One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  "My prayers have been answered, and the shepherds are back." Gaia said.

  "What do you mean, shepherds?" Tammy asked from across the room.

  Josh turned around and ran back out the way they had come in. As he stood above the city, he watched with terror as thousands of interstellar ships landed. One of the images projected into his mind as he held his hand on the pedestal, was a golden-winged planet alternative that archaeologists referred to as Nibiru. He finally understood the meaning of the last word his radio telescope had captured. The Anunnaki gods from ancient Sumeria had returned again to reclaim their planet, and as the ten-foot giants emerged from their craft, Josh had the feeling that this was going to be one of those days.

  gretel

  George has an unexplained emptiness in his soul, but adventure will soon fill the blank space when he takes the wildest ride of his life.

  Three nights came and went as George Shopton lay still and motionless, staring at his ceiling, praying that tonight would be his release from endless nights of chronic insomnia. He saw visions of sheep dancing through his weary mind as he struggled to count them, but after night three, he was incapable of keeping track. He rolled out of bed each morning to the obnoxious sound of his alarm clock, dressed and headed out the door for another day at work. After three nights of failing to sleep, he accidentally dropped a pot of coffee on the break room floor, thinking he was hitting his cup. The pot hit his foot with a crashing blow, and then the hot liquid spilled all over his feet like the pyroclastic flow of an angry volcano. It ruined his leather shoes and caused his left big toe to swell like a balloon. He cleaned up the mess with half a roll of paper towels, while trying to look nonchalant as coworkers entered the break room ignoring him.

  Dennis Daniel entered the room with concern written on his face.

  "Jesus, man! Are you alright?" He asked. Dennis had witnessed the incident through a small window in the door.

  "I'm fine, just a little clumsy. Ouch, my feet are burning like hell!"

  "Are you OK? You look like you haven't slept in three weeks." Dennis said.

  "It's been four nights, actually. I just can't sleep, and it's literally making me crazy."

  Dennis paused a moment as if he were considering something. "Here, take some of these, they help me when I get restless at night." Dennis handed him two little white pills.

  "What are they?"

  "They'll help you kick the insomnia. Oh, and you didn't get them from me."

  "These will help me sleep? What kind of crazy side effect do they have? I don't trust any of this shit."

  Dennis rubbed his chin a moment. "The side effect is mild hallucinations while you're awake. But, those pills are so strong you'll be out in ten minutes."

  Ginger Abby came in behind them to warm up her coffee in the microwave, so they turned their conversation to fake work related talk until she left.

  "If these help me, can you get me a bunch of these? I'll pay you." George said.

  "Hey, I'm no dealer, alright?" Dennis whispered.

  "I never meant to sugg…"

  "It's cool. Look, I have a bunch of these left, and I'm meeting my dealer this week to get some more, so fifty bucks and I'll give you twenty of those. The first two are on me." Dennis smiled.

  George paid the money, and that night, he lay down once more with an excited sense that this would be the night. George was so tired, that when the pills kicked in, he dozed off and drifted on a white fluffy cloud. For hours he was far and away in the in-between space we all journey to when our minds rest and transcend time in the mystical path of our destiny. In this dream, a pretty girl handed him flowers and was speaking to him, but her words were whispers and he could not hear her with any clarity. The pretty young girl was in her early twenties, with a fair complexion and appeared to be human, but her eyes were more almond-shaped than his, and her cheekbones were higher. He swore he knew her, like a picture lost long ago found again in some ancient discarded box, but George did not know how. His dream girl had long blond hair, and brown eyes that looked into his soul and he knew they were in love or had been long ago. He reached out for her, but as he did a booming sound echoed inside the dream world. The girl faded. She smiled at him as he began to cry for her and reach out, but it was no good, and she was gone. George felt the pain in his chest from a hard soul-cry, and tears streamed his cheeks as he woke up, still alone. Who was she? Why was he crying for her?

  The digital clock by his head read two-thirty. "Who the hell is knocking on my door at this hour in the morning?" He mumbled to himself.

  Annoyed by the disturbance, George got up, walked out of his bedroom and down the short hallway toward the front door. Wiping his bleary eyes, he peered through the peephole. There was a man on the other side, dressed in a black leather jacket, and he was staring at the door. This stranger had a five o'clock shadow and looked like someone the mob would send to break your legs if you failed to pay up. George became afraid and felt his heart race. After knocking once more, the man shot an annoyed glare, flipped the bird at George's door, glanced left and right, and vanished down the hallway. George did not sleep again for the rest of the night, but lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to the pendulum on his wall clock swing back and forth, ticking his life away. Five days without sleep, and the pills had only partially worked.

  The next morning was Saturday, and he was off from work, so bleary-eyed and miserable, George walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he spit white globs of fluoride into the sink, he looked in the mirror and saw a deeply depressed man staring back, with sunken eyes and a full beard forming. Had he forgotten to shave for a week? He rubbed his chin and wiped the residual toothpaste from his mouth. He showered and shaved in the hope that he would feel more human afterward, but insomnia had been draining him like the rechargeable batteries in a child's toy. George dressed and decided to walk down to the fresh market at the end of his block for a coffee and bagel to quell the grumbling in his stomach. As his hand touched the doorknob, he remembered the sight of the man standing in his hallway last night. Would he still be there? Was he some kind of thug sent to hurt George? Sweat broke out on George's forehead as unsure fingers turned the knob.

  "Open the door." He said to himself. George did, and as it swung open a large snarling dog ran past him in the hallway. He looked down the passage to see where it went or whose dog it was, but it had disappeared around a corner.

  George kept a revolver on a shelf beside his door, so he put it in his pocket and walked with fleeting steps down the hallway to the elevator. The doors slid open with a whoosh and he walked into the empty metal box. The dog suddenly reappeared down the hallway, growling at George, and charged toward him as the doors began to close. The doors were almost shut. The dog jumped. They shut. Boom! The dog slammed into them with a loud thud.

  "Oh my god! What is going on? Was that real?" He asked himself.

  The doors opened on level one, and he got out. There were no dogs on the bottom floor, or men in black jackets waiting shake him down either, so he assumed the morning drama was over. George walked out into a new spring day where the rest of the world was just waking up and took a deep breath of fresh air. He envied the other people and their abilities to shut down when the lights went out at night.

  "I just want some sleep." George said to himself. For a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a figure composed of pure light watching him, but when he turned, there was nothing unusual. "I'm losing my mind." George ran his hands through his hair, grabbing the tufts in frustration.

  He walked down the street, passing by some children who were playing hopscotch on the sidewalk and chanting. Cars passed by him as he walked and he began to notice that all of the cars he saw were not modern day fuel efficient vehicles, but gas guzzlers built in the nineteen fifties. A woman in a Chrysler New Yorker drove by him heading the opposite direction. The further he walked the more scenery changed, including the buildings. By the time he got to the fr
esh market, he was back in the middle of the last century. The man in the black leather jacket was there, sitting at a table outside the small market café, drinking coffee and eating a scone. George could not help but think that the man had something to do with the sudden chaos he was experiencing. George passed by, glancing to his right as the man opened a newspaper and without looking at him said, "Good morning, George."

  George stopped in his tracks. "Who are you? Why were you at my door last night?"

  "Have a seat. Order some food from the waiter and then we can talk." The stranger said. He had a gruff southern accent.

  George slid out a chair and sat down across from the man in the black leather jacket. A moment later, a waiter stepped up to their table.

  "Would you like a raspberry scone and tall coffee? They are the best selections on the menu, sir." The waiter said. He was a tall man, perhaps thirty, with a tiny moustache that looked like something fashionable in the nineteen twenties, and he smelled like vanilla.

  George opened a small menu on the table and saw that the only menu item was raspberry scones, and coffee. Those two items were listed fifty times down both sides of the double page folder.

  "A scone sounds great." George answered.

  "Very well, sir. Back in a moment or two." The waiter said.

  "Who are you, and what do you want with me?" George asked. The waiter returned with his scone and a hot cup of chicory coffee. "Thank you." George said, as the waiter bowed his head and returned to the kitchen. He ate while the stranger spoke.

  "I'm a sort of broker, of adventures, the road less taken, you might say. I'm here to help you. As for my name, well, that's not important." The man said.

  "Where am I and what do I call you if you won’t tell me your name?" George asked.

  "Some call me Jinks. You may do the same." He said. Jinks sipped his coffee and gazed out at the traffic. "Look at them out there. These people, they wake up in the morning, get dressed, go to a job, and for what? At the end of two weeks they get some money for running on the hamster wheel. You’re going to transcend that reality, George, and I do not do this for many of your species, but I see something in you that’s not in all of them."

  "They run on the hamster wheel because they need that money to pay their bills. Try living in this world without paying somebody something and you'll find out how not-free we all really are."

  Jinks slammed his hand on the table and looked at George with the wild eyes of a maniac. "That's just it! You're about to see what it’s like to be free like you never have! And you leave today."

  "Uh, I can't go anywhere. I have a job to go to back to on Monday." George protested.

  "Look around you, and tell me if you think you still have that job. You’re in between the fabric of time and space right now, and you have been since you took those pills last night." Jinks said. He raised the newspaper he had been reading to display the date.

  George looked around and time had changed again. Now George and Jinks were sitting beside cobblestone streets where people passed by in horse drawn carriages. George looked back and the date on the newspaper read July 1st 1874.

  "Those pills did this?" George asked.

  "Not necessarily. All they did was open your mind so that I could communicate with you. We’re shifting through time as we speak, you and me. You know that girl, the one from your dream? Well, she needs your help right now."

  "What the hell is going on? How do you know about that? Am I insane? Or dreaming?" George held his head and began rock back and forth.

  Jinks flashed a wicked smile and leaned in.

  "You’re being melodramatic, and you worry too much. Just go with it. Now tell me, what's your stance on the afterlife and existential reality?"

  "What?" George asked.

  George saw a gigantic swirling vortex open beneath his feet as Jinks stared at him with wild eyes. A large blue-green planet appeared in the darkness, and he could see stars swirling around them. A beam of light rose toward George as he began to scream in panic.

  "I told you, I'm an adventure broker, and you my friend, are about to take the ride of your life."

  "Am I awake or asleep?!" George yelled as he began to float down into the vortex.

  "Yes! Don’t you see?" Jinks said and then George fell through the wormhole. "Be seeing you soon! Ha ha!" His voice echoed from the ground above him.

  Carried on a solid beam of light, George Shopton vanished from Earth forever.

  As George floated along an intergalactic highway, he was surrounded by bright multicolored lights and soft classical music. The illumination enveloped him like a gentle hand holding a dove, and was not scary at all. After a few minutes, his panic receded and he felt a sense of calm wash over him as the planet he had seen before his ride began grew larger. George rocketed toward the blue-green orb at lightning speed and he shielded his eyes in a defensive posture before entering the atmosphere. Clouds raced past him through the darkness of night while music played on and George soared like a bird. Before he could blink, his feet were planted on the ground and everything stopped. The light beam retracted while George watched it disappear in slow motion, standing alone in a grove of trees atop a hill overlooking a strange, small town.

  George looked up in the sky and saw two moons glowing back at him. It was an awe-inspiring visual experience, and the moons looked like two giant grayish eyes peering down on him from heaven. "Wow! That’s beautiful." He whispered to himself.

  The air around him smelled clean and pure, and he noticed that, at least where he stood, there were none of the choking odors of landfills, or smog from earth. George could see that there were many lights on in the houses below, and he thought it would be wise to explore the town. Perhaps someone could tell him where he was while he figured out why he had been sent here. Something moved in the bushes behind him and George froze. A metallic clicking sound, reminding George of tongs used for a grill, came from the cover of darkness. He turned slowly.

  Standing before him was a six-foot tall green praying mantis with his wings spread. George knew from science class that it was a posture the praying mantis assumed when threatened, and his mind went blank with fear.

  "Easy now, big guy. I’m not here to hurt you or anything like that." George said. The mantis took a step forward, cocking its head and raising its left front arm.

  George had been standing on the edge of a steep slope, and as he took a step backward he fell downward. The mantis lunged forward, swiping at George’s head just as he tumbled out of the way. George found himself rolling out of control as he bumped and spun through the woods of the strange planet. He hit a rock with his back but it did not slow his descent, and he plummeted head over heels in agony. Eventually he stopped at the bottom of the hill. His left kidney had taken a bad blow when he had hit the rock and he had scratches all over his face, but he was otherwise unharmed. The mantis was on his heels and he began to run toward the town and toward him. Lighted windows could be seen through the trees as he drew closer, and from behind he could hear the sound of big wings fluttering and branches breaking. There was more than one chasing him now as he burst through the tree line and into the backyard of one of the villager’s dwelling. George ran around to knock on the front door and he could hear the buzzing of a thousand wings in the forest behind him. They were coming.

  "Help. Please help me!" George screamed. He looked back toward the dark woods in fear.

  The door opened and a tall man with almond-shaped eyes fixed him with a look of urgency and concern.

  "Get in here, Earth man. Are you a fool?!" The tall man grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled George into the house. Moments later a legion of winged mantises moved through the village, their wings scraping the windows, as the tall min dimmed his lights while they searched for George. The noise continued for another ten minutes and then all was quiet again.

  "Thank you for saving me." George said.

  The tall man looked him up and down as he turned the lights back on a
gain.

  "Why have you come here? We’re under siege by the mantises. Don't you know that? Now they've seen you and they’ll continue to search until they find you and then they'll kill you." The man put his head in his hands. "They took my daughter a day ago.” He said.

  “My name is George, and I don’t know why I’m here, but I was sent by a man named Jinks on a highway of light. If that makes any sense." George explained.

  The tall man regarded him for a moment, holding his chin. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt with brown farm boots, and his house smelled like fresh cinnamon. It reminded George of homes back on earth during Christmas time.

  "My name is Gali. Forgive me, but the past few weeks have been difficult. Ever since the reaping began, the human population of this village has been on the decline. I don’t know whether it’s happening elsewhere because our communication systems have been disabled by those damned insects." Gali said.

  "You’re humans?"

  "Yes, of course we are. Can you help us defend against them?" Gali asked.

  "How can I help? I’m just one man. Why haven’t you and your people fought back against them? Do you have any weapons?" George asked. He was confused.

  "We’re pacifists and abhor violence of any kind." Gali said.

  "Not even to save your own daughter?"

  "It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see her again, but we believe that violence starts the wheel of karma spinning, halting the individual from their path to enlightenment. It is our faith that sustains us." Gali explained.

  "Is it worse to fight and kill, or stay neutral and allow innocent people to be killed?" George asked. Gali shrugged his shoulders, looking uncomfortable with the question. Faith was a funny thing to George. Those who had blind faith could use it to justify the most horrific atrocities, or stand by while those in power slaughter their people in droves, and still sleep at night.

  "We can get you weapons and a guide that can lead you to their temple. Daytime is best, because they mostly come out at night."