Trigesimus Quintus Gradus
“Did you notice that?” Susanna asked while casting a concerned glance at the window.
“That flicker? They concern you far too much, hon,” her husband sighed. “You’re too spoiled by city life. You’re lucky I finally dragged you back out to the country.” He smiled, anticipating her customary response to that line. But it never came. Hm, she must be moody. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose in a waving motion.
Susanna hadn’t heard him say anything after “hon.” She was creeping toward the window, trance-like. The green trees were flat as if they were drawn on paper…the gray street was colored just wrong…the flowers were not themselves. No, everything was…
Susanna gasped, covering her mouth with tense fingers. The sky was cloudless yet hazy, borderless yet oppressive. And pale orange all across. No gradient, no discoloration. The sky was pure pale orange, sunless, yet everything on earth was bathed in its hue, devoid of shadow.
“Nicholas, come look outside!” She was exasperated. Worried by her tone, Nicholas finally stood up. He took his time approaching the window, stroking his chin. He stood with her, observing the atmosphere for a moment. Then,
“Someone picked up our dead tree, eh?” For the thirty-foot tall tree which had succumbed to last winter’s chill was finally gone from the divot which lay in front of their yard along the road.
“Are you blind? Look! Where are all the shadows? Why is the sky so orange?”
“I don’t know, dear, maybe it’s sunset already.” Nicholas looked at his wrist, but it was bare. He turned about scanning the room for his phone, but gave up. “How many shadows do you usually see in a corn field, anyway?”
“This is not okay…” Susanna began, but she was interrupted by the howling.
The trees outside immediately bent far to the right. Many shattered at the trunk and sent their tops hurtling across the countryside. The mailbox was likewise blown into the fields. The house shuddered under the power of the sudden gale; the roof shifted and siding was peeled from the house. Any crack in the house fought to withstand the eviscerating wind which squeezed through; windows, doors, and vents blew frozen air into the house at incredible speeds. Doors and cabinets slammed shut and ripped themselves open, books and papers and trinkets flew everywhere. Susanna was lifted from her feet and tossed by the violent wind onto a couch while Nicholas was forced to his knees to avoid the same. The gale ripped at their hair and clothing.
It stopped. They stood, shivering, looking each other up and down.
“You okay, boss?”
“Yeah, you?”
They examined the mess around them.
“Man, it looks like a torn—”
“—Nicholas, I swear on my life, if you finish that sentence I will kill you.”
He fell silent, smirking.
As Susanna’s teeth began to chatter, Nicholas darted into the laundry room to dig up a blanket for his wife. Flicking the light switch, he blinked, but was still unable to see. He jiggled the light switch; still nothing. Instead, he groped around the room until his hands met something soft. He clenched and pulled it, then returned to the living room and gave the blanket to his wife. Her skin was paler, her lips less red. His body had a violent thrill as he turned toward the garage where the breaker box was. “Power’s out.” Susanna tightened the blanket around her as she darted to a couch further from the cool window. Pulling out her phone, she began to call her mother… then her father… then her best friend… before she realized that there was no signal. The lights never came back on, nor did the refrigerator, nor did their new electric stove. (“I told you we should’ve kept the gas stove.”)
The next day, they planned, they would take a trip into the city if the power and cellular remained out. By then, the storm, if that’s what it was, would’ve passed, and it would be safe to travel. But the phrase “the next day” assumes that night will come. It never did. The sky remained pale orange, never fading to a new hue, never ripening, never clouding. It stayed orange, pale but with eerie luminescence, for hours. Susanna was so worried that she convinced Nicholas to sleep with her in alternate watches to see if night would ever fall. Eight hours later they stood together in front of a large window chewing on dry breakfast bars, pondering the sky.
“Maybe it’s a wildfire.” Nicholas finally deduced. “They really mess with the sky, you know.”
“No, I escaped one as a kid, remember. That was much more hellish. This is too… I don’t know, peaceful’s not the word. Stagnant.”
“Mm. I think it’s a wildfire. What else could it be?” She punched him. He grinned. He was taken aback by the frigidity as he stepped outside to start the car. He was even more shocked that the car was gone. “Susanna,” he called into the house. He quieted when he realized that she was just around the corner, where he’d left her. “We left the Volt in the driveway, right?”
“Yes, I’m certain.”
“Well…” he gestured for her to follow him, and she did. They walked around the house, scanning up and down the street for the car. There was no sign of it, meaning it couldn’t have been blown too far by the windstorm. The fields were intact, anyway. “Open the garage door, Nick,” Susanna said. He tried, but the door didn’t budge. No power. Walking back toward the house to open it manually, Susanna noticed something in the sky behind their roof. Something big, like the moon. Now bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Something coming closer. She screamed and threw her arms around her husband. “Look!”
Nicholas looked up in time to see the object, which by now commanded a whole third of the sky. He yelped and grasped Susanna tightly, but couldn’t pry his eyes from the… is that cement? The cement, bowl-shaped—it’s a bird bath! He laughed as the bird bath loomed over three fourths of the sky, blackening the pale orange but casting not a shadow over the world. Certain he was about to die, Nicholas laughed as Susanna wailed.
There was a show of lights that sprouted around the bird bath, bright and dancing and of many colors. The lights were more clear and more lively than aurora polaris. Suddenly the trajectory of the bird bath reversed, and it shrank in the sky. Nicholas patted the back of Susanna’s head and pointed to it; she caught a glimpse of the giant object as it receded into the pale orange haze and disappeared from view.
Nicholas raced into the house, dragging his wife behind him. He scanned the countertops, and finding them empty, threw open the refrigerator. There! The tray of brownies.
“What is in these?” He asked Susanna.
“Huh?” She was confused and wiping tears from her eyes.
“You saw what I saw, right? That was a…” he paused, leading her to finish his sentence.
“I—I—I guess it looked like a bird bath, if I had to guess,” she stammered.
“Then we are hallucinating, that’s the only logical explanation for all this! What did you—”
“—Don’t you dare!” She yelled, taking a step away. “I did not spike our brownies! Ugh, you are completely insufferable, are you serious right now?”
“Okay then what can you possibly say that makes more sense?”
She burned him with her eyes and stormed into the garage. Nicholas followed.
“I’m not helping you. We certainly can’t drive hallucinating like this.”
“My parents are in danger, Nicholas. I’m going to find them, and if you don’t help me open this damn door, it’ll be the last time you see me leave through it. I can promise you that.”
Reluctant, Nicholas helped her force the garage door open.
She peeled away with him in the passenger seat of their bumper-less, rusted-out old S-10, leaving an array of tools and parts behind. For Susanna, there was no time to waste. The truck would survive long enough.
Parva Gradus 