The View from Above

by Ponzo, Gary

  We made small talk for a few more minutes, then the rain stopped and we said our goodbyes. I watched him walk over to the freeway ramp, when he turned and gave me a thumbs up. I wished him luck. He smiled.

  When I told my uncle about my trip he scowled at first, chastising me for taking such a risk with a stranger. When I asked him about some of the investment strategies Hal suggested, it took only a phone call to his stock broker to discover that they were not only sound, but remarkably well thought out.

  I stayed the night, then drove my truck back to Phoenix on Saturday afternoon. I’d made the trip up to Kingman quite a bit since my uncle bought a place up there two years ago. I’ve always enjoyed the serenity of the long drive, letting my thoughts wander and my daydreams flourish. But this time the ride back seemed empty somehow.

  When I got back to my place, Janet was there to greet me. She’d had her own key for a while, but this was the first time she’d used it to surprise me. She smothered me with hugs, then finished making a tray of lasagna for dinner. She glided around the kitchen and spoke of spice racks we needed to purchase and shutters for the windows. After dinner, on the couch, I melted into her lap as she stroked my hair and confessed her hopes for our future together. “I missed you,” she hummed into my ear.

  It had been the first Friday night we hadn’t spent together for almost a year. An experience, she said, she didn’t want to endure again. Not for a long, long time.

  That night our relationship seemed to blossom. I was tempted to tell her about Hal, but somehow talking about him felt too personal, as if my brief time with him would be trivialized into a story of a hitchhiker.

  The next morning I woke with my body squeezed dry from a night of lovemaking. Janet went to get bagels and returned with a copy of The New York Times, Sunday Edition. We sat in bed, ate bagels, and reveled in our newfound lust for each other. When I finally picked up the paper I spotted a familiar face on the front page. A seven-year-old girl from Las Vegas named Heather Swanson had just received a new treatment for Canavan’s disease. I bolted upright in bed and devoured the article. I soaked up every precious word. Miraculously, doctors had stumbled upon a cure that they were certain was ninety-nine per cent effective. She was due to be released from the hospital on Tuesday and expected to make a full recovery. Over three thousand children had suffered from the disease and all were expected to receive the treatment immediately. My wish had actually come true!

  Later that week, Hal called. He found my number from directory assistance. I was the fifth Bill Renton he’d called. He knew it was my wish that saved his daughter and he thanked me profusely. He found a job in Las Vegas dealing Black Jack. He said being close to his daughter had given him strength he didn’t know he possessed. Also, watching people piss their money away night after night has helped him turn the corner. He claimed he wouldn’t waste a dollar on a lottery ticket, never mind naked options.

  As for Janet, well, maybe the wishing rock sensed more than one thought in my heart that day. I’m not complaining though, we’re getting married next spring. I do wonder sometimes . . . what would have happened had I not picked up that pathetic hitchhiker that day?

  I still wonder.

  The End

  Saving the World

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are they from?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly.”

  I put down my notepad, leaned back in my chair and studied my office ceiling.

  “You believe me, don’t you, Doctor?” she asked.

  I had to be careful with that question. When a patient, such as this one, comes to you with delusions of interacting with alien beings it’s important to initially gain their trust.

  “I believe you saw them, yes,” I said.

  “That’s not what I mean, Doc. Do you believe they exist?”

  Margo Sutter was stretched out on a burgundy leather couch and looking up at the ceiling as if she could see right through it. I tried to stay focused on her remarkable story.

  “I’ve always thought it arrogant to surmise that Earth contained the only forms of life in the entire universe. Please tell me more.”

  Her arms dangled spastically. “Of course, I don’t actually see them or anything. I kinda just sense them, if you know what I mean.”

  “Do they speak to you?”

  “Sure,” she answered immediately, “I talk to them all the time.”

  “What sort of things do you discuss?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, they’re always asking questions about why I do things. I can be sorta selfish at times, I guess, and they ask me why I make certain choices. Like why am I skipping class or why am I reading the comics instead of science textbooks. Stuff like that.” She stretched out a piece of pink bubble gum from her mouth and curled it back in.

  “Why do you suppose they chose to speak to you?”

  “Because, I’m the only one that can hear them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, actually I can’t tell sometimes when they’re talking or just thinking to themselves. That’s why they told me to come to you.”

  I leaned forward in my chair, “They told you to come to me?”

  “Yeah, they told me about the book you’re writing about the brain and clairvoyants and all.”

  “How did you know I was writing a book?”

  “I didn’t, they told me.”

  “What else did they tell you?”

  “That you like to swim laps in your pool at night and that if I wore some skimpy clothes you might listen to me more carefully.”

  This gave me some cause for concern. “Margo, my house sits very secluded on top of a hill. One can’t see my backyard without taking extremely difficult measures. Please tell me how you . . . they could see me swimming at night.”

  “I don’t know, Doc, from what I understand humans can only see certain types of light. There is so much more our naked eyes can’t detect. They sorta move in and out of the light rays,” Margo spoke matter-of-factly.

  “You mean they could be in this room right now and I wouldn’t be able to see them?”

  “That’s right, they move pretty quick also. Even if you knew where one was you couldn’t fix on it, they would slip right out of direct view.”

  “What else did they tell you about me?”

  “That you wouldn’t believe me, at first.”

  I sat up in my chair, leaned my elbows on my knees and folded my hands in front of me. “So tell me, Margo, is this the terrible problem you were trying to tell me about?”

  Margo jumped off the couch and began to pace. “No, Doc, that’s not it at all. You see, these aliens are on the verge of destroying our planet. Not the buildings and everything, just the people. I guess they have some sort of smart bomb they use to exterminate planets of all existing life in order to set up their own colonies, with their own vegetation and animals and stuff. You gotta help me, Doc.”

  Margo rubbed her hands together and took longs strides back and forth, while beads of sweat spotted her forehead.

  I held up an open hand, “Relax, Margo, I’ll do whatever it takes to help you. What do you need from me?”

  “You see, Doc, they need a reason to save humanity. One good reason is all they need and I think they might listen to you. They seem to respect you —”

  “All right, Margo, that’s quite enough. Please sit down and we’ll talk about this anxiety attack you’re having.”

  “You don’t believe a word I’m saying, do you?”

  Before I could respond, my office door slowly swung open.

  “Janice?” I said.

  “It’s not your secretary, Doc,” Margo sat down and lowered her head. “It’s them. They’re here.”

  A breeze meandered throughout the room, while Margo spun around and explained her dilemma to the thin air, “He doesn’t believe a word I’ve said.”

  “Calm down, Margo,” I demanded.

  My door sh
ut. I nibbled on my pinkie fingernail.

  “That’s a good idea,” Margo said to no one noticeable. “Doc, think of a card.”

  “What?”

  “Think of a card. I’ll tell you what card you’re thinking of. This will help us get through this credibility gap we seem to have.”

  “A card?”

  “C’mon, Doc, you know, Ace of Spades, that kind of card.”

  “Okay,” I said. I moved to the edge of the chair, and slid my fingers through my hair. I thought of the Three of Hearts. “Okay, I’ve got a card.”

  “That’s an easy one, Doc. Three of Hearts.”

  “How’d you do that?” I said, feeling a little queasy.

  “Oh, you think it’s a trick, huh?” She rubbed her chin, then snapped her fingers, “I got it. When you were nine years old, you stole a dollar bill out of your father’s wallet and waited for the ice cream truck to go around the block, and you bought an ice cream bar with the stolen money. You sat on the curb on a strange street and felt terrible about what you had done. As a matter of fact, you felt so bad you only ate half the ice cream and threw the rest away. Do you remember that?”

  I nodded shamefully. I felt nauseous, like a snake was crawling around in my gut.

  “You had a very happy childhood, Doc. That memory stood out from the rest.”

  “How long have you had this skill?”

  “You know when you’re a kid and the phone rings and you can tell who it is by the ring? Well, I’ve always had premonitions like that . . . only I’m never wrong. It’s a gift, and if I didn’t have this gift I wouldn’t be able to communicate with these . . . these,” she waved her hands in a circle and turned her head from side to side, “these beings.”

  I sat in amazement. I wanted to hear more about my youth, but a mountain of tension was building inside of me. My throat was so dry my tongue was sticking to the top of my mouth.

  “You know you’re scaring me, Margo.”

  “How do you think I feel, Doc? These guys have their finger on the trigger and I’m supposed to come up with some sort of meaning for our existence.”

  “What exactly do they want?”

  “Just one reason, Doc,” she held up her index finger. “Just one.”

  I leaned back and rocked slowly. I was beginning to wonder who, in my office, needed therapy the most. I knew enough about clairvoyants from my research to know that they seldom exaggerate their abilities. If the fate of the world was in my hands, heaven help us all.

  “Several years ago I had a patient named Billy Starks,” I started. “He was married for twenty years to the same woman, and for twenty years his wife and he tried to have a baby with no luck. He had a meager job, but he saved up for almost a decade to have an expensive and risky operation to allow his sperm to regenerate itself. Finally, it worked. He was in his early forties when the baby boy was born. He was delirious with delight. He was the proudest father alive.

  “One night, shortly after the baby’s birth, his mother came to visit and she fell asleep on the couch, smoking a cigarette. It must have been after midnight when the fire lit his apartment up in a blaze. He covered his wife in blankets and threw her through the bedroom door into the hallway where she and his mother were both able to get down the fire escape to safety. He and the baby, on the other hand, were trapped in his bedroom eight flights up. The flames surrounded him before the firemen could get there. He grabbed his only child, wrapped him up in his baby blue blanket and stood on the ledge until the back of his shirt actually caught fire. Finally, he cradled the baby in his arms and jumped to his death, landing on his back as to protect the child as much as possible. The baby escaped with little damage. The proud father did not.”

  I could hear Margo sniffling before I could see her moist eyes. I got up, pulled a couple of tissues out of a box on my desk and handed them to her as I draped my arm around her for comfort. She began to weep uncontrollably. I gently held her head on my shoulder and murmured, “It’s okay.”

  She pointed toward the door and I caught the last glimpse of a breeze slamming the door shut. “It worked, Doc,” she sobbed. “They’re leaving.”

  Margo’s been back to see me seven or eight times since that peculiar afternoon, when I saved the world. She never mentions them at all. As a matter of fact, there is absolutely no reason for her to come see me anymore. As far as I can tell, she’s about as normal as any teenage girl on the planet. Still, I love hearing her tell me stories about my youth.

  The End

  Note to My Readers

  If I kept you guessing right up until the end, then I've done my job. If you guessed the ending, but were entertained throughout, then I'll take that as well. Overall, I write what I enjoy to read and that means most of my work will have a bit of a twist ending. I tried to keep a theme for these stories so I didn't throw in any of my mysteries or Sci-Fi in with this batch. I'll try to keep those separate so my readers can pick and choose which group they'd like to read. Most of my writer friends tell me they like all of my work and I hope that's the case with most people, but I like to let you know up front exactly what you're about to read so there's no confusion or disappointment.

  I want to thank the hundreds of people who've reached out to me on Facebook or through my website to let me know how much they enjoy my work. This digital age allows such an intimacy with reader and writer that it's great to get to know so many of you. I guess the real reason I wanted to create this page is to say, "Thank you." I know it's simple, but after all, I never did any of this for me. It was always meant to reach an audience and entertain. So feel free to contact me for anything regarding my work. I'll always make it a point to respond.

  Thanks,

  Gary Ponzo

  gary@garyponzo.com