PROMPT

This week’s prompt moves around two points

1. A sudden event that feels magical in its impact
2. Significance of numbers or any superstition if you find it interesting

I wasn’t sure if it was the flash of light, the rumbling in the sky or the shaking of the house that frightened me the most.

My mind was conflicted by fleeing or hiding. I opted for the latter and slid under the bed, hoping I’d made the right decision.

Once there, I found everything was silent. It was like the lull before the storm, that moment when you realise you are in the eye of the storm and any second now the wind will roar back from the opposite direction.

After a moment, came the whirr. Softly at first and growing in intensity as it seemed to be coming down on top of me. It was deafening with a rotating light reflecting off the walls of my room, I was under the bed, but the light was so intense as to appear to be coming through the mattress above me.

Then that too ceased and silence descended.

I crawled out from under the bed all the time aware something was not right. The street out front looked its normal self, nothing out of the ordinary there. I ventured to the back room, and that is when I saw it. Settled on my back lawn was a tiny space ship. Its perimeter was lit up by a circle of lights and on the front of it was a light and a flashing light through which shone the number 22.

I thought this convenient as my house is number 22, though I don’t have reason to have a light flashing that information. Under the craft, the heat from the landing had scorched the grass, and I thought that was an inconvenience in itself. But I shouldn’t be whinging as it wasn’t every day a craft of this kind landed in one’s back yard.

I had longed for the day when a space ship would pull up in my back yard and as if something magical had occurred here was and for the moment posing no threat just doing what it did, minding its own business though it did have some explaining to do about the state of my lawn.

I stood on the veranda taking it all in when a door opened and out stepped a very well dressed young man carrying an umbrella even though the day was cloudless and sunny. He put the umbrella up to shade himself and stepped down the gangway of the ship and walked across the lawn to where I was standing.

“We aren’t much for the sun,” he explained as he drew near, “Orlan Shrug from the Planet Siffence, pleased to make your acquaintance, mind if I come inside out of the sun?”

He said this as he basically walked past me and into my kitchen. I followed him in and found him seated at the kitchen table, he was looking about taking in all that I had.

“Any chance of a cup of tea?” he asked.

I nodded and flicked the kettle on, found some tea bags and a couple of clean cups.

With the tea made, he nodded his appreciation and proceeded to tell me why he was here.

“You’ve been wanting to meet me for some time. Don’t worry, we have ways of knowing this if I explained it would simply fry your brain. Needless to say, we are a friendly lot, the Planet Siffence is a lot cooler than your earth, though your summer is a tough go I have to say. We like to make people’s wishes come true, so here is yours granted. Sorry, I’m a lot looking like you, but we do have a significant difference we don’t reproduce like you. Your method is far too messy for us. Our females lay what you’d call eggs and we males fertilise them. We sit on the eggs for a day or two, and it all happens from there. Babies are born three months later, both mother and father care for the young, at six weeks they are fully grown and leave the nest, and away they go. None of this maternal and paternal time off, our species has evolved a more practical reproduction system. Plus, our babies never cry at night, so we are always alert and happy when it comes to parenting.”

I listened fascinated to his account of their life style, taking in as much as I could. He finished his tea and gave me a small medallion with the number 22 on it. It was his calling card, so he said.

My head was still in a whirl as he got up to leave and as he did so he told me that his visit would stay in my mind, but I’d never be able to recount it to another person.

As his space ship lifted off, I watched it disappear into the sky, and the thought struck me of what it was I had just witnessed.

Written for: https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2019/05/23/reenas-exploration-challenge-88/