The Shimmering Light

he shimmering grew in intensity as he alked across the desert and and came from a strange red and green coloured conical object. “ That shouldn’t be there,” he mused. “ It’s not a mirage. What the fuck is it?”The shimmering light seemed to beckon him on and he glided slowly towards it. His plane haf touched down nose first. While the plane’s nose was damaged, Jack was not hurt except for a cut on his forehead. He felt more shaken up than any other sensation. 

The light plane’s nose had dropped and the craft fell towards the Mojave desert, as Jack struggled with the stick. The plane levelled out several hundred feet lower than his flight plan. The instrument panel flashed red error messages at him. One was the fuel gauge for the right engine “Empty? But I filled up before taking off, didn’t I?”

Jack was flying from his sprawling home in Las Vegas, heading for San Francisco and a conference to discuss investing in a start up pharma company with his buddy from Berkeley. After Berkeley he married his High School sweetheart, Betty. But no children came along and ten years after they married Betty had found the lump. Her treatment had continued for five years. Betty endured many rounds of chemo, but the cancer spread to her brain and soon she was gone.

Brad had developed a new cancer drug and it was something in which Jack would consider investing his money . Betty had a rough time and any drug that did not give those dreadful side effects was something Jack considered a worthy cause. A statistician by training with an astute mind for investment, Jack had made his pile on the back of a video game. It was a roaring success, selling across the world and raking in millions.

At forty-five, Jack, a widowed, grizzled bear of a man, decided to retire. He took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate and that’s where he met Juanita. She was a singer in a night club on the strip. With her long dark shining hair, big boobs and tight ass, Jack was mesmerised. Drawn by her sultry voice Jack fell in love. Within weeks he had sold up his home in Palo Alto and moved to a spread on the edge of Vegas. Jack and Juanita married in the wedding chapel when she announced she was pregnant. Jack was overjoyed and he was happier now than at any time in his life.

 “Shit. The left engine should get me there if I keep the air speed lower. ” He radioed ahead with a new arrival time and continued to fly over the flat, dusty, desert. He gazed at the unchanging scene below him and knew he must soon fly around Area 51. He checked his co-ordinates and he was on the correct course. Then ahead he saw a shimmering light. “Could be a mirage in these hot conditions or maybe lights from Area 51.” He chuckled. “ Nobody knows what goes on in that place.”Pilots are instructed to stay away from the area. Flying closer than half a mile is prohibited." The instructions were in his flight plan Though the plan was now in jeopardy Jack flew on watching the shadow of his Cessna dancing over the ground and rising over the occasional rock.

Bang! The plane dropped another hunbdred feet -too low. "Oh fuck the left engine’s gone too.” Jack looked at his instrument panel now showing no fuel for the left engine. “You must have forgotten to fill up, idiot,That’s what early morning sex does to you, makes you forgetful. ” Jack’s brain seemed fried and he could not think clearly. “I shall have to ditch her in a glide otherwise I shall add to the dust on the desert floor.” Tears filled his eyes “ I will never see my son if I do. I must try to save my life.”

He climbed out of the cockpit discarding his flight jacket in the 120 degree desert heat. He removed his aviator sunglasses from the pocket and put them on. Then watching the shimmering light he removed his 9 mm beretta from under his arm and walked towards it across the dusty desert. “Could be dangerous out here.”

 The conical object’s door seemed to open. It was not like any door Jack had seen before. It opened yet melded into the walls of the object and then vanished. An ear-splitting screech emanated from the object and Jack stopped dead in his tracks along with the wind that had been ruffling his hair and kicking up dust.Nothing moved. No ‘thing’ came out of the conical object, either. Jack was struck dumb   All the desert had fallen silent, not a sound to be heard except Jack’s heart beating in his chest and resounding in his ears. 

Jack spotted a convenient rock, dropped behind and tried his cell “No signal, just static. Fuck I cannot tell anyone where I am.” In fact, he was not sure where he was. He had forgotten the last set of co-ordinates from his map and without geolocation on his cell he was stuck in this desert oven. His head hurt but he did not know why. Then a voice whispered in his ears. “Come, come, Betty is waiting for you.”

“Betty? But she passed three years ago.” Jack’s brain seemed more scrambled than Julie’s breakfast eggs. The voice mesmerised him and drew Jack onward, a mysterious hand taking his arm. As he walked, the gun still in his hand, the light shimmered, brighter and brighter, dazzling Jack who lost all sense of space and time. “Where am I?” Jack felt like he was in some kind of weird experiment. Like the one in which he and his High School buddies had tried to make crystal meth until it blew up. They had been thrown out of chemistry and that’s when Jack had turned to statistics. “Can’t blow them up even if they are Disraeli’s damn lies,” he said at the time. It had proved a wise decision. Jack awoke briefly awoke from this strange state of consciousness but the light still beckoned. Then everything turned dark.

 From along way off Jack heard not Betty’s but Julie’s voice. “Open you eyes Jack. You are safe.”

 He struggled to open them. “ Safe? The light, where has it gone? ” Jack opened his eyes and Julie bent to kiss his lips.

 “ You were lucky to be found in that desert.” She kissed his lips again and feeling returned to Jack’s body. “ You must have been there a couple of days. You were dehydrated and had a nasty cut on your forehead.”

Jack could remember nothing but the light. “ Where am I?” He croaked like a tree frog his eyes wild.

 “ You are in San Louis Obispo’s hospital. A desert ranger found your plane and you behind a rock. You had passed out. The Doc is not sure whether you got the cut on your head in the crash or on the rock. But you have concussion.”

   “The light?” Whispered Jack. “What happened to the light?”

   “You were there two days it would have gotten dark.”

    Jack knew that wasn’t the explanation. "What had he seen? Heaven?" Betty was waiting but as he stretched out his hand everything went dark “ It’s not your time,” whispered Betty’s voice and here he was in a hospital with Julie.

    “You can go home in a couple of days now you have regained consciousness,” said a booming voice. Jack turned his head as a muscled male nurse took his pulse. “You are doing well.”

 Jack‘s mind was confused. He had no recollection of why he was flying his plane. Just the desert, the ethereal light and the conical object. He closed his eyes and slept, his dreams populated by shimmering lights that reminded him of California.