The Ozark Miracle Club

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

I hadn’t always had trouble sleeping.

Well, come to think of it, yes, I had.

As a child, it was always is there something under the bed or what lives through the attic door or maybe the purple people eater really DOES exist.

Really, it was maybe a stretch of a few months here and there where sleep wasn’t an issue.

I hadn’t had what I could call a “solid” job ever—it was always somehow out of reach. The companies I’d worked for had always been small enough that one lost client contract rendered me unaffordable; and even with all my talents, I knew I’d never really set expectations high enough that my affordableness afforded me what I needed out of my finances.

So I’d always had trouble sleeping.

And here I was, again, the same me with the same disappointment over what should have been my steady job for the next several years, but this time, I was in a new city.

I’d finally done it and left my hometown. Just short of my 35th year, I’d really announced that this time, it was really happening. I didn’t want to be surrounded by tractors, flat land, the rise of the windmills dotting the rural countryside in droves of construction. The only people who had stayed from high school hadn’t been my friends to begin with and the distance only grew the older I got. All my friends, all career paths, were on the internet as it was; why was I still there?

The rush of adrenaline still hit me from time to time, lying in bed. I’ve really done it. I live here. This is my home now.

It was the first of March when I first noticed the skies. Seven months into my new city—a burgeoning metropolis in the Ozarks, where valleys gave way to hills block by block, I could finally walk to a coffee shop, and the horizon line was rarely seen—and I knew that this was the place where my career, my life, would finally take off. Even if the evidence of that truth had only revealed itself in glimmers here and there: a new friend, a new potential lead, a second interview, another.

Some days I held all the possibilities with great regard. Wonder, even.

How could I have problems in life, when it reached the low 70s in February?

How bad could life be, if I was in a place where everyone wanted to be here?

But that night had been a low again. I dreaded the first of the month. Look, here’s another reminder that for all my charm, all my degrees, all my courage in moving and taking the next and next and next steps, that I am currently owed $600 that hasn’t arrived and the bills are due.

I apologized to my family, going to bed at a shocking 8:30. I just needed the relief of complete and utter unconsciousness.

Of course, my subconscious knew I was shaken up, worried. I dreamed of a motorcycle gang and onyx crystal skulls set at the base of tombstones in the town cemetery. Some sort of heist? A cult? As I was approached by someone who was in on it, they grabbed my throat and I woke with a start, thrown back into my now-conscious body, as the skin around my neck vibrated, as if I’d been buzzed by actual electricity.

My chihuahua rearranged himself in the crook of my legs, sensing my discomfort.

I had to get up, get out—I hadn’t rested, but dreamed myself into a frenzy. As if I needed something else to worry about.

I clicked my tongue for the dogs to follow me, to go get some night air. A leash for the beagle mix, freedom for the little one.

We opened the front door to a level of brightness I hadn’t expected—the porch was awash with lavender light. It looked like the 8 - 10 minutes you’d catch of a beautiful sunset, but on steroids… and I checked my phone. Midnight.

No one was on the streets. This wasn’t unusual—it was a quiet neighborhood.

I sat down on the ledge of the porch and Googled “lavender sky phenomenon” and added an “Arkansas” for good measure.

Nothing.

No astronomical events to take note of.

I peeked around the block, to see if anyone else was out, seeing what I was seeing.

That’s when I noticed her.

An older woman standing outside the insurance agency across the street.

I jumped a little—had she been there moments ago?

I waved.

She waved back, then motioned to the sky.

“It’s incredible!” I called. There was no need to shout. It was like the purple clouds had created a hush over the already-quiet city.

She just nodded, smiling slyly, and started to walk back toward the front door of the building.

It was when she turned around that I noticed that she was wearing a motorcycle jacket.

A skull with a serpent snaked across the back, framed by the words: Miracle Club.

I quickly took the dogs in the house, tossing their treats to them so I could run back out and see if I could talk to the woman about my dream, about the clouds—was I still dreaming?

“I wonder if you’d—” I started, coming back outside to the porch.

The sky was dark. I could see the stars.

The woman was gone.

No lights on in the insurance agency.

12:02.