I’m not even sure what led me to go there that day.  I guess I just happened to find myself not too far from the neighborhood where I grew up and thought maybe I’d swing by the old stomping grounds for a bit of nostalgia, maybe dredge up some fond memories, reminisce and see what had become of the place, see what had changed and what had not.

It was weird.

Slowly driving the roads where I used to run around with my friends, or ride my bike or, later, cruise with buddies in a car one of us had managed to borrow from a parent or older sibling.

And here I was, back in town, sort of randomly taking lefts and rights around the old streets, narrowing in on the home where I grew up.  Occasionally, I’d pass a house where someone I used to know well had once lived, but not any longer.  A few times I spotted a current occupant outside in the yard or saw a brief flash of a person through an un-curtained window, strangers all.

I re-cruised the streets… seeing ghosts.

Like all of us, I had once had a core group of best friends, almost none of whom I still knew at all.  It seems that life is all about going down paths which lead away from the people you once counted as your dearest.

For us, my childhood friends and I, there was a certain street corner where we used to meet, a central place where we could gather and then strategize the rest of the day or night.  These weren’t busy avenues; this was a quiet suburban neighborhood with green lawns, hedgerows and tall, picturesque trees.  We weren’t loitering on the city streets like you saw in the movies, but it felt the same to us – this was our spot… at least until a car drove past and we moved quickly along as if we had some nefarious scheme in mind, rather than the same old nothing which we usually engaged in.

I pulled my car over just across the road from our old spot and sat for a while, thinking, trying to remember my friends – their names, their faces, their voices and their laughs.  All the things we planned to do, and some of the things we actually did… I shook my head and smiled, right there in the car, as the memories came bubbling up.

And then I tried to think of the last time we had all gathered at that street corner and I couldn’t get the memory to come to the surface.  Surely, there had to be a last time we were all there together and I should be able to remember it… but, no.  The trouble is, we didn’t know it would be the last time, didn’t apply any special significance to the day, assumed we’d see each other again, as a group, forever.  And never did, not all of us at once, ever again.  We went out to hang with each other for the last time and didn’t even know it.

A heavy, leaden, feeling gripped me then, weighed on my chest and dampened my mood.  For some reason, I was no longer smiling, wasn’t sure I should have taken this side-trip to my past.  And then I reached my old house, the place I had spent my childhood.

It was odd.

The house actually still looked almost exactly as I remembered it, same color, same general layout of the yard.  Not exactly the same, but damn close.  The only really jarring part of the scene were the cars parked in the driveway – they seemed like foreign objects, unfamiliar and intrusive, not part of the visions in my head – wrong makes, wrong models, wrong colors.

Again, odd.

A slight queasy feeling was developing in the pit of my stomach.  Not actual sickness and not, it seemed to me, a feeling of true sadness either – not quite.  Wistful?  Is that what wistful feels like?  I’m not sure.

Regardless, my little side trip to the past is the reason I was in the old neighborhood instead of somewhere else when the change happened.

Noiseless still-lifes in the sky, like artistic renderings, but all too real.

How huge must they be in order to be visible from down here?  One moment not there, the next there.  Motionless behind moving clouds.

And then a huge wave of… something… some kind of pulse of energy or sound or what?  A shift in reality, a ripple in space-time?  First a feeling of dislocation and then an unpleasant pressure, as if the air itself was suddenly heavy and squeezing hard.  All this accompanied by a booming crash not unlike that of a violent surf smashing into a craggy shoreline, but coming from all directions at once, seemingly even from inside my own skull.  I think I tried to scream, but then all turned to black.

I woke up on the ground, under a bush or tree or something.  I wasn’t quite sure as I lay there unmoving, stunned and confused.  I closed my eyes and just stayed in that position for some length of time, I don’t know how long, but it felt like hours, with my eyes shut and my head spinning.

Several times, as I stayed there on the ground, I heard a strange throbbing ‘whooshing’ sound, as if something were moving swiftly through the air.  But it was a strange noise, I’m not sure how to describe it… as if the air was being displaced without being disturbed – a void in reality, an empty hollow rushing past.  I was afraid to open my eyes, afraid of what I might see.

A couple of times I thought I might have heard screaming in the distance, but it might just have been my mind playing tricks on me.  My head felt fuzzy, my hearing seemed off and there was a constant low droning buzz in my ears or in my brain.

I don’t know exactly how long I stayed there, my body aching and my muscles cramping from the rigor of disuse.  Eventually, I realized that I hadn’t heard any noise, other than that in my own head, for a very long time.  Not the flying ‘whatevers’ and not the possible screams.  Certainly, no cars or people, just quiet.

I had to will myself to open my eyes, almost panicking at the thought of doing so.

Just the ground below me and the branches above me and a slice of green lawn were all I could see from my position beneath, what I now realized, was an evergreen tree.  I shifted slightly and looked up to the sky.  A bit gray, lots of clouds and some hints of blue here and there.  And a monstrous metallic silver ring, or torus, hanging there as well.  Floating out beyond the clouds, probably beyond the atmosphere.  It had that undefined look of a faraway object that is yet still somehow visible – like seeing the moon and knowing that, despite its apparent small size, it is, in fact, enormous.

I recoiled slightly and tried to tuck in tighter to the trunk of my protective tree, hoping to remain unseen in my hiding spot.  Hiding spot… I suddenly realized precisely where I was – I was in my old front yard underneath a hemlock tree, exactly where I had been many, many years earlier during a neighborhood game of hide-and-seek.  Hidden under this very same tree.  Strange.

I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I had a night full of odd dreams and nightmares.  Smothering metallic-gray shapes and claustrophobic terrors.  Of needing to run, to scream, but unable to do either.

The next morning, I left the safety of my hiding spot.  Safety?  They hadn’t found me under that tree as a kid, I’d won that round.  I had to overcome a strong urge to close my eyes and stay right where I was, but I knew I had to move, I had to go out and see what was happening to the world.  And so, I crawled slowly out and stood up on unsteady legs.

I immediately headed for the back yards between the rows of houses lining the street, somehow feeling that I’d be safer there than out on the road.  I still hadn’t heard any people or cars, no birds or dogs or squirrels or anything else for that matter.

I moved from cover to cover as much as possible.  Hugging the sides of houses or ducking close to shrubs and bushes.  Staying underneath tree branches when available.  Frequent stops to look and listen.  And quick dashes across any unavoidable open spaces.

A vague idea formed in my head that I needed to get back to my house, my current house, so that I could regroup and come up with some kind of plan.  I just needed to get home first.

I don’t know why I thought things would be different at my house, but I suppose it just helped to have a goal, to have someplace to move towards rather than just sit and despair.  So, I kept going, with only thoughts of home in my head.

I slept again the next night, huddled behind a storage shed which was backed up close to a wooden fence separating the yards of two neighbors.  It afforded fairly good cover from every direction except straight up.  Again the nightmares came, again the sleep was fitful.

The next morning brought more of the same.  Slow and deliberate movement through backyards I no longer recognized from my youth; I was moving out into surrounding neighborhoods I only knew from curbside views.  Occasionally crossing an open road, watching and waiting from cover for some time before sprinting out and across as fast as possible, heading generally in the direction towards home.

And then I heard the muffled sounds of crying.  Whimpering really, but definitely a human noise.  I froze in my tracks, at first unsure if what I was hearing was real and not just a figment of my own addled brain.

I stayed that way for several minutes, until I was satisfied that it wasn’t all in my head and then I moved out to find the source.

She was lying in the grass on her back and looking toward the sky.  Small sobs and tremors shook her body.  As soon as she sensed an approaching presence, all sound and movement stopped instantly.  She didn’t even appear to be breathing any more.

I stepped near and looked down at her face.  A look in her eyes like… what?  Fear?  Loneliness?  Yearning?  Loathing?  What does hopelessness look like?

Her face was a stone mask, except for those eyes, which moved and shifted slightly within their sockets.  Her gaze was by turns penetrating and then clouded.

She could have been seventeen or she could have been twenty-seven.  Young and small, I couldn’t tell how old she really was.  I should have helped her; I should have bundled her up into my arms and carried her away.  I should have found her parents or her brother or her lover.  I should have kissed her on the forehead and told her it was going to be alright.

Instead, I pulled up her skirt and I fucked her.  She made one feeble attempt to resist, but my hand dwarfed her small face as I pushed her head back against the grass and she gave up the effort.  I saw her eyes through the gaps of my fingers and their expression was unfocused and distant as if, forced to absorb more raw and horrific data, her confused mind had shut down and turned her stare blank.

And so, I fucked her, and I left her there in the grass.

Who are we to deserve life?  As individuals, as a species, when we, when I, can’t even protect one person in need?  Can’t manage to substitute empathy for base animal instincts for even a moment.  Instead, I had to exploit, to ignore, to rape.

Who are we?  What are we?  Why did I do that?

I know now that I don’t deserve to go home.

I also know, horribly, that I’m not doubling back to help that girl.