agree it seemed to be solid. If you look at the last video I sent, you can see the drone is excreting something. I think this is a thick fog that could block out light from the moon and stars and only show what was projected by the drone.”

“That seems,” Craig said, “hard to envision. How do you explain the voices people are reporting?”

“Well, those only came over airwaves. I told my husband about this and how it reminded me of the Max Headroom incident. Our streaming service was knocked out for a second but it wasn’t affected by the hijacked signal.”

“That’s an interesting possibility, Dr. Nealon,” the first reporter said. “We also have an expert ufologist from MUFON and an exorcist with the local Healing Light church on the line. Would you be interested in discussing your point of view with them?”

My point of view? How was this proof a point of view?

“I, sure.” I shook my head. “Sorry, what do you mean point of view? These are real images I took of the object. This is just basic science.”

“I’m sure our viewers will be curious about that, Dr. Nealon. Thank you for sharing your footage with us.”

With another click, my phone went silent. I punched my knee in frustration.

Shawn had gotten out of the Suburban during my interview and was scanning the sky.

I checked my social media posts.

Fake, one said.

Typical PSYOP, read another.

Get out of here, Fed.

Lol what even is this?

I sighed. It was like everyone wanted to be scared. And my evidence was a point of view?

Now I was in the middle of a cornfield with nothing to show for it and my family was away from home, scared, surrounded by strangers. What was this night?

Shawn got back in the SUV.

“How’d it go?”

“It didn’t. People are too convinced what they saw was real.”

Shawn nodded.

“Yeah. A funny looking picture ain’t going to convince them when they can say, ‘I saw it with my own two eyes.’ But they forget how often our eyes are wrong. Heck, we can see clown faces in the clouds but that doesn’t mean they’re going to make you a balloon animal.”

I laughed. “They’re probably all still in fight or flight. They can’t hear what I’m saying yet.”

“Yep,” Shawn said. “It’s like when you’re arguing with someone. Doesn’t matter if they’re making sense, all you can focus on is why they’re wrong. But it changes when you cool down. Emma, you know what I wonder?”

“What’s that?”

“This was definitely some one. I kind of wonder who but I’m a little more concerned with why. One of the other things I did in Iraq with no TV was teach myself magic tricks.”

Shawn pulled the lens cap off my FLIR camera and held it in his right hand. He flourished the left in front of it and it was gone.

“I distract you with a big movement from this hand,” he wiggled his left fingers,” but I shove the thing down my right sleeve.”

He pulled the lens cap out of his sleeve and handed it to me.

“We saw the left hand,” he said.

“What was the right doing?” I finished.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“I don’t know how much you remember about what things were like when you were a kid but our country was pretty divided on a lot of issues.”

I nodded. “My parents were very into current events. They always had the news on.”

“That all changed after Iran attacked our guys. Almost instantly, we pulled back together. Politicians remembered what the real goal was and didn’t have to see an enemy the next city over. Now we’re looking up.”

“And arguing,” I said. “They wanted me to go on with an alien guy and an exorcist. I know that would just become three people shouting because they each have an answer. And we would all probably convince a handful of people who would keep the argument going.”

“That thing with China and the Philippines felt like when I was a kid watching coverage of the Second Gulf War. It was all you saw on every app, all you heard. Even on my HAM. There’s no way the Philippines should be able to stand up to China. Hell, I’d bet only one state like California could take them on and win easily. But the world was there, man. Everyone saw the standoff. Everyone saw the alliances forming and could probably see how it would play out.”

“But if we were worried about our own safety, we might not have time to care what happened on some reef on the other side of the world,” I said. “Especially when the threat is an alien invasion or the Rapture.”

“Yep. And people get angry and illogical when they’re scared. I guess you saw that on your call. But that’s probably all we can do out here. Let’s get you back to your family.”

Albie

“Your name is Albie, right?” a deep voice said in my ear.

I looked behind me to see Pastor Tyson had picked me up. He was holding me a little too tight and I wanted to get down. I wanted to hit John.

Instead, I said, “Mm hmm.”

“Albie, this a ‘turn the other cheek’ moment. Do you know what that means?”

It sounded kind of funny but I knew he didn’t mean what I was thinking.

“No.”

“It means that John is too scared to think about what he’s saying to your dad right now and he’s not being nice. I know you wanted to be mean right back to him and, Albie, I want you to know that I did, too. But sometimes, when you can restrain yourself, there’s hot chocolate to enjoy. Do you like hot chocolate?”

“Yes! My mom bought me dinosaur marshmallows for hot chocolate at home.”

“That sounds pretty cool. We don’t have those here but go on inside and grab a cup for you and your dad.”

I went in and looked for hot chocolate. It must have been in one of the big, silver things at the back. I was still mad at John, though. Why would he get mad at Dad when he was just trying to help? And what did he mean about Mom?

Dad and I went through a couple styrofoam cups of hot chocolate and talked with the other people in the church. Izzie woke up for a few seconds and asked about her stuffed bunny but had fallen back to sleep somehow. The family John had been yelling at were really nice and came over to thank Dad for trying to help them out.

“Excuse me, everyone,” Pastor Tyson called from his skinny wooden desk at the front of the room.

People turned toward him and got quieter, though some people were still whispering in the back.

“I’ve been watching the news all night. I know some of you have been, too. And some of you have been trying to avoid it as much as possible. Whatever we saw seems to be gone now. I don’t disagree with a lot of you that it looked a lot like an ophanim angel. The scripture says they either are or they guard God’s chariot. But a lot of people think it looked like a UFO. I also saw Travis Nealon’s wife on the news showing video that there was a drone at the center of what we saw.”

“Mom was on the news?” I asked Dad.

He laughed and ruffled my hair.

“I don’t know what it was,” Pastor Tyson continued. “But we are all still here. I think we should think about this night as a test. What kind of people are we? Do we turn to our neighbors?” He looked at me and Dad and the new people sitting next to us.

“Or do we turn against them? Maybe the next few days are going to be just as frightening as tonight. Or maybe this was a fluke. But I think we should keep this lesson in mind going forward. We’re stronger – emotionally, spiritually, physically – together than apart. I know I won’t be sleeping anytime soon so, please, feel free to stay as long as you like. But it does seem like things are quieting down. Thank you, everyone.”

People clapped. Some shouted, ‘Amen.’

Then the doors opened.

Mom came in with the long-haired guy from down the street who did something with ham.

“Mom! You were on the news!”

She laughed. “Yeah. And I’m not going back on.”

“Can I go instead?”

“Albie, I really don’t think you want to. But you’d probably do a good job.”

Dad gave Mom a big hug.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Mom said. “Burgers for dinner?”

“Can I get a cheeseburger?” I asked.

Both Mom and Dad said ‘sure’ at the same time and laughed.

Mom tapped the long-haired guy on the shoulder. “Do you want to get a burger with us, Shawn?”

“I do! But maybe I’ll rain check you. I should give my brother a call.”

A lot of the burger places were closed so we had to drive close to Mom’s work to find an open one. I was trying to see another UFO on the way home but it looked like it was gone.

“Did you see any aliens, Mom?”

She just laughed and threw her burger paper at me. Then Dad threw a burger paper at her. We all started laughing and Izzie still slept through the whole thing. I was going to have a lot to tell her tomorrow.