Evanesce

Joseph heard something on the wind that he didn't like. The air had changed in pressure and his delicately aged ears ached. Everything seemed normal on the surface. The soft, rolling hills surrounding his home were the lush, dew soaked pelts that they always were at six thirty in the morning. Something was wrong, though. He could feel it in his brittle bones. Maybe it was a smell his nose couldn't detect or a sound his ears couldn't physically hear. After all, he was eighty three years old. His senses weren't exactly what they used to be and he considered himself rather lucky that they seemed to work at all. He sat on the small wooden porch outside of his house like a stereotypical storybook grandfather, drinking a mug of black coffee and letting the world appear around him.

He often wondered what might be happening around the world. He had a small radio set up in his sitting room, but his television set just sat in his wall unit gathering dust. It's not that he was against television, he just found nothing useful on it lately. None of the programming interested him much anymore and he found the flashing light had begun to hurt his eyes. Still, he kept it for when his great grand children came to visit. There were few channels, but they were fine with the slow, creative cartoons on the public broadcasting network. Joseph secretly loved this. Why did everything have to move so fast lately? Television was fast. Music was fast. Cellular phones were fast. These weren't things that he looked down upon, but he did feel as if people were rushing through their lives. As he sat quietly thinking to himself, he figured if we only had a limited time on this world, that it's no wonder people rush to fill it with as much information as they can.

Knitting his brows and taking a small sip of coffee, Joseph stood up and shuffled into his house. It was a small house. There wasn't anything fancy about it, but it worked for him. Despite being built somewhat on the outskirts of town, it was made of the same wood, drywall and stucco as the houses in the suburbs. He had wanted peaceful living, but he was practical and the materials cheap.

The screen door creaked as he entered and made his way over to the television. He hit the small button on the side and heard a faint click followed by a dull hum.

“Good morning.” he said to the world.

But the world did not answer.

Static snowed furiously on the screen and despite fiddling with the antennae an image never appeared. This made Joseph feel uneasy. Of course, a strange feeling and a broken television signal wasn't enough to send him into panic, but he would have been lying if he said that he wasn't unnerved.

“Huh.” he said to himself as he tried for the radio. He expected to hear the smooth vocals of a long dead crooner, already imagining himself feeling silly for having worried at all, but again came the same static shushing him through the speakers.

Joseph switched off the radio and stood motionless for a second or two while the rusty gears within his mind adjusted. Something isn't right. He had felt it as soon as he walked outside. It was the same beautiful landscape and the same fresh air, but something was off. Letting his hand run along the light wisps of hair on his head he was trying to stifle the feeling that something horrible had happened.

It was at that moment that he saw something moving through the window of his kitchen. There was someone in his yard.

Finally getting the momentum, he walked into the kitchen and peered out of the window, leaning his body on the rim of the sink. The cold under his wrinkled fingers helped to ground his anxieties and he sighed deeply, squinting his eyes in the light.

For a moment he didn't see anything and began to wonder if it had been a bird or his imagination, but just before he turned his attentions toward the telephone, he saw it again.

Children. There were two children playing in his backyard. A thin, curly haired blond boy was running around at full speed while an equally thin red haired girl chased after him. Both looked a little ratty and unkempt but seemed to be having a pleasant time. Stranger than two children playing in his yard was the fact that both were completely unclothed. As bare on their feet as they were all of the way to their heads; their skin shining so alabaster that he feared for them in the morning sun.

Joseph shuffled as quickly as he could toward the back door and creaked it open slowly as not to scare them. They seemed to ignore him as he made his way outside on the patio and continued watching them play.

“Hello!” he called out. The last vowel carrying out a little longer to grab their attention. “Hello? You there!”

The two children stopped running and stood very still, their faces turned toward him like startled deer. Suddenly something lurched in Joseph's stomach and the feelings of dread and despair were vomited up along with his breakfast. A feeling of elation overtook him and he felt blood flush up and pool within his cheeks. There was something about these children. Something about their faces that helped him understand that they weren't children at all. Something incredibly old staring back at him from moss colored eyes. Sharp, ancient brows standing like beacons of knowledge about their faces. They were almost human, but something about their small, crisp facial features were utterly alien. Bright, watery eyes peered up at him with curiosity. Not taking him to be a threat, the two smiled long and slowly at him in unison. They were overwhelmingly happy, but Joseph detected a hint of sadness as they watched him. A sadness based on sympathy and pity.

or a long while Joseph didn't know what to say or what to do. It seemed ages that the three of them just stared back at each other; the two children grinning and waiting for him to make the first move. The world around him seemed to slow down and a second seemed an eternity. A breeze rustled the tall, hilly grasses as if the landscape was soaked in water and the clouds moved fluidly through the sky like a melting oil painting. The tiny tinkle of his wind chime rang slowly like the baritone gong of an ancient clock tower.

Finally, Joseph cleared his throat, “What is the cause for such fun and excitement this morning?” Too weak, he thought. They couldn't have heard him. His words rang silly in his ears as he struggled to make things seem normal.

The two non-children laughed slightly under their breathes like two adults stifling a giggle. They both doubled over slightly in amusement before the girl stood up as straight as she could on two, knobby legs. “You do not know?” she said with a tilt of her head. Her voice speckled with the trace of an unrecognizable accent. It was an adult’s voice as she stood there prepubescent in the sun; no shame or anxiety tweaking her body language. Joseph felt a little uncomfortable watching her. She looked no older than six years old, but his gut told him otherwise. He found himself unable to look directly toward her and cast his gaze at his tattered gray slippers.

Joseph shook his head so subtly that he was afraid she hadn't seen his answer, but then with blatant, nonchalant tone she replied, “The world of man has ended.”

oseph felt as if someone had smacked him in the face, yet he had known it this morning when he sat on his porch. The silence. No more did he hear the hum of the city in the far distance; the sounds that people fail to notice until they are gone. No trains, airplanes, cars or motor boats. The voices of six billion people were silenced along with the thrum of their lives. He knew it when the television stopped and the radio was silenced. In his gut he had known what had happened and yet it was too absurd to believe. The world had ended around him as he lay sleeping in his bed.

No words came to his lips even as his mind formed a thousand questions. He did not move although his muscles itched to run for the door. Somehow, deep down inside he knew she was right, and the whys and the hows didn't matter anymore.

The strange boy knitted his brows and grabbed his partners arm gently as if to urge her onward. He looked at Joseph with a saddened expression, but as soon as his partner returned his gaze the expression melted away. A light, mature laugh chimed from the two of them as they ran toward the hills – their delicate hair blending in with the tall grasses behind them.

Wait!” cried Joseph. “Ho there! Wait!”

The two creatures turned lightly on their feet and gazed back at Joseph for a brief moment.

“Where do you come from? What are your names?”

The girl arched her back and stood motionless. She gave a deep, jolly chuckle and laced the grasses in between her fingers.

“We have no names and we have always been here.” And with that the two beings ran into the hills, disappearing into the earth around them.

copyright Stevie Aubuchon-Mendoza 05/25/11