text: Hello all, my sister is super timid about her writing, but she always seems to impress me. Criticism is welcome, but please be kind. She e-mailed me this, so it's a rough draft. “Alright, man, it’s been a long day. Time for me to make my exit!” Wyatt downed the last of his beer and decidedly plopped the pint glass down on the bar. He gestured for a bro-handshake toward the bartender. “See ya, man,” said Greg, the bartender, and reciprocated the bro-man-shake. Jason waved casually and called out a brief salutation to a couple at the end of the bar who were engaged in a giggle-rich conversation. Jason knew the bartender from back in his community college days, before he was even a bartender there. He knew most of the regulars too. The cozy neighborhood bar: a perfect place to chill with a drink after a long day. It was a good night. A trip was in the works with Greg to visit the guy’s brother in Texas. And he got the number of a pretty sweet piece of ass, good personality too. Jason stepped out into the cool, damp night and began the three-block strut home. Some quick movement caught his peripheral, but he paid no serious mind. It was probably some animal raiding the garages from the restaurants. The ones where people wasted half of their food because they were too rich to care about economics and wastefulness, and their appearances took precedence. Hmph, “high society,” to Wyatt, was simply a lack of common sense where narcissism took the place of thought processes. He passed a good-looking couple that looked healthy, clean, well off. Not a care in the world they had for a passerby. A counter point to the young couple was the man who passed by him next - a man that wasn’t quite yet middle aged, a little scruffy, a gate that adjusted to the clear burdens he carried throughout life, a gaze that seemed to look right through you, to see your true nature. Another brief movement caught his eye, a swift shadow that disappeared around the corner. Wyatt took a little more notice this time, but remained unconcerned. He swung right into his apartment building and gated up the stairs. It didn’t take him long to eject the shoes, shirt, and pants from his body. Surrendering the day to the night, he tumbled into bed and hastily threw his blanket over himself, already on the brink of snores. Right before his consciousness left him, he heard a barely audible voice... “Are you ready, Wyatt?” He yawned and slapped both hands over his face and stretched his way out of bed. Time to get up and weld some shit. He didn’t like showering before work, since he was always getting sweaty. So he slathered on some deo, brushed his teeth, and put on some shitty, worn out clothes. He took notice of the nice sunny clear sky and retorted with a grin. Today seemed like a breakfast burrito and coffee day. He moseyed his way out the door. Wyatt then stopped short. Even his breath stopped. Everything around him was the same - same shops, same clear blue sky, same cars and streets. But the people... The peoples’ faces were all glowing. They all glowed in different colors and different intensities. But they ALL glowed. He just then realized in his half-asleep construction of the day, he never looked in the mirror. Wyatt whipped around and inspected his own reflection in the glass. Sure enough, his own face was glowing an intense yellow. His first thought went to the possibility of a hallucinogen. He felt fine before he went to sleep. And this theory wasn’t really viable, because everything else was completely normal, unlike the total world-altering effects of a hallucinogen. Was he going crazy? No family history of schizophrenia that he knew of. He stood panicking, staring around at all the colored, glowing faces that stared back in confusion, wondering why this man was in the middle of a crisis on such a normal day. This ws something he needed to figure out. Wyatt ran back upstairs to phone into work. He made up a lie about some stomach flu then sat on the edge of the bed - just sat for a moment, questioning the validity of his reality. He stood up slowly as if laboring to move through a pit of tar. That’s what this was, a tar pit of confusion and doubt. Taking leave of the heavy pit, his feet traveled hungrily and curiously toward the window for further investigation and confirmation. “Yep, still certifiably amok,” said his brain to his senses as he gazed out the glass. Was there some meaning to this? Had he somehow crossed over into another dimension? Wyatt decided that hell, if it was going to be this way, he needed to get IN it, see what this is all about. If this WAS some sort of other dimension, maybe he would have a really amazing job, and maybe the beer was better and the women were looser. Probably not, but there was no harm in hope. He descended the stairs to step back into the day to face the faces. They all glowed, as expected, and all in a wide variety of colors - some putrid in hue with a heavy glow, and others vivid and lively. He saw groups lunching outside and took note that many of the groups shared similar styles of light and intensity of color. Not all of them however, as there were groups of people that made up the colors of the rainbow. These people seemed to smile more often; their intensities took turns flickering brightest from one color or the next. That was another peculiar thing, the groups that WERE all the same color didn’t share intensities, just one person seemed to drain the others of their light, and all of them smiling less, the jovial nature decreasing as the glowing distributed itself to the one or two in the group. It was as if they didn’t want to give the light, and the person didn’t wish to receive it. Like being sapped for energy, then the energy becomes poison for the receiver. Jason decided that if this was going to happen, he wanted to explore as much as he could, discovering patterns and possibly uncovering a reason for why this was happening now. But first, he wanted to visit his father. His father drove truck, and 14 months prior had been in a bad semi accident, rendering him comatose. Jason liked to go visit his dad and imagined he could hear what Jason was saying, and tried to imagine him responding in some sort of telekinesis style of communication. It felt like it kept his heart strong to imagine his father, even while lying comatose, participating in some sort of active communication. He hopped onto the downtown bus that circled around downtown and ended at the second largest hospital in the city. He entered the rotating doors and immediately noted that the patients in their rooms, and the ones carted around on wheelchairs emanated a different type of light. Instead of beaming in sharp clouds of color, the seemed to drip slowly like waves of different, less brightly colored jellies. The elderly and the more apparently sick peoples’ glows were comparably slower than the children’s and the less severely injured patients’. It felt slightly comforting for him to find a pattern among the madness of the situation. Jason took notice of all the lights and flows and colors, on the way back up to his father’s room, a path he had come to know very well, from every nick in the wall to stain on the carpet and even some of the faces of the orderlies and staff that would frequent this particular path. On this particular day, however, he could see everyone in a little bit of a different light. The lights that emanated from the staff seemed to have a consistent glow, but it wasn’t exactly bright. It was duller, and faint. The visitors all varied in color and intensity, while in each of the rooms the lights from their faces took on varying colors but were all immensely faded, the most sickly patients seemed to barely glow at all. He stood outside of his father’s room a moment, almost frightened to see what condition of faded his father’s light could be. No matter what it was, it couldn’t be changed now. There was nothing he could do but observe. He took a deep breath and stood in the doorway staring at the floor. His eyes slowly reached his father’s bed. His tensed shoulders dropped. His father’s light seemed to be not quite perfect, but not as faded as he had feared. It was deep and purple, but bright enough not give Jason concern. He pulled his usual chair up to the side of the bed. “Hi dad, it’s your son. I know I’m a little early, but I just really needed to talk to you.” His father’s light seemed to brighten a little at his words. ‘I woke up today, and everything was a little different. I don’t know if I’m going mad, or there’s something seriously wrong with me, or if it’s just something wrong with the rest of the world. Hell, it might even not be anything wrong with me or the world, maybe it’s just... changed... But dad, I can see everyone. Like, really SEE them. It’s not that I can see their insides, it’s more like, their insides are reaching out to me. Like their souls or whatever that even means. They’re all different colors, intensities, it seems like I can really see how they are, if they’re ok or not, if they’re good, or bad, predatory, good. I have to admit I was scared to come in here, dad, I was scared to see you. I was scared you’d be... faded. I know it, though, in my heart that you’re still here.” His father’s lights grew even brighter. ‘I love you, dad. I don’t know what this all means, but I feel like I’ve been shown something really valuable today. I’m not sure what I’m gonna have to do, or why it’s me, if I’m the only one. But I feel like I need to use this. I’m just glad you’re here to talk to.” Jason sat for a moment of reflection and relief that his father really was still there, and that he could see, with evidence, that he could also hear. Then began to go on about sports, his trip with Greg, and a few women - the normal things he would go in with. Then he leaned over and kissed his father’s head and gave his goodbyes before he ventured back out into the new world. He decided to go about his day as normal, and that entailed visiting his friend Greg. Everyone seemed to be getting off work. These people all remained a slight glow that was reminiscent of the sick. They all seemed tired and overworked, in their facial expression as well as their glow. It was clearly unhealthy, as unhealthy for the soul as sickness must have been for the body. He walked down to the bar, and was happy to see that his friend was indeed working. Something concerned him, however. His friend also had a glow, and the glow was a sickly, dull, yellow color, much the same as patients on the oncology floor at the hotel. He wondered if his friend felt this. Even if he did, he wouldn’t say anything. He wasn’t the type of man to worry about it. Still, Jason felt a deep pain in his heart. It may not be cancer, but his friend was still sick. He sat and drank a beer and chatted with his friend. He just wanted to laugh and bond with him as much as he could. He started feeling a small bit of acceptance underneath the pain, and decided it was time to find his own solace and reflection. He headed to the park for some serenity. He noticed some couples picnicking in the grass, some people with binoculars watching for birds and other animals, some people playing with their dogs, and some children simply playing in nature. They all had something in common, their glowing auras were all very strong and colorful. Their smiles at one another even intensified their glory. When the people first came into the park, they had similar differences as the folks that meandered around the streets. However, as they allowed themselves to bond more and more with nature, they began to change into stronger, brighter souls - that couldn’t help but to shine in the way they were intended. He decided that maybe this was the way it was going to be forever, or maybe this would pass, but that it was happening, and there was really nothing he could do about it. He did know, however, that he felt exhaustion. He began his route home, taking notice of all the different glows of the people, and what that meant for their inner state. Some were at peace, some were drained, sick, overworked, joyful, and everything in between. It gave him a fine insight, and an opportunity to help people become their true light, if he decided to use it in that way, which was really only right, as his father would tell him. The father that he now knew could feel him there even in his deep sleep. He turned the corner and passed down an alley, taking a small notice of something moving in the distance. It was similar to the movements he previously ignored the night before this oddity happened to him. This time he faced it. He walked down into the alleyway and approached the area behind a dumpster that concealed the movement. As he approached, however, there grew a great and white glow. It was a glow with such intensity that actually produced a sound. He felt it warning him to stay away from it. It didn’t seem to want to be approached, but instead wanted to be the one to come to him. The source was so unknown, and if it didn’t want to be bothered, there was no telling what would occur. So he turned back away from the alley and went home. It was unnatural to disturb whatever lurked behind that dumpster. He walked along his way home and went back to bed. As he slowly fell asleep he thought he heard a voice in the distance. “You see, son, it’s always been this way, you’ve just been so blind. Now you can see, and now you must do.” And he fell asleep until the morrow.