An Encounter
Written November 28 2024.
Two women were driving along a road. It led through a forest in hilly country. The road wound around the hills and the only light were the headlights of their car. The moon was absent and the stars were barely shining.
“I feel like life gets to me sometimes,” the woman in the driver’s seat said.
“I understand you,” her companion answered.
“You wake up every day and it feels just like the last,” the first one said.
“I know,” the second one said.
“I shower. I moisturize my face. I eat cereal for breakfast. I brush my teeth.”
“I do the same.”
“Then I go to work. Nine hours later, I come home. I eat something and then I read until it is time for me to go to sleep.”
“That is how it is.”
“I don’t know if there is anything of myself left in my life.”
“Me neither.”
Each tree along the side of the road looked identical. One pine. Another pine. Another pine. And so on.
It was warm in the car. It was not warm outside. The heating whirred quietly. The radio played static. The engine growled unnoticed in the background.
“I just saw a light in the sky,” the first one said.
“I did not.”
“No, I saw it clearly,” the first one said. She looked at her companion for the first time.
“Yes, I know. I did not,” the second one said. She too looked over at the other woman.
“I will pull over.”
The car pulled over on the side of the road. The first woman got out of the car. She stood by the side of the road, next to the forest and the car and looked up at the night sky. The second woman got out of the car also. They looked at the sky together. It was not warm outside. The first woman hugged the second.
The light in the sky returned. First, it looked like a star. Then it became brighter, until it was brighter than any star in the night sky. It hung over the forest or hovered or flew. It grew in size until it was the size of a hand on the end of an outstretched arm. It was not a single light, but a collection of lights attached to a vehicle. Behind its front window, around which the lights were arranged, were two people. They were four-limbed, sitting upright. Their heads had eyes and mouths and noses and they looked out of the window down at the world and the forest and the car and the two women hugging each other.
The world began to spin faster. The night sky above the forest was replaced by day and then night again and then day and so on. The Earth began to spin faster and faster and soon it was spinning so fast that centrifugal forces threw everything on the planet out into space. Four and a half billion people were cast out into the solar system. Some were wearing business suits and ties, others were still in their night gowns. Some were sitting in cars, others in cribs. Trees were uprooted and shot into the night like arrows. Buildings were broken up and raptured. The rock of the Earth began to crack and splinter and tear away and soon Earth was reduced to a single mote of dust flying around the Sun, faster and faster until all was swallowed by the expansion of the dying star.
The two women climbed back into their car. The woman in the driver’s seat started the motor and began driving. The road led them through a forest in hilly country. The road wound around the hills and the only light were the headlights of their car. The moon was absent and the stars were barely shining.
The woman in the driver’s seat opened her mouth and closed it again. They drove on through the night.
“Can you pull over,” the second one said.
“I will,” the first one said.
The car pulled over on the side of the road.
“Time has passed,” the second one said.
“Yes.”
“I cannot remember anything.”
“Me neither.”
“I cannot remember where we came from or what we were doing. I do not remember where we are driving or why. I do not remember who I am. I do not remember who I was or what I was going to do. I cannot remember anything at all and I do not feel anything, except that I love you,” the second one said.
“I also cannot remember anything, neither past nor present. I look at the clock and I know that time has passed but I do not even know how much. I only know that I love you as well,” the first one said.
The two women looked at each other. They held hands and even though they did not remember anything, their hands felt warm in each other’s grasp.