Dreams of Light by Patrick Sean Lee (i wanna iguana read aloud .txt) 📕

bigger the better—his even greater love affair with the fastest and most expensive cars in the world, his refusal to crack a book unless Cyn ordered him to…I could go on. Between all his eccentricities and his defiance of order, he was the salt and pepper in our stew.

Well, anyway…

The half who stayed the hands—figuratively spoken—of those intent on murdering us, eventually flew out like a dozen tornados, into two ships that had suddenly appeared. I stood there in the gravel staring up into the sky where they’d been a second ago.

Two thoughts hit me after the flashes of light and rippling of the air following their disappearance. The first was how weary I was of their coming and going. The alien invaders were the angry gods of our lives, now. I couldn’t, none of us could dismiss that fact. Before their appearance, before the catastrophe, gods didn’t really exist. Not gods hiding in the clouds, anyway. In a strange way I so longed for the days when the petty creatures of the ancients’ imaginations existed only in books and B movies. When the real gods of our fates, the instigators of mayhem, dropped barrel bombs and chemical bombs on us.

At least they were us, as powerful, deceitful, and evil as they were. We knew where we stood. The better among us could fight them. Humanity had a chance.

I saw Mari communicating with Jerrick—that’s one of those things I’ll never get used to. Her eyes seemed to close when they were actually wide open. That look you see on an interrogator’s face before he…no, more intense, but missing the ugliness. She stared right through him, through Cynthia standing behind him, I swear, right through the ground! Only a brief second of this as Munster began to say something. Jerrick had turned his head and was listening to her. And then he nodded.

“Munster, help me get him back inside,” he said cutting him off.

“What’s going on, Mari?” Cynthia asked. “What did they say to you?”

Mari turned her eyes, now alive, to her.

“We need to bring him back. You can come inside or stay here,” she said walking off toward the porch. Of course Munster seemed only too happy to shove his pistol into the hem of his jeans and rush to Jerrick’s and Charles’ side. Together they lifted him by the arms, stabilized themselves, and then followed Mari.

At the top of the steps Mari turned suddenly and called back to me.

“Amelia, stay out here and watch. If any of them show up again, don’t waste a second. Get inside and tell me.”

Naturally. The nasty ones were bound to reappear.

“I’ll stay with you,” Cynthia said. She walked over to me and took hold of my hand. “I guess we sort of won this battle, huh?”

Yeah, if you call narrowly escaping getting squashed or incinerated for another day winning. This hell was never going to end…or maybe it would when the half of them who hated our presence won out.

For the first time since the invaders arrived, I shook uncontrollably. Cynthia let loose of my hand and wrapped her arms around me tightly.

“We’ll be okay, Amelia. You’ll see. Don’t you dare give up.”

“It won’t end,” I whimpered, ‘end’ dragging out of my throat, driven by swords and axes. I lost it entirely the second she took me in her arms. Amelia the strong one. Yeah, right.

“Sit with me, Amelia.”

She led me to the steps, and there she, literally, sat me down. She brushed the hair off my face gently, and then swished away the tears that had gathered at my eyes and on my cheeks. She stood above me like some Julius Caesar or Alexander, her stance steady, her jaw locked in defiance of anything those bastards could throw at us.

I threw my arms around her waist and shoved my face into her midsection and started to cry again. Cyn caressed the back of my head over and over.

“Okay, kiddo, get it out, but get over it. I’m here for you. Peter’s here for you. Now, you get back and be here for us and everyone else. We’re going to make it! Somehow we’ll figure out a way to make them leave. This is our home!”

 

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Publication Date: 12-04-2017

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