No Picnic After Dark

I woke up and found myself lying face down on the ground. Lifting my head, I used my hand to wipe off the dirt stuck to my eye lids and looked around to see where I was and get my bearings. In a flash, I remembered warnings of a fallout from earth’s rejection of 10G communications systems predicting fatal devastation worldwide for months. As I gained my focus and strength, I stood up slowly and looked around in disbelief for what my eyes were seeing. Everything was charred black from radiation. There was ash, and soot and rubble everywhere. Tall buildings had sunken into the ground with only rooftops showing at ground level. What were once city streets looked like mountainous peaks and valleys of concrete and asphalt. I stood there, still, and barely breathing.

From a distance, I heard a siren. Looking toward the sound, I tried to turn toward it to see what it was. But I couldn’t move. Something held me in place where I stood. My arms, my legs, my head, my neck, my hands – all immobile. But my senses were still functioning. With my eyes stretched wide, I felt my body lift up off the ground into the air as if there was no gravity. “What’s happening to me? Where am I?”, I said to myself. “Am I the only survivor?”

I kept rising higher and higher into the air and heard the siren getting louder. At the same time, a silver orb appeared floating in the air off in the distance. It seemed to be harboring the sound of the siren. As it moved toward me, the siren grew louder and louder. So loud, the sound pierced my ears. The pain was excruciating. At about five feet away, the orb stopped moving and hovered in place. And the siren stopped sounding. I was relieved. The pain in my ears subsided. The silver orb hovered in the air at the same distance from the ground I was suspended there. My mind was reeling with questions: “What is this thing? What is going on? Was earth invaded by aliens? Is this thing going to kill me?”

All of a sudden, the silver that was covering the orb dissolved into what looked like a shiny white globe. It was glowing in rhythm with itself and then began spinning very fast. As it spun, pictures of my childhood appeared. Memories I’ve cherished all my life. And they kept coming. Year after year of memories. Memories of my family home, my first job, my first girlfriend, my first apartment – my life was passing in front of my eyes. Looking away from the pictures the orb was showing me, I remembered who I am and that I am a Nuclear Scientist. My name is Isaac Nash. I have a wife, three children and two dogs. I live just outside of Tonopah, Arizona in Buckeye near my work at Palos Verdes Nuclear Power Plant. Remembering this, my eyes turned back toward the spinning globe that was still showing pictures of my life. I watched and remembered. And after a while, it paused. The pictures stopped coming. I waited and watched to see what it would show next. Shortly after, there appeared a beautiful heart-shaped locket that I had given my wife for our tenth wedding anniversary. It showed me every side of the locket. Then, the locket unlocked and opened. Inside there were the photos of my wife and I, side by side, that I remember putting in the locket with my love for her. I looked on and after a few moments, the locket closed. I didn’t want the image to go away. The memory was so dear to me. Thinking again, and realizing I may never see my wife and children again, my heart sank. And my eyes filled with tears.

Still poised watching the image of the locket, I noticed it getting bigger. And the bigger it grew, the silver covering in which the orb had first appeared began to form, covering the shiny globe and the image of the locket. In a few seconds, the orb appeared to be as it was when I first cast my eyes on it. It was hovering in place, motionless, in front of me. I was afraid of what would happen next but could do nothing to help myself. I was still immobilized, suspended in the air.

The siren started up again. But softer than it had sounded before. And the silver orb started moving back in the direction of its approach. As it flew further away, the siren got louder and louder and the orb began spinning again. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. It began turning red the faster it spun. And the faster it spun the hotter it got. I could see heat rays radiating from it as it grew larger, redder and hotter every second. It became so hot I could feel the heat on my skin and the hair on my body shriveling in the burn of the heat. After a few moments I started screaming as I felt my body decomposing from the radiating heat into an unrecognizable state. In horrific pain, I saw the fiery orb lift itself higher in the sky as it grew even hotter. It then headed toward me at lightning speed. And within two feet of me it exploded, and blew me away. I felt the blast force and couldn’t believe I survived it. The force of the explosion loosened whatever was holding me in place and I started falling. I felt my limbs begin to move trying to catch myself in the fall. But I kept falling. For what seemed like miles and miles I fell, and kept falling until in an instant everything turned black and I heard a loud thud. My eyes rolled back into my head and closed in oblivion.

I do not know how much time passed. But I started feeling by body coming back to my senses. Groggy, exhausted, decomposed and wretched but whole and still a bit unconscious, I felt a hand on my arm shaking me and a familiar voice saying, “Wake up, wake up, Isaac!” It was my wife Nancy’s voice. My eyes slowly came into focus. “You were having a nightmare. Are you OK?”, she said. I sat up, noticing I had been lying down on some type of bed. Unfamiliar with the surroundings, I looked about, and then I looked at the woman who would be my wife, and replied, “Where am I?” Nancy’s voice replied, “You’re home. You’re home.” You don’t look like my wife. Who are you? This isn’t my home. Where am I?”, I asked insistently. She repeated, “You’re home. You’re home.” Just then her body rose from the floor and hung poised in the air over me. Looking up at her, she rose even higher. And her image began disappearing. As she completely vanished, I heard her voice saying one more time, “You’re home.” After she was gone, I looked down as I felt something warm in my right hand. It was the heart-shaped locket I had given my wife. I looked at it adoringly remembering what it meant to me. Then I took it up, held it next to my heart, laid back down. and closed my eyes for the last time.