Journey From Heaven
Page 23
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The sky darkened without warning, as if something blotted out the sun. Far above me, high in the sky, something round and disklike side-slipped back and forth, falling like a leaf toward where I stood. It was a giant ship, and it would never make it to the ground safely; the trees would skewer it in a hundred places. Couldn’t its pilot see everyone aboard would be killed?
But as it fell, floating ever more gently as it lost altitude, I looked and saw the trees did not close in, did not march in the ranks they should. Instead, where scores of trees had towered like skyscrapers into the emerald skies, a great open space surrounded me.
Who could have done this? The earth itself seemed to ooze with blood in protest. Who had marred my labors, desecrated this place forever sanctified to the Master?
How had the visitors known to land here?
I retreated to the open space’s perimeter, and the ship settled to the ground, with long, jointed metal legs for supports. It sat like a gargantuan mushroom on the forest floor. Steam vented from hidden outlets. Popping and pinging noises signaled the exterior hull’s cooling. Minutes later, a hatch door opened and a rope ladder snaked toward the ground below. The creatures were bipedal and moved like men, though with quick, catlike grace, as they descended. When they reached the ground, they fanned out and stared into the surrounding trees, their eyes fixed with wonder at what they saw.
The forest, preternaturally silent until then, exploded with noise. Thunderous wings and a mighty chorus of whistled birdsong sounded from above, led by an exotic, triangular-bodied creature with a flute, his avian orchestra following in a majestic anthem that rolled on like the waves of a sea.
A car horn blared loudly and discordantly, breaking through my consciousness like a rock flung into a reflecting pool. I bolted upright, thrashing against my blankets for a few moments, at the same time disturbing a yowling creature which until then had evidently been sleeping peacefully beside me.
I was at home in bed! The whole strange world had been a dream—the spaceship and its aliens amid the majestic trees, the gloriously beautiful birds and their equally glorious birdsong—all a dream!
The noise of the horn gradually died away. Just another drunken fool driving past, gleefully waking the neighborhood, I guessed. It was the price one paid for living only a few blocks from a tavern. Profoundly disappointed, I stretched back out and sank my head into the pillow, propping it around my ears in hopes of blocking out all sound.
Meowing soft questions, Ferd jumped up and positioned himself at the foot of the bed where he would be out of danger’s reach, should a certain crazy person care to repeat his wild antics.