The Night We Were Taken Aboard

“HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE!” Pastor Bartley slammed his fists down on the pulpit. As he bellowed, the organist, an elderly man who was hard of hearing, answered with the same ferocity. He shoved his fingers down on the keys as hard as he could and his feet jabbed at the pedals. Chords, about a half dozen or so, intended to instill dread in the soul, filled the space. The whole congregation was jarred from their stupor. If anyone had fallen asleep, they sure as hell were not asleep anymore.

Coughing and throat clearing rippled through the captive audience as they replied back to their minister with tepid responses. “Amen… Amen.” Pastor Bartley narrowed his eyes and surveyed the effects of these theatrics.

It was the middle of August in rural Tennessee and the white clapboard church sat nestled amongst cornfields, blistering in the sun. It was stifling inside, cooled faintly by the weak wisps of humid wind that managed to waft in through the open windows. Many shifted in their seats, peeling themselves and their clammy clothes from the backs of the hard wooden pews.

I had half a thought to take the Bible that was in my lap and begin fanning myself with it. But I knew that if I did that, I would get a stern warning from my father and maybe even his belt on my backside. I could almost hear his words; “One does not treat the Lord’s holy book with such irreverence.”

I glanced down the pew. Next to me was my mother in her Sunday best: a light-blue dress dotted with yellow flowers, low beige heals, and a white pillbox hat. A string of pearls encircled her neck, glistening with sweat. She was holding my youngest brother; he was squirming in her arms as he started to cry. The loud noise must have woken him up. She excused herself from our pew and took him outside to comfort him.

I looked further down the pew at my other four brothers, seated according to age from youngest to oldest all the way to my father. They were dressed in suits, with shoes shined and ties tightly knotted underneath their starched collars. Their hats were beside them and each had a Bible in their lap. They shifted in their seats as they stared directly at Pastor Bartley. My father glanced down at me and motioned for me to look up at the minister. That was my father’s most important rule at Sunday service: unless we are singing from the hymnal or following along in the reading of a Bible passage, your attention and your eyes should be fixated on the pastor.

I looked up towards the pulpit. Pastor Bartley was continuing his sermon on what befalls non-believers of the faith. Behind him, dressed in the same common garb of the clergy, was his son. He had been watching his father intently, but at my movement, his eyes darted to me. A smile spread across his face as he surveyed me. My Sunday best was even better than my mothers; she had seen to that. My mother had picked out a white dress with multi-colored flowers splashed across it from a department store catalog in the city. My auburn hair had been curled and it hung in tussled ringlets around my face. I too had a pillbox hat, but mine was a soft yellow, embellished with white lace. My first string of pearls lay delicately around my neck, gleaming, as a bead of sweat slipped down my chest.

I mustered a weak smile of my own as I looked at him and then to his father. A feeling a dread filled my stomach. This morning, a very proud Pastor Bartley had announced that his eldest son and I were to be married this fall. The entire congregation had clapped. My parents had arranged it earlier this spring. After the service, I was expected to stand next to him as we bid “Goodbye” to everyone. I was going to have to shake hands and say, “Thank you,” to all the “Congratulations,” that were bound to come our way. After all, I was to be the next Mrs. Bartley.

But I did not want to marry him. I had just finished high school two months ago and I was to turn eighteen next week. It was not that I didn’t like him, but I simply wanted something else in life, like some of the young men in our town that attended a university. They came back as lawyers, bankers, and doctors; but I was told that that was an unacceptable way for a woman to live.

My father defended this arrangement by saying that I would be financially well cared for, since this church claimed robust levels of tithing and we would be invited to dine with congregants every Sunday. My mother told me I would have the respectable position of a pastor’s wife. I had gone to bed crying that night and every night since.

Pastor Bartley had momentarily stopped preaching and asked us to open our Bibles. He wished for us to follow along as his son read out loud a specific passage to emphasize this Sunday’s message. Pastor Bartley stepped back as his son took the pulpit. There was a great shuffling sound as people found the appropriate page. His son began to read in the same stale, boring tone as his father. I thumbed my Bible open to a random part.

My sister elbowed me in the ribs. I had almost forgotten she was sitting on the other side of me. She was closest to the window and pointed out it. It was a sunny day; small white clouds gently rolled across the sky and the corn tassels swayed in the barely-there breeze. My jaw dropped as I saw what she was pointing to.

In the distance, far past the cornfields, was… something… in the air. I had seen pictures in school of airplanes from the second war and some people in town owned automobiles. But this thing bore no resemblance to either. It was a behemoth metallic squashed circle that glinted in the sun. I had no idea what it was. It slowly turned as it descended from a huge cloud that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. It made no sound as it lowered itself to just above the tree line. Without making the leaves move, it quickly darted off and dropped into the trees.

“That’s near our house,” she began to whisper, but was silenced by a “Hush!” from our father.

Pastor Bartley’s son had finished reading and the choir led us in our final hymn, singing all six verses. We made our way outside. I was quickly ushered over to my betrothed and the both of us were smothered with salutations on our upcoming nuptials.

By the time we got home, the roast that mother had left in the oven was as dry as a piece of shoe leather. Most of the time it works out for her: put it in for a short time on high and then turn it down low while we are away. We usually came home to a beautifully cooked piece of meat. But there was no saving it this time. It was terribly dry, no matter how much gravy she drowned it in. We all sat in silence at the dinner table chewing… and chewing… and chewing.

“Pastor had a wonderful sermon today,” mother commented as she splashed some more gravy on her piece of roast.

“He did,” father replied as he picked a shred of meat from in between his teeth.

Later that night, after all the dishes were washed and the farm animals fed, my sister and I lay in our beds in our shared room.

“Rachel?”

“Yes, Sarah?”

“You’ll still come to visit me once your married, won’t you?”

“Of course I will.” I rolled over in my bed to face my sister. A beam of light from the full moon outside illuminated her face. She was only a year and a half younger than me, but I thought of her as my twin. We did everything together, as if she was my other half. “Do you want to talk about it as we go for a night swim?”

“Let’s!” She grabbed the lantern by the bedside.

We quietly slipped out the window, careful not to make a sound. Hurrying our way to the woods, we came to the large spring-fed creek that ran through the back of our property. The water cascaded over the shale and formed rocky pools deep enough to float in. We were allowed to swim there during the day, with modest clothing of course. But we were forbidden from going there at night. Father always said that the darkness brought out immoral inklings in people. But there were many hot summer nights when my sister and I snuck out in secret.

We came to the water’s edge and pulled off our nightgowns, slipping naked into the refreshing pools. We lay on our backs floating in the water as the moon and the lantern cast shadows on the trees.

“This is probably one of the last times we will swim here together, isn’t it?” I heard the quiver in my sister’s voice; she was trying to hold back tears.

“Sarah, I began, “I’ll still be around. I’ll still see you. I just… I will be…” But the words escaped me.

“You will… be his.” The resentment in her voice stung me. “You don’t even want to marry him.”

“What choice do I have? What choice do any of us have? You know, I heard mother and father saying the other day that they were thinking of arranging you with the banker’s son. He was that fat little boy that used to kick our barn cats when he was five. He’s going to the university this year to study money like his father. You would be very wealthy.”

“I know. I heard that too.” She floated up next to me and changed the subject. “Did you see the pastor’s wife today at the service?” I had indeed seen Mrs. Bartley this morning and it was very obvious that she was with child again. “How many children is that for them?”

“Eight… no, nine.” I counted on my fingers.

“Do you think she’ll have anymore after you and her oldest son are married? I think it would be strange if she were with child at the same time her daughter-in-law was in the same family way. Don’t you think?”

“What?” I rolled over in the water and sunk down up to my neck as I reclined on a piece of smooth shale. The full realization of what she said washed over me. There was a high chance that this time next year, I would be with child. And, come to think of it, Mrs. Bartley was not that much older than our mother; they knew each other as schoolgirls. She could very well have another baby after I had given them their first grandchild.

“A child that’s younger than your grandchild,” Sarah started, but I cut in.

“Well, I guess that’s just the way it goes. Mother said that men always desire for that which a woman gives and that it never goes away, not even when they are older. And as long as a woman is still young enough to have her monthly time, she… will bear children.”

“How many more babies do you think mother is going to have?” Sarah laughed.

“Mother is still young, not even forty. If father still wants for her, then mother can probably still have a few more children.”

“And that’s what you want?” Sarah glided over to where I was lounging in the water.

“Well, no… but what choice is there? That’s just the way things are…”

“But it shouldn’t be... What’s that?”

A white light was filling the forest from above. Waves of fog began to roll down through the trees as the strange metallic object, the one we had seen earlier in the day, slowly lowered itself from the sky. We scampered out of the creek and hid behind the rocks.

“What is it, Rachel?” Is it a sign of the second coming?”

“I don’t know.”

The object came to rest a few feet above the moss of the forest floor when a door in its side opened. A ramp slid down and gently touched the velvety ground. Two figures appeared in the opening and descended the ramp.

“It seems like some sort of vehicle, but from up there.”

“Up where?”

“From space.” As the fog cleared, the figures became clear. In the glow from their ship, I gasped when I saw what they looked like.

They appeared almost the same as earthly men: they had two legs and two arms, but their skin was green. Their eyes glowed in burnt amber, like the color of a cat’s eye. Long locks of white hair flowed down their backs, long like a woman’s. But there was no mistaking that these were males. They were wearing nothing and the physical manifestation of their manhood hung prominently where it did on earthly men.

My cheeks flushed. They were beautiful, in their own way. I knew that it was a sin to look upon their bare bodies, but I could not tear my eyes away. The longer I stared, the stranger I began to feel. The warmth from my cheeks seemed to spread to the rest of me. I felt a craving deep within, like a want that I could not explain, a want that would be satisfied by only one thing.

“Are they trees?” My sister turned to me, a stunned look on her face.

“I don’t know… but I’ve never been attracted to a tree before.” I bit my lower lip. Sarah smiled, suppressing a soft giggle.

“Is that what God looks like?”

“Maybe.”

“Well if that’s what God looks like, then I want to go to that Promised Land. I mean, just look at them.”

Sarah took a step to get a better view but snapped a dead tree branch as she did. A beam of light fell on our hiding spot.

“Let’s go, Sarah.” I hissed to my sister as I grabbed her hand, trying to pull her away. But it was too late; the men had started off in our direction. With a few strides, they were standing mere inches from us. We stood rooted to the ground.

Up close, I was able to behold the full impressiveness of these two men. In school, we had seen pictures of statues carved by old-world artisans, and these men looked like one had come alive. Muscles, as if shaped in stone, lay flawlessly beneath their emerald-green skin, which almost shimmered in the moonlight. Looking up, their faces were a handsome sight: high cheekbones and a prominent jaw line. Their golden eyes, though a strange color for a human, had an inexplicable softness to them. My breath caught in my chest and I felt an overwhelming desire to reach out and touch them.

Then one spoke and a voice more beautiful than music played on a thousand strings filled the air.

“We have… come for things… from your world. We have come… for you.” A slight smile curled across his lips.

His hand outstretched towards my face and gently caressed my cheek. It slid down my neck and across my bare chest. I felt the warmth in my cheeks turn to fire as I closed my eyes. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than that man to touch me in unholy places.

But once his skin contacted mine, I understood. I saw everything: our past, their present, and glimpses of a future. I knew why they were here. They were an advanced race, scattered across the cosmos, the ancestors of humanity. But their bloodlines were old and diminishing. In a final effort to save their species, they had traveled vast distances to the worlds they had populated to collect new lineages: fresh plants, animals, and mates.

“Come with us,” said the other man, who had his hand on Sarah’s face.

Sarah let go of my hand and took the other man’s hand instead.

“Sarah, wait! What are you doing?”

“Rachel,” she looked at me with a strange pleading expression on her face. “Here’s our chance, our choice.”

“Sarah…”

“The pastor’s wife is a sweet lady, does a lot for the church. God bless her soul. But do you really want to be the next Mrs. Bartley? Rachel, that’s what’s in store for you - always “Yes, dear,” three steps behind your husband, and a child growing in your belly just because he wants it. Do you really want that?”

Her words echoed in my mind as she started off towards the ship.

“Sarah…”

I looked up at the man who had his hand outstretched, ready for me to take it. My sister had already boarded. My twin, my other half was… gone. My heart began pounding. I looked up into the man’s eyes

Sarah was right. Here was our chance at a life with something… more, an opportunity to matter. But most importantly, it was a choice that we would get to make on our own. I smiled, took his hand, and followed where my sister had been led.

Once on their ship, the door closed and we began the slow foggy ascent to the sky. Soon, our house was a small box in a field and then our town was a dot on the landscape. Higher and higher we rose, until the Earth was but a marble in the window of their ship. My sister and I gave one last look over our shoulders at our old world. Then we turned, our men beside us, ready to face our new beginnings in what lay in the beyond.