Orange Dawn of My Deception

Orange Dawn of My Deception

2 a.m. and a full moon tugging at my thoughts, caffeine not allowing me to nod off and dream, this screen winking at me as if it knows.

I'll never get this story done in time.

Nerves shot but heart still beating? Well, maybe.

I want to move to Norway, some place calm, snow covered, peaceful.

My friend in Tromsø teases me with photos of pristine white on pine.

Winter's sun is already waning there. Soon... only a false dawn, faint in the south.

I want to nap but an orange glow enters my two rooms.

I'm startled, check for fire. Did I leave the pot boiling on the stove? No. But the strange light still shines. Ah... the neon sign telling me gasoline is $2.29 per gallon. As if I care. I don't have a car.

I decide to snuggle under my blanket on this cold night, I struggle to sleep.

I may as well get up and pee. That glow... it's brighter. I go into the hallway and look out the north facing windows, look to the east, go back in my rooms, crank my neck to look southeast. The clouds take the form of a beast. I smile. It's Halloween. Odd though. No rain was forecast.

I look again. It's as if it has a grin. A jack-o'-lantern in the sky. My Muse laughs. I don't. It looks too real. And it's looking at me. Mesmerized I can't look away.

White clouds become the skulls of Death Eaters, the black wisps becomes a bad hairdo, a tatter of robes. That grin — becomes wider.

It looks like a nightmare. I laugh. I'm not afraid of monsters. It's humans I fear.

If they ever should find me.

So many years cloaked by their incuriosity. So easy to fool humans.

The glow becomes brighter, oranger. What's that globe in its hand?

I begin to shake.

Full Moon, protect me! Full Moon banish this ungodly glow!

It approaches without a sound.

Now I see a halo, a globe, a string of pearls. No, a spaceship, my sun, the planets that revolve around it.

NO!

I am being summoned. They have come to retrieve me. My blue screen blinks. I grab a pencil, it breaks. Books burn as my thoughts go blank.

The Dawn is still so far away. It rises orange in the south in Tromsø in October. Too bad I will never return after today.

© Kåre Enga [177.273] (30.oktober.2020)

Circa 410 words

For:

SURVEY

Short Shots: Official WDC Contest  (ASR) Use the photo to inspire your creativity. Write a short story and win big prizes! #1221635 by Writing.Com Support