A Side of Turkey

It's been a while since I did any fiction writing, but a few of the people at The Refuge have been talking about it and I decided to start up again. Having been out of the mix for a while I struggled to find an idea that I felt was worthwhile. Fortunately, an article online was helpful and suggested just spending a lot of time asking, "What if?" It was late at night and there was a bright flash outside that lit the house through multiple windows. It only took me a couple moments to realize that it was a lightning bolt from a passing storm. I asked myself, but what if it wasn't...

A Side of Turkey

He opened his eyes and sat staring into the dark wondering why exactly he was awake. He lay motionless listening. The box fan in the window hummed on the low setting but there were no odd noises. Maybe it was a dream. He had always been the sort to have bad dreams. There was the one with the giant wolf and then there was the other with the screaming demon head. He shivered a bit at the thought of that one. Why the demon was a pale blue-green he never could figure out, but it scared the hell out of him.

No, he hadn’t been dreaming. It was something else, but what? He wished his wife would stop snoring and junior wasn’t jammed in between them like a radiant heater stuck on high. Maybe that was it. Maybe the kid had kicked him. Great, kicked awake at, good grief, three-forty-eight in the morning with a presentation to make tomorrow for the Wilkinson account.

Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes again. Maybe he’d still be able to squeeze in a couple more hours before the wife’s hair dryer blasted him awake. And then he could see the inside of his eyelids. It was one of those moments where a person isn't quite sure what they are seeing, but know they had seen it before. Suddenly the red world of flesh and capillaries disappeared. He felt the bed shudder a bit beneath him.

Wide awake now his eyes snapped open again. What was that?! Stepping to the window he peered out into the darkness, except it was not dark. The sky was brilliantly lit with greens, whites and blues. Thousands upon thousands of streaks racing all in the same direction. Or rather out of the same direction - a bright light hanging low over the horizon and flying out of it the streamers of light. Suddenly one of them flashed like lightning and disappeared. There was a dull rumble that he could feel more than hear.

He stared at the spectacle for a while and thought about waking his wife, but realized if he did then junior would wake up too and then they would never get him back to bed. The meteors, and how could they be anything but meteors, were not decreasing in any way, in fact they seemed to be ever so slightly increasing. He decided he might as well give up on sleep and go watch the show. Maybe even see if there was anything on the television about it.

“...completely unlike anything we have ever seen before. This is nothing like the Leonid or Perseid showers in November and August! This is absolutely massive...,” the scientist turned cable television personality nearly shouted. The guy was not one of those real scientists, he just knew about as much as some high school teacher and got himself a spot on the evening news a few years ago talking about methane explosions or something. Now he was suddenly an expert on meteor showers.

“So, what you’re saying is this is a once in a lifetime event?” asked the woman who was far too chipper for this early in the morning. Must be on Cocaine, he thought.

“No! I’m saying this is unprecedented!” the fake scientist was getting shrill, “That bright dot is a comet and we’re looking right up it’s tail...,” he kept droning on about the moon and approach angles and slingshots and a bunch of other stuff.

Outside the light show was brighter than before. In fact that big light in the sky that he now knew to be a comet was much bigger. The thunder was growing louder too. It seemed that the comet had moved higher above the horizon. As he watched it he realized that it was growing, and quite fast too.

The slower meteors, if they could be called slow, were now more obvious to him as they flashed and exploded. The comet was filling half the sky and the rumble was turning into a low roar.

“....near Oklahoma...” he barely heard the t.v. nerd say. Well, maybe I’ll get interviewed in the morning. Couldn’t hurt to have old man Wilkinson see me on television when’s he’s eating his egg whites and...

At that very moment the comet grew insanely huge and the man felt something like hot rain searing his skin while a pungent scent attacked his nose. Standing in his backyard in his boxers while staring into the light his last thoughts, the thoughts of the first man ever to physically touch a comet, were of turkey bacon and a blue-green screaming demon.