There's a story that my mom used to tell me when I was a kid.
She held me up to a telescope to show me the stars. I've
been born under an open sky two years prior. It was only fair that
space and I got better acquainted. She showed me constellations like Ursa Major Origa,
and Orion, and the Moon. Of course, finally she set the
telescope to one specific point, Jupiter. Then I started screaming. I went
from warm and cuddley to a panicked hell, screaming mini beast at the drop
of a hat. Mom never figured out why, and for many years neither
did I. It's like you saw the Boogeyman, she says whenever she tells
the story. Well, maybe he just didn't understand what he was looking at,
or that mystery can be scary. My dad jokingly says that this telescope
was the cause for my interest in geology. Better to look down than up,
he figured. I never thought of it that way, but he had
a point. Personally, I think I've always liked to understand the fundamental puzzle
pieces that make this world live and breathe. That's what geology is to me,
an understanding of our home, like knowing the foundations of your house.
So yeah, I'm a geologist. I got my degree at AMSU, got
a master's degree in Norway, and got an entry level job at a government
agency in western Virginia. By twenty thirteen, I was well on my way
to earthquake proofing my life and personal economy. Things were pretty sweet, but
there were a few caveats. First, I was desperately lonely, and second,
I hadn't used the telescope since that faithful day when I was two years
old. But that changed in March twenty thirteen, I just turned twenty four.
I kind of started dating this girl Lynn. We'd only been out twice,
but I had a good feeling about the third date. She was an
intensely outdoorsy kinds of person. She had all kinds of breathing fabric clothes,
super hid your whatever water flasks, and she tracked everything about her life and
her ergonomic hyperdigital buzzword watch with the accompanying monthly subscription app. It was all
a bit much, and I couldn't keep up with her in any sense of
the word, but somehow tolerated me, and that was all that mattered.
We'd been hiking all day. Lynn had been hinting at a surprise at the
end of the road. It was already getting too dark to turn around,
so I figured we might be sharing a tent. She hadn't told me to
bring my own. As we got to the top of a hill, I
realized I'd been an idiot. There was a camp of six other people,
men and women, all variations of Lynn Eagert sporty people with a violently upbeat
vibe. Lynn turned to me with the biggest smile. Surprise, she laughed,
we got a stargazing party. Yeah, I'd misread the entire date thing.
I was supposed to bring my own tent, but Lynn figured that was
implied. Apparently you should always bring a tent when hiking. I hate unwritten
rules. In that moment, I was just a bitter man, coming to
the realization that we had vastly different ideas of what that date was going to
look like. Still, I had a good time. We had hot dogs
and s'mores, and a friends had put up telescopes to play with. There
was supposed to be a meteor passing by, and they all wanted to see
it. Honestly, I think it was just an excuse to get out of
town for a while. One of Lynn's friends had brought a bottle of schnaps,
not much, but enough to play some never Ever Ever and have a
good laugh or two. By the time the meteor came around, we'd almost
forgotten about it. Hell, I'd almost forgotten about Lynn. We all got
up and took turns with the telescopes. It was sort of mad in a
way, all of us standing on that hill looking up at the clear sky,
no light pollution, no passing cars, just a bunch of people and
the stars. Then it was my turn. Looking at it through the telescope
makes it seem more real in a way. You can see details that you
otherwise can't. It reminds you that the stars aren't just a pretty picture.
They're real things in a very real space. I followed the meteor for a
few seconds, ooing and ring with the rest of them. Then it passed
in front of Jupiter. Something in me stopped. It felt like my soul
dropped anchor, locking my neck in place. Ever since that day, when
I was a kid, I hadn't seen the planet up close, not like
that, not since there was a rumble. At first, I thought it
was some kind of motor error in the telescope tripod. Then it happened again.
I took my hands off the telescope, but quickly realized I couldn't look
away. My neck was cramping, my throat closing. I couldn't blink,
I couldn't scream, And the rumble grew stronger. It got faster, turning
into a vibration or a note. There was a middle note, a high
note, finally a low note. Three repeating sounds bouncing against the inside of
my cranium like an expanding echo. My eyes, searching desperately for a way
to blink, finally locked onto something. There among the swirling storms of Jupiter's
surface, I could see pots of red, some large, some small,
and once so large it was impossible to miss. Now I know what it
is. In theory, I've heard about the storms of Jupiter. It's a
gas giant. But what I looked at then, and there were no storms,
They were eyes, every storm, every spot red eyes. I finally
understood the rumbling, the feeling that bore through me middle, high, low.
It wasn't just spasms. They were syllables. The more I listened,
the clearer they got, like fine tuning a radio, and in that one
perfect moment, as everything aligned, I heard it. I heard Jupiter.
I felt it not less a voice, but a movement, a trembling bass,
like standing next to a silent with deafening song, and it said I
see you. For the other stargazers, it looked like I had a seizure.
Lynn later described how it took one look through the telescope and immediately started
shaking. She offered to get my coat, which I left by the campfire.
When I finally pride myself loose from the telescope, all I could do
was froth at the mouth and screeched the same three tones over and over.
But they didn't understand. How could they middle, high, low, I
see you. I was only out for a couple of minutes. The circle
of friends looked down at me, trying to figure out how bad the damages
were. They'd fetched their first aid kits and Lynn's satellite phone prior to waking
me up. They've been arguing whether to call someone. They could also follow
the blue tape on the trees, which would lead to a ranger station.
Luckily I woke up just in time to stop them. I'm fine, I
gasped, Really, I don't know what the hell that was. That's epilepsy.
One of them said, my cousin has it. No, that's blood
sugar. Another said guaranteed. Someone said something about chakras. Another started talking
about the liver and pushing me to eat their special Minnesota sunflower seeds. What
a wild night. The next day, I headed straight home. I said
goodbye to Lynn Moon insisted that I kept her updated. I crashed in my
bed, head first, leaving my hiking gear strewn across the hallway. Even
though I'd gotten a good night's sleep, my mind needed to recover. My
hands wouldn't stop shaking, and my eyes felt warm. I would get bouts
of strange jaw muscles sending these fiery signals up my spine to poke me like
an infected wound. I slept for fourteen hours straight, this long, dreamless
sleep i'd turning off a light and waking up with no idea what planet you're
on? Waking up felt like starting a machine. Something in me moved and
I looked straight up to the ceiling. Without thinking, I said it aloud,
I see you. I tried to chalk it all up to stress and
fatigue I'd been hiking all day and topped it off with booze. Not a
great combination. I spent a few hours just locking up stuff about Jupiter to
try and explain what I'd seen. I read about the storms, the composition
of dust and gas, the invisible rings, the moons. It was all
there. Jupiter is no mystery to us. But what I'd seen were no
storms. It felt like I'd seen through them, spotting something beneath, something
deep and profound, like breaking through the ice of a dark lake only to
see something shimmering at the bottom. I was at a cross roads, try
and ignore it or confront it. What else could I do? I decided
to ignore it for a few days. It worked. There was the occasional
shiver when I heard an uncomfortable tune or the frequency of a machine or motor.
There was this one noise that I kept hearing from my fridge that gave
me pause. At one point, I just stood there, head pressed against
it, listening traces of that mysterious rumble looking to grasp me. Lynn and
I kept in touch. She was worried about me, asking me to get
checked out. I couldn't be bothered at first, but she made me promise.
I thought about telling her I'd gone without actually going, but she was
so sincere. I couldn't bring myself to lie, no matter how convenient.
The doctor couldn't find anything wrong with me, not physically at least. I
kept getting distracted by all the hums I imagined, hearing that frequency in a
little bit of everything, directly translating to spotty words. In the back of
my mind. I could hear see coming off a computer screen, you,
from the rumbling pipes in the bathroom, just spots of recognition, sending flakes
of ice up my spine as a constant reminder that I was, in fact,
nowhere near okay. It all came to a breaking point one evening when
I was making dinner. I was alternating between frying chicken and entering messages from
Lynn. When I got into what I can only explain as a groove.
There was a hum coming from the kitchen fan, which resonated exactly with one
of the frequencies. It was calling to me over and over, you,
you, you, you, you. I have no idea how long I
stood there. My mind just sinked to this rhythm. At some point I
realized I was coughing, nod in my head to the alarm from the smoke
detect to going off. My chicken was burned. I ended up pouring myself
a bowl of powdered tomato soup, and even then, as I stirred it
with my spoon, I imagined the storms on Jupiter, the red swells hiding
an unfathomable chaos. I watched it spin around and around and around again,
And the longer I looked, I could feel the eye coming closer. My
hands cramped, locking the plate in my hands. I could feel a rumble
boiling in my stomach, like a volcano about to erupt. Three familiar notes
translating to an immediate, marrow curdling screech. I see you. I threw
the plates across the room. It shattered, and the red droplets spread across
my egg white wall, swirling dots, dancing like distant Jupiter storms. The
hum in me faded into a steady stream of whispers, whispers that eagerly reminded
that I was unquestionably scene. For the next few nights, it just got
worse. I prayed for a dreamless sleep, but it wouldn't come. Instead,
I kept finding myself carried off into the void, coming face to face
with an eye the size of countenance, chemical storms that could strip the skin
from bones, leaving only thoughts and screams behind, knife edged ruby mountain ranges
circling an endless black iris. No matter how much I kicked, twisted,
or turned, it sucked me in, pulling me into an eternal stomach churning
free fall. I would wake up drenched in sweat, completely off balance.
I'd fall out of bed and flop around on the floor, as if gravity
still eluded me. It had taken me a few seconds to realize nothing had
happened, and maybe, if I was lucky, i'd gotten half an hour
of sleep. I gave up. I told Lynn all about it, begging
for help. She came over within the hour, drove me to the hospital.
All that hell, I don't remember filling out a single form. She
made sure they called my emergency contact and updated the doctor and what had been
going on. She was unstoppable. I tried not to look and listen too
much, and my mind was reeling from a lack of sleep. I have
vague recollections of hallways and blurred faces. By then, I could feel the
rumbling everywhere, every allegrical outlet, every fluorescent light. I could feel it
in the texture of my rubber souls dragging across the white linonium floor. It
wasn't letting up. The only clear memory I have is off staring into the
eyes of a doctor as I had a moment of clarity. He looked at
me like i'd slapped him. Good. He said, then your eyes are
working. Ah, yeah, what you can see me? Right? He
took down a few notes and checked my eyes, You said, so just
now. They kept me overnight for observation. My mom came by with some
supplies and words of encouragement. She stroked my head and made sure I always
had a glass of water on hand. Whenever my fever like rants and seizures
would start, she was there to calm me down well to the best of
her ability. At that point, I was so far gone that I couldn't
even explain it to her. It was just this constant assault on my senses,
like my brain was swollen with voices. Then at some point it stopped.
I remember it clearly. Mom had opened a window overlooking the parking lot,
and I had a clear view of the night distant stars making their way
across the sky. After shivering constantly for days, the relaxation I experienced was
indescribable. Euphoric. This warm, enveloping feeling spread all throughout my body,
like becoming a comfort blanket. Mom stroked my hair. You always liked that,
she said. Remember I used to sleep with the window open. I
don't remember that. No stuffed animals or nightlights, just an open window.
Anything else and we'd get a nasty tantrum. She sat with me for a
while before she got up to use the restroom. When she got to the
door, she turned back to me. You know, the night when you
were born. We never thought you'd make it, She said. It was
all a mess. The car broke down. Your dad thought we could cut
through a field to make it to the hospital on foot. I know,
I sighed, I was born in a field. The paramedics found us.
She continued. If it hadn't been for the bright night and the stars,
they never would have. It saved your life. I looked out the window.
There was something strangely comforting about that vast darkness. Now that it didn't
fry my nerves like a dark sea, we can imagine the waves we thought
you wouldn't make it, but as soon as we heard them, we knew
you'd be okay. A primal thought swam to the front of my mind,
a vague feeling of people around me, being naked and cold in an open
field, hands grasping me, A voice fire above whispering, don't worry,
kid, A breath that lasts for a lifetime. I see you. The
next morning, I was discharged, my nerves had calmed, and I'd gotten
a prescription for seizure medication. I was rolled out of the main entrance where
Lynn met up with us. It wasn't the kind of introduction I'd planned on
doing that day, but that time was as good as any. Mom had
a promise to take me home, and Lynn was happy to help. We
started the drive, and I immediately felt something strange, a tinge of something
cold, like a snowflake hitting an open wound. Do we need to stop?
She asked? Are you okay? No, just wait. As I
looked around, the feeling shifted, and at once specific point, it disappeared.
It just disappeared. I followed the direction with my finger, pointing at
something in the distance. Can we go there? I asked? Right there
that way the highway, Sure, yeah, to where no clue? Lynn
pondered it for a second, then nodded, highway it is. We followed
it for hours and turned the day into a road trip. We crossed the
state line into West Virginia somewhere in the afternoon, and Lynn didn't seem to
mind. She made an adventure out of it. Between my spontaneous bouts of
nausea and confusion, I enjoyed her company, not to mention the snack she
got us. As the sky starts to darken, I figured she'd have us
turn around or look for a motel, but no, she kept going.
I could feel the point in the distance shift faster and faster. We were
getting closer. There was something there, something that made the shaking fade and
clarity return, a piece of me settling back to where it ought to be.
We ended up going down a long gravel road. Every twist and turn
came suddenly, forcing us to crawl at a snail's pace. Lynn didn't seem
to mind, though. She put on some John Denver and had her own
little sing along. You don't have to do this, I said, We
could be here all night. That's okay, she smiled. You sure a
fourth day is a fourth day. I'm sure you've had better. I've had
worse. As the gravel road turned to dirt and came to a stop,
I could feel we were getting close. I tried to explain it, but
I couldn't find the words. It was like a spot of nothing growing bigger
if I could just get there. I had this aching feeling that everything would,
in one way or another turn out. Okay. Lynn stopped to get
a hiking pack, and that was that. Off we went. We wandered
through the wild forest. There were no trails, no leads. It was
just us and a vague sense of direction. Lynd didn't seem to mind.
She had both a compass, satellite phone, and all kinds of tools.
Two hours of dark nothing, and suddenly light. It was almost midnight by
then. A starlit sky opened. As we stepped on to the top of
a sort of ridge overlooking a lake. I could see almost all the way
around it from there. In the distance, I spotted a few boats fishermen.
It was all quiet. No matter what direction I looked, it was
all just quiet. I looked at Lynne and laughed. I was so relieved
that I couldn't express it, like a muscle knot untying itself, or a
massive headache just melting away like pudding, a soothing balm on my soul.
I gave her a big hug and she returned it in kind. But I
don't know why, But this is it, I smiled, This is the
spot. I think we're in a Greenberry County. That's someplace special to you.
Never been here before? Well? Then I sat down and took in
the scene. No humming, no whispers, no cold creeping down my spine,
just the silent night and distant lights from stars and fishermen. You want
some soup, then asked, I gotta from us. When did you got
it in my pack? She smiled, want some? Yeah, I nodded
that'd be great. She poured me a cop and handed it over. My
eyes drifted upwards, something red moving across the sky. I shook my head
and turned away. My pulse started beating, and I dropped my cup of
soup. I tapped the side of my head as if trying to realign an
antenna. Lynn but a hand on my shoulder. Are you okay? The
red in the sky, the red eye, I could feel it. I
scrunched my face as hard as I could, telling myself it was all going
to pass, telling myself it was over. I'd won and this was just
an aftershock. Then Lynn spoke up, Is that a plane? She saw
it too. I looked back at Lynne, seeing a red gleam in her
eyes, a reflection of what loomed overhead. The joy faded from her.
I could feel it too. Something was wrong. A reflex in me made
me look up, a stupid, inane, little reflex, a rid swirl
in the distant sky, a sailing star long out of reach. My breath
grew shallow as I realized I couldn't look away. Everything else faded as my
sight was slowly swallowed by that distant vision. Lynn Lynn, I called out,
waving my hands behind me, don't let it take. I felt a
fingers brush against mine as the rumbling began. But this time it was different.
It was a pulse, a pulse so powerful that my left ear drum
immediately burst, leaving me screaming like a child on the ground. It burned
me to my core, wrapping itself around my spine and squeezing, forcing these
guitaral sounds up through my sphagus somewhere far away. I could feel in shaking
me, but all I could focus on was that red dot in the sky.
It resonated with me with my every pulse, It pulsed back our duet,
our signal. I choked my lungs, spitting up the syllables like a
hiccup. I see you. It grew faster and faster, turning from three
syllables to two, and gradually just a sound. I see you, I
see you, are you, are you, Until finally all that remained was
a single word, the name, the signal, the thing Ao Ao Ao,
And with every beat in my heart, the thing in the sky started
to turn. I could hear Lynn in the distance, as though through a
pane of thick glass. I heard a worry screaming, fumbling to connect a
satellite phone, only to be met with a pulsing static. She tried dragging
me away, but was shocked with a burst of static electricity. Every hair
in my body stood at attention, reaching for the stars, letting every breeze
cut right through me. The red thing grew bigger. That's something, a
dust particle of the infinite heading our way. It was a matter of minutes
Using a rope from a pack, Lynn managed to get a lasso hold of
my legs. She dragged me away, but it was too late. It
was like my nightmares, something distant and red, growing bigger, swallowing everything.
Ao ao ao. In the moment of impact, something burst inside me.
I coughed up something black and viscous. Perhaps it was the connection that
tied me to this thing to begin with. Maybe it marked me at birth
to demand a favor somewhere down the line. Maybe this was all something cashing
in on my life. The sky burned my retinas, but only for a
heartbeat. In nothing but a moment, the sky went from burning red to
nothing. The ground shock. There was steam, and so much cold air
was pushed out that Lynn was knocked off her feet. The red thing was
shaped like a wedge. It came down at an angle roughly the size of
a school bus. It tore into the lake, cutting up a wound in
the earth itself, effectively cracking a hole in the ground, revealing some sort
of cave system underneath. In a matter of minutes, the entire lake was
laid bare. All water drained into the caves beneath. What little remained of
the red thing turned to ash red swirling ash. Lynne propped me up against
the tree. My head was ringing like a bell. My vision slowly returned
as the pulse subsided the black, viscous bob. I coughed up, quickly
dried up into a powder, turning into flakes of metal. I tried to
talk, but couldn't form the words. I couldn't hear myself. I was
so disoriented that my body couldn't understand whether I was breathing or not, making
me light headed. Leaning against the tree, I forced myself up. I
had to see the aftermath. An entire lake drained in seconds. I could
only see little parts of the fishermen's boats, some of which had been blown
into the surrounding trees. There was no way they would have survived, much
less the remaining fish flopping around in the mud. I turned to Lynn,
try my best to speak. My body recognized all the physical sensations of speak,
but couldn't form the words. Using my fingers, I gave the numbers,
pointed to a satellite phone. We had to call God, damn everyone,
the Army Corps, NOAA, the EPA, the Division of Natural Resources.
Hell. I had to call my boss at the USGS. Everyone.
We needed everyone, so we called them one by one, and that was
that. For me. At least, things were finally peaceful. I couldn't
feel it anymore. Maybe I'd served my purpose and paid my debt in a
way. Over time, my ear drums would heal. Turns out I had
a fractured rib and two throat ulcers. Still I could overcome it. The
whole situation was just absurd. There are reports of a small geological event without
anyone mentioning the god damn meteor that changed course to hit us Coincidentally, there
were also reports of escaped convicts. Residents were asked to stay inside. Despite
having called literally everyone when I could think of, I wasn't allowed anywhere near
the site. I got no updates, no deep briefing, nothing. The
only thing I got was one of the corporate landowners telling me I'd been trouble
enough. That line alone tells me they know something I don't, and it
bothers me still. But there are only so many brick walls you can beat
your head against. At some point you get too dumb to care. That's
where I'm at now. The past few years, I've been able to look
up into the sky without a twitch of a care. I've looked at Jupiter
countless times, and I can't even imagine what I used to see anymore.
I know there's something there, but it's like a filter. Something in my
mind. Can't look past it anymore. And Lynn, well, it was
her idea to write this down. She thinks there are people out there who
might have seen something about this other perspectives. We know for a fact there
was a cover up at the local news station, and someone must have been
down at the lake. For me, the only thing that still remains is
that word, that strange sound meaning nothing and everything, like something out of
a dead language, begging to return. I can say it a hundred times,
but there's no point anymore. It feels like it has burned me out.
There's nothing left to make it sound true AO, just a noise.
I hope someone out there can make use of the truth, get some kind
of closure. As Lena and I are expecting our second daughter any day now,
I feel like this chapter needs to be closed once and for all.
And no, she won't be born under the stars