That’s When I Saw The UFO

I saw a UFO a couple of nights ago. It was the damndest thing. I saw a UFO. I saw it. Miniscule, a star in the sky. I saw it. Nothing but an orange spec. I saw a UFO. I saw it spiral through the evening sky. Spinning in improbable circles. I’m telling you. It was the damndest thing. One moment a single orange star in the evening, the next moment a bright slash cutting across the sky. Quickly and with purpose.   Spiraling through unseen loops, an orange blur across a midnight expanse.

Then next moment it was gone.

But I saw it.

I saw a UFO a couple of nights ago, and it was the damndest thing.

I was walking up the stairs to my girlfriend’s apartment, far past the witching hour. It was silent, save for the murmuring of my metal steed. Shivering as I turned it off, sparing the expenditure of more dinosaur bones. Quiet steed, we’ve reached our destination.

I was walking up the stairs and starring into the evening sky as I am oft wont to do. I sleep over her house almost every evening, ascending those stairs when I am at the end of my health gauge.   Every evening as I climb those stairs I stare up into the cosmos. You don’t know this, but it’s the quietest, loneliest, most exciting part of my day.

As I climb those stairs, I gaze up into the enormity. The chasm where God should be, but all that lurks is Everything. I don’t see purpose, I see Everything. I stare up into Everything and I see the Winking Gaze of enormous Existence Factories, forging the elements. It’s                   quiet. I stare. The Universe says nothing back and I take that for an embrace.

It’s quiet.

It’s lonely.

It’s beautiful.

This evening was different. As I stared up at my Maker(s), forging their elements, working their cosmic duty, something caught my eye. An orange star. It began to move. Cool I said, a shooting star. Then it really began to move. Cutting, and jiving, swinging across the sky. From the right it shot quickly over to the left, a fantastic orange blur.

Quickly now!, quickly now it moved. Spiraling, spiraling, spiraling through circles. I stared, the hairs on my entire body standing at attention. Stretching. Looking with me. The orange spec, my UFO, it spiraled and then just like that.

Just like that.

Just like that it was gone.

Puzzled, I continued staring at the evening sky. Universe. What had you shown me? I am not naïve enough to think that I saw a flying saucer. Though my more innocence portions of grey matter still coo to me that in fact that’s exactly what I saw. I am not naïve enough to know that I have residing within my cells firsthand knowledge of intelligent life.

What I do know, what I can confirm is that I saw a UFO. An unidentified flying object. Be it atmospheric weather, a satellite crashing to Earth, an alien drunk driving. Whatever the case. I saw it. Yes I saw a UFO, and I stared back up at the chasm where Everything resides. I stared up at it and I was confused, for where I often saw nothing but the silent hum of Existence I had seen movement.

Frozen, I stared for what felt like hours but what was nothing more than seconds and other assorted clichés.

So what, who cares, what’s my point.

For a moment the Universe seemed to wink at me. Yes, it said. I am magical. Surely you hadn’t forgotten. For it doesn’t matter what I saw that night as I staggered up a set of wooden planks towards the din of an air conditioned room. What matters is the suggestions that lurked behind that confounding ball of burning Amber. Everything sizzled and crackled. I was aware, as I always am, of the tininess of my station in life. Yet at that moment, after what I saw it didn’t feel depressing. It felt exciting. What is out there, what lurks beyond the confines of our fuzzy glorious atmosphere.

For a moment, Everything glowed.

Last night I once again walked up those stairs. I stared at the stars. Improbable. It made no sense. Yet I had that expectation. I am a human being more than thirty-percent into my existence. I have been beaten down and fit into holes and molded into being. I am sensible. Scientific. Reasonable. Yet last night I had that expectation. I gazed up at the Cosmos.

The wish quietly lurked within. Wistfully I stared. Stopped on those stairs. If Everything could hear my thoughts surely all of it would have laughed. Quietly, quietly, quietly. Under my breath, inside my Skull, I shouted.

Show me it again.

I gazed with intent. With purpose. Shimmering Everything Factories looked down at me. Show me it again. They blinked. Flickering like worn out bulbs in an all too high ceiling. Show me it again. It didn’t happen. The Universe’s parlor trick was a night one performance. All I saw was Everything. Planets and stars and moons and who knows what.

Who knows what.

I saw a UFO, and like that the Emptiness opened up and for a moment Wonder stepped up. I realized that they’re the same thing, that possibility lurks around the edges of Everything. Cropping up when you least expect it, dazzling you for a moment. Then sizzling off into the Aether. Perhaps going to wow someone else. Something else.

I saw a UFO.

It was the damndest thing.