IV. When Your Time Comes, You’d Better Be Listening
by Jennifer Weatherly
[this is the fourth in the six part series–
read Nature Always Finds a Way Through from the beginning, here]
There was a light that sprang out from the middle of the street. I staggered when I saw it, because it happened right next to where I was standing, ran toward the sky parallel with my posture. I nearly stumbled off the sidewalk when it happened.
Honestly, for weeks, I’d assumed the hole in the pavement from which it’d emerged was the start of sinkhole. I’d even called the city about it, something I never do. Of course, they never followed up or got back to me. I hadn’t seen a city-stamped truck or van on that street even once.
Maybe they knew all along what it was.
Whether or not they knew a thing, the light flowed through, and jumped up, and forced its way into the neighborhood and thereby the world. It was a single beam, round like a small PVC pipe of light; it was heavy, dynamic, and yet so gentle. It knew it was doing, even if the city didn’t.
I don’t recall why I’d been walking by at that time of night. It was late, or midnight-late, anyway. I was there, and so was a sort-of neighbor. He’d been standing out on his front porch. I didn’t know his name then, and I still don’t, but I often saw him outside smoking or watering his plants.
He wasn’t doing either of those things now, I noticed as I cast a glance his way. He was staring as intently as I’d been.
The light held steadily for several minutes, or for what felt like it. Much like everyone, I don’t wear a watch; I didn’t have my phone in my hand, either. Actually, it was the first time in a long time that I hadn’t.
You’d imagine, I found myself thinking, angelic music might pour from a light like that, or maybe extraterrestrial chatter, but there wasn’t anything of the sort.
There was, instead, one sentence, or statement, really. One statement delivered in a businesslike, matter-of-fact voice. It sounded like a woman’s voice, the kind of woman who would stand at the daïs of a lecture hall or sit at a mildly important front desk.
She—or, the voice—said:
What are you still looking down for? Look up.
And then the light snapped off. Vanished. The hole remained, steadfast as always, but its light was gone.
I looked at my sort-of neighbor again. He looked at me and shrugged.
Perhaps there was nothing to be said. I certainly couldn’t think of anything. So I did the same—I shrugged, waved at him, and walked away.
I don’t know why you have to look down to start looking up. Save for the would-be sinkhole, I’m not the most observant person; usually, I don’t look anywhere but straight ahead. All of it would probably have meant more if it’d shown up in a dream.
Maybe that’s why it didn’t, though. Maybe.
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