THAT FALL
1 - RINGING

A boy free-falling towards the Earth. A dragon leaping from a cliff. A woman’s full, pierced lips. A cat with three emerald eyes. A stallion galloping in a lush field of purple cotton flowers.

When Angie Krigare opened her eyes, she was flat on her back in her condo hallway. Rising onto her elbows, she blinked repeatedly, noted pieces of her hematite ring scattered on the floor. and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth to clear the spittle. At the taste of blood, she pulled her hand away from her face and examined her gouged thumb. Dried blood on her wrist and her shirt cuff informed her she had been unconscious for at least an hour.

Rising with trepidation and fighting vertigo, she collected the ring fragments from the floor. She regarded the pieces in her palm, the thin filigree engraving barely distinguishable on the remains. She shuffled to the bathroom, deposited the ring remnants on the counter, and cleaned the gouge in her thumb with antibacterial soap and hot water. Her thumb did not need a bandage, but her heart did. Whatever had happened had destroyed the ring her father had given her for her twelfth birthday. His death left her with only memories and that ring. Stifling the moan, tears escaped her eyes.

She regarded herself in the large mirror, not recognizing what she saw. Her long curls had escaped the hair tie. She pushed the loose curls behind her ears realizing she still wore her suit, including her jacket. She remembered entering the condo and putting her keys on the side table. But that was all. Why she had awoken on her condo floor amidst her broken ring was a mystery. She wiped it away another escaping tear, regarding what she guessed was her reflection in the mirror. She squinted at the average, tired, professor face staring back at her. Her makeup had deteriorated: Eye shadow worn away, mascara-smeared under her eyes, eyeliner absent. Lipstick gone from a day’s talking and eating.

She tossed her suit jacket over the bathroom door and rolled up her blouse sleeves. She wiped the remaining paint from her eyes and gently washed her face, each swipe exacerbated her pounding headache. She sprayed toner over her face and neck and finished with a light night cream. She brushed and flossed her teeth. She dabbed some additional eye cream to treat what appeared to be looming dark circles and eye bags. Had she been crying while she was unconscious?

Bowing her head, she reached up and rubbed the tender base of her skull, discovering a hell of a bump. She suddenly did not like the acacia floor as much as she had. She had chosen this condo specifically for the view of the city, the beautiful kitchen cabinetry, and that damn wood floor. Carpet might be horrible for cleanliness and allergies, but much better for slamming one’s head upon. Good thing she did not choose a condo with a tile floor, she mused.

If she was not out of her work clothes, she had not fed her cat. “Sam?” she called, finding Sam in the hallway, sitting tall with his tail wrapped around his front paws. He blinked his green eyes communicating: “I require sustenance, Human.” She answered the blinking aloud, saying, “Okay, give me a minute. You saw I passed out or fainted or something. Be patient.”

As she moved towards the kitchen, she slid her hand along the wall and tested her legs. Not dizzy, but weak and foggy, she released her fingertips from the wall and entered the living room. Her yoga mat still lay on that damn hard wooden floor. Pandora was filling the room with some alternative metal music. She grabbed the remote and opened her playlist. All metal and alternative. Some 80s punk. 70s standards. This was not her playlist, yet, there was her name and blooming rose icon. She would need to reprogram the meditation and New Age stations she enjoyed. Meanwhile, she was not listening to this heathen, head-jarring noise with the screaming singer. She noted the artist: Disturbed and agreed the music was disturbed and disconcerting. She programmed a New Age station for yoga in the morning. Satisfied, she turned off the music and invited an eerie silence.

She found the pillows still arranged on the couch and the television on the wall. Her Buddhist figurines were upright, and her hundreds of books seemed unscathed. She spotted two long cracks in the windows. One crack was six inches; the other was ten inches. She ran her forefinger over one crack, sure it had not been there before. Beyond the cracked windows loomed the moonless night and the silhouettes of the naked trees shivering in the October gusts. The city lights drowned the stars even on this clear night. She resorted to imagining the stars in the incalculable vastness but realized the thought was too vast for her pounding head.

Maybe her blood pressure was too high? She needed to lose a little weight. Or maintain balance in her life. The research, the deadline for the book, four classes, and serving on the plagiarism committee were more than three professors did in a year never mind a single semester. She would complete her book on Grecian war tactics in six months. Screw the two-month deadline set by unrealistic editors who did not appreciate her efforts to prepare an accurate and interesting text. She would not be one of those professors who wrote some dry tome of dates, places and definitions. She wanted to tell stories. Brilliance took time, and a quickly drafted book would not impress her department head and the other professors.

She must have fainted from exhaustion. She rubbed the back of her head. When was the last time she had taken a vacation? That summer’s department retreat, with its tedious meetings and research presentations, was not relaxing. It also included the unsatisfying dolphin swim that resulted in a peculiar sunburn only on her hands. Worse, during the swim, the dolphins would not leave her alone. The minute she lowered herself into the enclosure, the three creatures swarmed her, singing and bumping into her. The trainers demanded she get out of the water to allow others a turn. And that one smart-ass trainer had asked her if she had her period.

“Because menstruation attracts the dolphins,” he said.

Grinding her jaw, she lifted herself from the pool. “I said I’m not.”

“Funny. They only behave like that–sticking to someone–when that’s the case. Are you pregnant? You can’t do the swim if you are.”

No wonder she did not take vacations. Rude, insensitive tour guides reminding her she did not have a menstrual cycle or children or a man. Weak, unworthy men came and went and recalling a single paramour’s name was trying. But to be past the age of forty and not have a child… to only have an empty place in her heart and a recurring nightmare of a small child falling through space to the earth, just beyond her grasp as she listened to his screams. Horrible. She shivered and rubbed the back of her head.

She found a can of unopened cat food in the kitchen. Sam scampered to her and rubbed against her calf. “I suppose you want some of this,” she said as she dumped the gooey contents into his blue bowl. Sam purred, insistent. She knelt, placed the bowl on the floor, scratched Sam’s back and said, “Silly little bum.” The cat licked at his food and the intensity of his purr increased. She had found Sam loitering at her front door the day she moved in. After the neighbors had not claimed him, she kept him. She considered naming him Bum, but decided it was too harsh and politically incorrect. She considered names of famous warlords and explorers: Eric the Red, Attila, Alexander. None of them fit. She named the cat the nondescript Sam.

The microwave clock displayed 10:35 pm. She had been unconscious over two hours. Grabbing the kitchen television remote, she tuned to the local news. A story of a circus coming to town. Children with balloons. She changed to another local news station. A story of private transportation companies unfairly competing with licensed taxis. Nothing about an earthquake or an explosion. If anything unusual had happened her neighbor Clara would know. Angie switched off the television, left her condo, and took the thirty steps to Clara’s door. Clara’s television was blaring the news and Clara was yelling as if the reporter could hear her. Angie knocked and a beeping within indicated Clara was deactivating the alarm.

Clara cracked the door and peered through, asking, “Angie?”

“Yes, Clara. Hello. Good evening. Sorry to bother you so late. I… I was wondering if anything happened in your unit, or to you, around two hours ago.” Angie rubbed the back of her head.

Clara opened the door, revealing her yellowed nightgown and fuzzy slippers. “Not that I noticed, dear. Are you all right?”

“Maybe your windows rattled–or something? My front windows have some cracks.”

“Oh, dear. No, Angie. Nothing I can think of.” Clara pursed her lips. “I told you that you needed rest.” She raised her forefinger, scolding, “You work too hard. Ever since you moved in, nothing but work, work.”

“Yes, I’m off to bed. Sorry to bother you so late.” And you are making me feel more insane, she thought, turning towards her unit.

“Good. Get some rest.” She hesitated. “Maybe it was that big, new television you have. It’s very loud.”

Angie traveled the long hall back to her unit wondering how Clara could hear anything above the din of her own television. Foolish old human woman with a pitiful taste in bedroom wear. Wondering why she would think something so cruel about Clara, Angie took a deep, cleansing breath. She liked Clara. Why would she even think something so negative?

Sam was waiting in the condo hallway, regarding Angie with anthropomorphized concern. Angie reached for her phone determined to eliminate her own exhaustion as the cause of her fall. She would have to call her neighbor, Richard, who was angry with her for voting to change the gym hours. She pressed auto dial.

Richard grunted, “Yeah?”

“Richard? It’s Angie.”

“That I know. I’m busy. Whatcha want?”

“Were you home at around eight tonight?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t go to the gym because it’s still closed.”

“Did something rattle your unit? An explosion or something?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Nothing. I’ve been home since six.”

“Ah… maybe I’ve got the time wrong—”

“You get a lot of things wrong, Angie.”

She let him have his moment. Exposed and self-conscious, she added, “I can discuss changing the gym hours with the other members who are preventing access.”

“You do that. Feel free to call me then.”

She slid her finger over the side button disconnecting the call. Ass.

The conclusion: She had fainted from exhaustion. The cracks must have always been in the windows. An Occam’s Razor simple, if unpalatable, explanation. She brewed come chamomile-lavender tea and popped a melatonin. Sam cleaned his face with his paws as she dragged herself to her bedroom. Briefly considering getting ice to reduce the swelling of the walnut-sized bump on her head, she decided she was far too tired. She dropped her cellphone on its charger and discarded her blouse on the floor. She added her suit pants to the pile. She threw her bra onto the chair next to her bed. She slipped on a pair of sweats and a thin, grey tee-shirt, and crawled under her comforter.

Sam deposited himself on the pillow on the other side of the bed. She listened to him purr, slowing her breathing and trying to clear her mind. Her ring. Ruined. Lost. Her connection to her father. She remembered his brown eyes behind thick glasses and his easy smile. What had her mother looked like? Was she an only child? Her last thought before she drifted into an uneasy sleep was how alone she was.

A child was crying. She could not see him. She was in a small room… a bathroom stall with creamy brown walls. Dirty and graffiti covered, she could see bits of toilet paper were stuck to the stall walls. The little boy, in his baseball cap, jeans and t-shirt, was screaming, “Mommy!” His wide eyes begging and tear-filled.

She awoke bathed in sweat. Her head was pounding. She sat up and took a sip of the water from the cup on her nightstand unnerved that the dream was worse than ever. She checked the time on her cell phone: 11:52. She dropped back into the pillows and covered her head once again with the thick comforter. She just needed good sleep…

“Mommy! Help, Mommy!”

Her eyes shot open. She checked the phone clock. Still 11:52. She gently carried herself to the bathroom, resisting the impulse to check the condo for a little boy, and took four Excedrin PM, chiding herself for taking a medication. Back in the bedroom, she dropped onto the quilt and drifted into that place between awake and asleep where, her father had told her, angels watch over each of us. As her body fell into the bed, she jumped, knowing it was only her nervous system relaxing. Nothing to fear. She wasn’t falling again.

Then she was falling fast, through the sky, down, down, a tiny child falling just beyond her grasp. She was reaching. Reaching…

She bolted up in her bed, placed her palms to the sides of her head and found the digital clock read 3:17. This is how madness happens. One loses hold of reality and then they lock you up in some asylum, forever forgotten. She gently rested her head against her pillows. She had that dream of the falling child too often. She would take that vacation. Maybe to a nice country estate? Somewhere with horses. She closed her eyes, imagining a large field filled with wildflowers and horses playing in the distance.

Horses galloped along the horizon. She looked up and noticed a dome ceiling over the field—like the entire property was in a snow globe. Stars in the clear, night sky shone beyond, but sunlight was all around her. Contemporaneous day and night.

And the little boy, his blue eyes covered by thick blond bangs, looked up and reached for her hand, “Where’s Daddy going, Mommy?”

She jolted upright and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. Tears welled around the corners of her eyes. As much as her every cell rejected asking for help, she would go to a doctor after her class in the morning. Tonight, she would avoid sleep and that dream. She powered on her e-reader, resisted searching WebMD for concussion symptoms, and returned to the novel she had been reading. She tried to focus, but her pounding head made keeping her eyes open impossible. Frustrated, she tossed the device onto the quilt and it cracked into several pieces.

She had only tossed it. Onto the quilt. Were those things that cheap? She was afraid to touch it. She thought of her ring. She checked her thumb. The blood had coagulated. She had not imagined her ring’s demise just as she was not imagining the e-reader’s demise. There it was, in cracked shards all over her quilt. She slipped out of the quilt, placed her feet on the floor, and let her toes squish into her one carpet. She would have liked a thick carpet in the hall tonight to cushion her head when she apparently fainted from exhaustion and madness. She moaned enjoying her toes in the pile, like a thick cloud or the sands of the beaches on Rygel.

The beaches of where?

Okay, enough was enough. She would go to the hospital right now. She stood but vertigo overcame her. She dropped back onto the bed, a shard of e-reader poking her upper thigh. “Damn it,” she whispered, pulling the sharp plastic from under her and rubbing her leg. She was obviously in no condition to drive.

She must have drifted asleep once again because the last dream startled her awake. All she could remember was her own scream: “This is your fault. Your fault! They took my son!”

She sat up in bed laughing almost hysterically. Son? This whole thing was nerves and a concussion. It was almost six in the morning and she had work to do. Considering the head injury, she would skip yoga and go right to school for her class at nine fifteen. If she did not feel better, she would go to the emergency room after her class. Yet, as she got ready for work, the compulsion to find her nonexistent son plagued her. She laughed aloud. As she showered and dressed, as she fed Sam, as she applied her makeup, she pushed away the impulse to rush from the condo to find a son she did not have. Her inner voice kept repeating: Hurry. He’s in danger.

The invasive thought pounded the inside of her head as brutally as the walnut lump pounded the outside of her head. She slogged through her morning Peloponnesian War lecture, rotely relating places and people, dates and political moves. An hour and twenty minutes of zombified teaching as she scanned the room wondering which of these young men was her son. Because her son was here somewhere.

She ignored the irrational obsession as she packed her notes into the binder and avoided questioning faces. Rushing from the lecture hall, she gave a female student begging to review a paper grade a curt: “I will get back to you next class. In a rush. Email me.”

She returned to her office, dropped her briefcase into a chair, and centered herself in the room. Heavy wooden bookcases covered two walls, floor to ceiling. Behind her desk were her diplomas and a Pollack reproduction of Blue Poles. She peered out the window and watched students moving about or lounging on the courtyard grass. The day was unusually warm, and the sunlight poured into the office. She drew the blinds seeking solitude and darkness. She sat, dropped her head and rested her cheek on her forearm.

Hedy, the department secretary, entered with a cup of steaming lavender and chamomile tea. “Did you sleep at all?” She placed the cup on Angie’s desk.

“Not really.” She mentally pushed away the replay of the disturbing dreams.

“You… you don’t seem yourself and you might have hit your head too hard. And you look a mess. And if you fainted? You need to see a doctor, Angie.”

Angie nodded, sipping from the steaming cup. Her stomach growled, and she realized she could not recall having dinner and forgot to have her protein shake breakfast. And she had forgotten to water the plants. And she still had not found her son. She cleared her throat. “I just need a little rest. Can you make sure I’m not disturbed?”

“You rest your head. You only have that short lecture to the history club at three. And, the staff meeting in thirty minutes.” Hedy skittered out.

Angie had forgotten the lecture and the meeting. Damn it. The hospital would have to wait. Missing a staff meeting after only six months on the job was unacceptable. She scanned the resource volumes and documents strewn across the top of her desk. Her publication binder was at hand and she flipped open the cover, scanning her resume. She had worked at Rutgers for fourteen years. And, before that, she served as an instructor at her Alma Mater, Yale, for two years. How come she could not recall graduating from Yale? She frowned, also unable to recall a friend or coworker from Rutgers. She grabbed her cell phone and selected the contacts app, but only found numbers for her coworkers and condo neighbors. No family. Who were her friends? Somehow, she could not picture a single face, a single dinner or a birthday. Between this memory lapse and her erroneous Pandora account, she was not sure who she was. She flipped open her desk laptop and searched her calendar. Nothing scheduled before yesterday. Even the yoga classes she took every Wednesday and Saturday only appeared prospectively. She searched for her Facebook account. Apparently, she did not have one. No LinkedIn account either. She did not exist no matter what her resume evidenced or that the door nameplate read: Professor Krigare, Ancient History.

She relented and searched the web for the symptoms of concussion. According to the Mayo Clinic, concussion could affect brain function, including memory, concentration, balance and coordination. Headache. Yup. Nausea. Oh, definitely. Fatigued. Check. Might be from the night-terror evening but could be from the head injury. Fogginess and confusion. Definitely. Dizziness. Yes, she had one hell of a concussion. But did concussion explain the disturbing dreams? Hearing that child call out for his mommy in her condo? Perhaps, she had deleted her profiles. And forgot what happened to the condo windows. She absentmindedly rubbed the back of her head.

Professor Jennifer Koch, her wide eyes feigning concern, barged in and asked, “You fell?”

Not surprised that Hedy had violated the promise to keep her undisturbed, Angie thought: Incompetence. And to admit Jennifer of all people was beyond ineptitude. Jennifer was what Angie considered a whirlwind of madness: a bumblebee, flitting from flower to flower. Unlike a bumblebee, however, which had direction no matter the appearance, Jennifer was a nut job with no direction and only average intelligence. Angie frowned, internally scolding herself for the unkind thoughts and regretting the corporate water cooler communication system. Nothing stayed a secret in this department. Everyone knew about every addiction, mole removal, incident of diarrhea, Botox procedure, and the three penis enlargements in just the last month. Must be a coupon or something.

“Ah… no. In fact, I’m much better.” Although you wish it was serious, you shew. More nasty thoughts that were not normal for Angie. She reached behind her head and touched the shrinking bump.

“I figured we could go to the department meeting together and then listen to them droll on and on while nothing gets done.”

“They are all trying to do the best job they can.” Which is crap since they are merely humans, she thought, concerned at the absence of her compassionate yogi modus operandi. These vicious thoughts were not hers.

“Does your balloon ever land, Angie? How are you always all smiles and compassion?”

“Ha,” Angie leaned back laughing, adding, “I’m not.” You should hear my thoughts Jennifer, you shallow, manipulative, selfish bitch. More dispassionate thoughts followed by her slipping as she said, “Don’t let me fool you, Jenn. I hate humans.” She winced at her own comment. Hate?

“But you’re so kind.” Jennifer paused, smoothing her garish purple-red lipstick by rubbing her unnatural Botox lips together. “You know, your hair is all twisted in the back.”

Angie reached up and touched her ponytail. “I keep checking the bump on my head. It’s right under the tie…”

“Looks like bed head or the result of some intimate tryst.”

Angie guffawed. “Not likely. I’ve been rubbing the bump.”

“That’s probably the truth. Sad to say.”

Angie ignored the reference to her nonexistent sex life and shifted the conversation, blurting, “How’s the kids?”

“Oh, Leo got into Fordham. We’re so pleased!” Jennifer took Angie’s question as an invitation to sit. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and pyramided her hands as if she had just won a world conflict.

Angie suppressed an eye roll. “Wonderful. And Meghan?”

“She’s changing her major again. Probably to psychology or something. That girl has no direction.” Jennifer asked, “How’s Sam?”

Ah. Angie’s child. Jennifer always inquired after Sam once Angie asked about Jennifer’s children. The strange juxtaposition was politeness on Jennifer’s part. She seemed to think children and pets somehow had parity in Angie’s mind. It just stung Angie. “Sam is fine.”

Jennifer checked her watch, sighing. “It’s about that time.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic.”

“I cannot feign enthusiasm. Disinterest and boredom are all I can manifest.”

“I see that.” Angie rose, grabbed her pad and pen, and followed Jennifer to the classroom where the professors and staff squeezed themselves into the uncomfortable desks. They took seats in the back as Angie compulsively scanned the room for her son and tried to think of a way to get out of the lecture that afternoon so she could get some medical attention.

Professor Horace Lancer, who took the seat beside Angie, said, “It’s my favorite yoga lady who teaches us about war! Hey Angie, I hope you can use your peacekeeping skills for this one.”

“For?”

“We’re to discuss the new cluster arrangements. Didn’t you check your agenda?”

Angie frowned. “I thought it was all agreed.”

“They changed the plan, remember?” Horace looked through his papers, adding, “We talked about this. They are eliminating ancient history as a cluster. Put us in with cultural studies or something.”

Angie shuffled through the papers on the table in front of her, mourning something else forgotten.

“Yeah, well get ready for some explosions,” Horace said while the flash of a smirk.

Angie did not appreciate the term explosions, especially considering her pounding headache. She tried to not make eye contact with her coworkers. For such an important matter like cluster restructuring, she was ill and ill-prepared. She would decide whether to go to the hospital after this endless, pointless meeting which serialized like some popular crime drama: New crimes, same story. Sad excuses for life, these humans. She closed her eyes to deny her uncharacteristic thoughts, but not being able to deny that something was wrong with her.

The Chair, Professor Saul Friedlander, interrupted her internal worry-list by ticking off the housekeeping items at the top of the agenda, obviously as enthusiastic about the meeting as Angie was.

The Egyptian history expert, Bruce Washburn, stood and held up his hand in a stop motion. “With all due respect, we have more important matters than the Spirit Week banner and the new computers in Room 642. We should focus on the treatment of the ancient history cluster. Don’t you think, Saul?”

Saul rifled through his papers. He said, “We’ll get to that.”

“I suggest we begin that discussion. Immediately.”

Others called out, yesses and sit down and mumbled, here we go.

“Yes, well, Bruce, we’ll get to that.” Saul continued to scour his notes.

“That is the point of this meeting, Saul.”

Almost as a punctuation to end Bruce’s statement, a thunderous boom shook the room, rattling the windows and walls and forcing Bruce back into his chair. The floor quaked, and empty desks tumbled over. Papers flew about. Pictures knocked back and forth against the walls and several books fell from shelves. Angie grabbed the sides of her head and heard calls of: What was that? A few rushed to the door. Someone asked: An explosion? Another yelled: We don’t have earthquakes here!

“That was too loud to be an explosion—unless it’s the boiler?” Jennifer regarded Angie. “You okay?”

Angie shook her head, weakly mumbling, “No… no…” She stood and collapsed on the cold, tile floor.

When she returned to consciousness, she sensed several people standing over her and insisting someone should drive her home. She heard them talking about her but could not identify who was saying what: She fell or fainted or something. Hit her head. She said she has a headache. Poor woman. No one at home for her. But attempts at caring for her gave way to the group rushing to the faculty lounge to watch a news report of the strange sound. The concerned caregivers led Angie to a chair in the back of the lounge while they each glued themselves to the screen. What the department members had believed to be an explosion on campus was much more pervasive. The reports confirmed the explosive concussion was planetwide. The media had already named it: The Boom. A notice appeared on the screen announcing the administration had cancelled activities and classes until it could confirm students’ safety. The staff remained attached to the television, watching the afternoon reporter:

Sources have confirmed the sound was similar to a sonic boom but was too widespread to be locally generated. Apparently, the sound was experienced at the same time across the world. No earthquakes have been reported and experts confirm no seismic activity. Experts also insist that an earthquake of the magnitude to create a concussion of that volume would have destroyed our planet. NASA and meteorologists at NOAA have confirmed no meteor impacts. United States Military sources report satellite surveillance confirms no detonation of nuclear or other weapons. World leaders and the President of the UN are meeting to share information. Stay tuned to Channel Forty-Seven for the latest.

The screen showed representatives gathering in the UN conference room and then video of Parisians in the streets, pointing, looking fearful. Another series of videos from Greece, Egypt, Israel, Estonia, California, Japan, China…

The subtitles translated the Chinese man’s frantic words: “We all heard it. It cracked the wall in my restaurant.” The man pointed to a building behind him. The scrolling black banner on the screen displayed in large, bright green letters: The Boom heard around the world.

The screen flashed to show a group of women. The ticker changed as it passed from right to left: Schools let out all over the world. Bronx parent’s group demands answers: “It was like thunder. We must make sure the children are safe—the whole side of the school is cracked! Cracked!”

A third woman appeared on the screen with her own scrolling banner: Professor Sarah Nordstrom, California Tech. The woman adjusted the microphone over her collared shirt and finally spoke: “The sound is similar, albeit more widely experienced, to Seneca or Barisal Guns. Which are not really guns, per se. The term describes phenomenon experienced in many parts of the world, particularly coastal India and the eastern seaboard of the United States. Witnesses report hearing booms or sonic cracks. The cause has never been confirmed.”

That was it for Angie, who silently rose from her tufted chair, ignored by the hypnotized crowd before the television. She snuck to her office and packed her briefcase, wincing at the wrecking ball slamming into the insides of her skull. She dropped into her chair and rested her forehead on her forearm, pushing away thoughts and pain.

Hedy knocked lightly and entered Angie’s office, whispering, “I saw you leave the lounge. Are you okay? Did you see the news? They have no idea what that sound was. Can you believe that?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Someone knows. Very scary stuff. Why don’t they just tell us what it is?”

“They do not want earthlings to know what it is.”

“Earthlings?”

Angie internally scolded herself again. “I don’t know why I said that. I just mean it seems like shock and awe to me.”

“Shock and awe?”

Angie’s head felt momentarily better as she explained shock and awe to Hedy: “Displays of force and power to destroy the enemies will to fight.”

“Lovely.” Hedy clicked her tongue. “Do you want someone to drive you home? I think Horace offered.”

Angie raised her hand, annoyed by the doting secretary. “No, I’m fine. I just need… need a moment. As the lecture is cancelled this afternoon, I’m going right to the doctor.”

“I think that’s wise,” Hedy said, slipping out the door.

Angie took another sip of tea and noticing her bare and scabbed thumb. With another sip of tea, she let her head fall against her forearm, closing her eyes and drifting into another disturbed sleep...

She was in a bathroom stall. A small boy with large blue eyes stood at her side. She sensed she was going to the bathroom… but that was not quite right. She was pretending to go to the bathroom. She was hiding. Hiding? Yes. Hiding. The boy was quiet, and she raised her forefinger to her lips to tell him to continue to be. He started to fiddle with the stall lock, and she shook her head. He was always fiddling with things.

Then two arms appeared under the stall door, grabbing the boy by the ankles and whipping him out of the stall. The boy flopped like a hooked fish as his legs went out from under him. The only sound was a muffled slap as his face struck the floor.. The boy, futilely clawing the tile with his hands, disappeared with the grabbing hands and arms.

She struggled to her feet, unbolted the stall door and pursued the arms and her boy. Her son. She heard herself screaming his name as the diner patrons regarded her with concern.

A man wearing a fedora asked, “Ma’am, are you needing assistance?”

“My son. They took my son.” She was scanning the windows of the diner, searching the parking lot. There was no son. No arms. No one. “My son. They took my son.”

“What son, miss?” A waitress approached her.

“My son. Navin.” She went to the door of the diner. “My son.”

The waitress shook her head, “I saw nothing, Miss.”

Angie woke with a start, raising her head too quickly for the migraine that plagued her. Expecting to be at her office desk, she realized that she was not in her office but in a house. Plants covered the walls and a three-eyed cat was playing on the table. She shook her head, squeezing her eyes closed again. Madness. Brain damage. Head trauma. The diagnoses filled the potion of her mind still under some of her own control. She took a breath and opened her eyes once more. She was still not in her office. She was in a cemented walled room with two thin men in dark suits.

One smiled. “Give us all we ask. And then you can leave. With your son.”

She shook her head again, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them to find herself back in her university office. She was gulping for air and everything was hazy. The vile pain in her head caused her ears to ring. What was happening to her? Maybe it was worse than a concussion. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Once she got her bearings, she could go right over to the hospital. She must have hit her head a lot harder than she thought. Slipping in and out of consciousness was not a good sign.

She opened her eyes, relieved she was in her office, yet, startled to find herself face to face with one of the suited tall men from her vision. The man was a phantom hologram standing in front of her desk. He sneered. “We have you, bitch. Your mission is defeated. And we know where Navin is.”

Angie screamed, pushing herself out of her chair. She grabbed a book off her desk and threw it at the vision. It passed through the man as if he was ether.

The man smiled. “Yeah, that’s it. Get nice and angry.”

She screamed again, ripped a bookshelf board free from the wall, and wielded it like an overly broad broadsword. Hedy and Horace rushed into the room and Horace lunged at Angie. Angie swung the shelf board at the ghostly man, but it went through him and struck Horace instead. Horace ducked away from her second blow as the man in the suit evaporated.

Another boom cracked through them and shook the room, the building, the town, the state, the country… the world.

Angie’s world went black.

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