AA meeting. Dad and I are at a little shop, those where you can by everything you need.
Dad is not discussing his booze abuse or pills, or snorting. They're talking about the pandemics, screaming with each other. Some using masks, some don't.
I like to go to those meetings. I walk behind my dad, to the cookies table. In a small cup, mixed with sugar, there they are, the real motive of my presence here. Five chocolate bars. Since the last meeting I noticed them. Someone if the shop probably put them there, in another cup that I flipped fast to the sugar one. I could have stolen it, but life is already too chaotic. I preferred to mix the mugs together, so anyone would notice. They're still there, all five bars. They're small, same size of half of sugar packages. They're not even good. But it's chocolate, and free. They're my prise to be here, week after week, in this fucking world. At this useless meeting.
They look like heroes, deglading themselves armed with washed cotton masks and . They can't use alcohol to clean their hands. Too much temptation. Some stopped attending the moment they got their first bottle of alcohol gel.
I got one bar. A coffee. Walk by a freezer with plenty of ice creams and other candies. Going to eat my prize outside, not because of shame. The chocolates were there all the time. In their faces. They're are just too enchanted by someone else's problem to see.
I almost dropped the mug by bumping in Mr. Yao. He is speaking discretely with the two boys, the twins. "... can't stay sleeping here on deposit... just one more time... no more" The boys are orphan, I guess. Every meeting they sneak around, curious, that and the always on 11" TV of Mr. Yao store is everything they know about the world.
I am not ashamed. I didn't steel it. I just like too feel the colder air of the night and stair on the same useless stuff displayed on the shop windows. They're small windows. With the same toys, statues and figures. Some Chinese watches. Magazines. Fake joyary. But my eyes are always caught by those small figures of aliens. Pretty dusty ones, they must be sitting there for years already. There's one alien in a sunchair, with sunglasses, sipping a soda cup. Another jogging. Another with lipstick and a small dress...
A thunder hit my ears. A dry sound. Out of nowhere. It's not raining, night is clear, no clouds that I can see. Another thunder, slightly stronger than the first. And another. The silence between them is horrifying. I could listen time stopping. People on street stalled looking to the sky. A bike hider, now standing high in his pedals call the attention of two others behind him. Pointing to the sky. They break abruptly. Staring the sky with their mouth wide open. Made me remember the fear face of that scream painting.
A giant blue sphere start to glow in the middle of sky. Another light. Another thunder. And another. Silence. I feel the world freezing. Cars stopped. Kids in the big park just in front of the shop are not screaming and laughing anymore. Another light. Another thunder. Silence.
The blue sphere spins and deforms it's shape. Looks like those plasma balls we saw on sci-fi movies. But they're real. And that makes my heart almost stop. I feel a rush of fever. All my body is shaking. My mind can't capture that. That sphere, floating, with a small but horrifying thunderstorm orbitating it. That's impossible. We all know it. Even the kids on the park who never had a boring science class about electrons or learn nothing yet about what a storm is. We can feel it. That's not of this world. That's impossible. People are frozen, in silence, just listening to that unstoppable terror rhythm. Thunder. Another. Silence. People are frozen. Because our minds are frozen. That's what impossible must feels like. That's what natives must felt when they saw the first ships arriving from the seas. That's impossible.
Only now on my right eye corner I see that my dad and all AA people are by my side. Mr. Yao, the boys. We're frozen. Just when I was about to ask my dad, some useless "what's happening?!" question. Before I had time to move my lips, another thunder overlaps the first one. Now they're in double. Lightning, another. Thunder, thunder. Silence. And again.
That was the first time I heard people in the last minutes. A collective "Ahhhhhhh" while another blue sphere started to grow in that sky. Just by the side of the first. Perfectly symmetrical. My body shakes again. That's me again feeling the impossible. Nature. Our nature. It's not symmetrical. That's not from this world.
A voice. Can't recognize if male or female. A strong but soft voice. It's not coming from anywhere. Not from my dad for sure. Not from the sky. It took some seconds to understand. It was in my head. Like the voice we hear when reading a book. It's not supposed to be there. I have only listen to my voice there. But it was. Clear. Constant.
"Enough. Enough. ... Stop. Stop. ... Half. Half. ... Stay. Move. ..."
Those words where echoing in sync with the thunders and silences. We were frozen. Some put the hands on their heads. Trying to shut that voice up. In one of the silences, for the first time in the last half hour, I felt some freedom of thought. A short space of time to think. "Mom!". I tried to move my legs, they answered. I was only mentally frozen. Started to run. Heard my dad screaming "Get your mom!".
I run. People unfrozen. Everybody was panicking. Running and screaming to all directions. I got to get to my Mom. I crossed the park, kids were crying. Had to push an army of parents crossing me, coming to rescue their children. Jumped the wall. Just notice that the thunders continue their grotesque rhythm. Layed on the ground.
We live just next to the park, in a street behind it. My Mom was on the sidewalk. Wearing a kitchen ... Thank goodness, she's there. "Son! What's happ.." There were no time to talk. Grabbed her arm and starting running back to Dad. The thunders stopped. Silence. A giant blue lightning frozen on the sky. That's impossible. Just noticed that it was not a lightning anymore. It was a perfect blue line. Like the ones on computers. A perfect line creating a perfect blue wall, just in front of us. I could see my Dad, far away for the last time. Like a camera shutter, the world blinked. I was frozen again. Could see my mom by my side. Trees. Lot's of trees. Could feel the humidity on the palm of my hands. The sun shining through the leaves. "That's not my street. That's not my world."
