Shiny Metallic Dots

Shiny metallic dots, etched across the black sky, it made Jeff feel covered by its natural beauty. The sky couldn’t compare to her sanguine smile, soft yet piercing blue eyes and her lush blonde hair that flowed effortlessly, bobbing on her shoulders as they walked down the city street.

              “Jeff, I wasn’t ever one for foreign films but I think I actually enjoyed that one. I think I’m… actually enjoying time with you? What’s happening to me, oh god.” She said

              “Ha, there’s worse things you could be doing a Friday night, right? Or is the dread of expanding your horizons with someone who is moderately engaging just a weekend Greek tragedy?” Jeff replied

              “You misunderstood, MODERATELY engaging? Come now Jeff, we both know you’re not moderately engaging, you’re slightly above average engaging. Besides, if I wanted to find myself in antiquity on a weekend night, I’d pop on Julius Caesar in my room by myself. Et tu Jeff-eh?”

              Her biting wit pierced through him, deep down into that place that people seldom saw, the place that made him genuinely laugh. An addiction was growing to her every word with increasing intensity as they traversed the city street. Lively bustle pushed along the tempo of the night. Bright yellow lightbulbs from the movie theater’s sign illuminated the sidewalk as they exited. Jeff took a slight look back at the sign, it read “Main Feature: 8 ½”.

              Most of the time, Jeff was caught in his own world, disengaged from the one he actually lived. On any other night, any other day, any other year, the bright lights and bustling noise of the night would have been lost on him. A victim of his own seduction, they would have been mere peripherals as he would have walked briskly, face down with laser focus on the sidewalk to his destination. She pulled him out of that place so easily, it delighted and frightened him.

              “Hey, hellooooooooo, Jeff. Are you there? Or is silence your way of indicating verbal checkmate.” She asked

              “Ok ok, calm down, you got me there for a second, but JUST a second. Don’t you worry, you’ve won the battle but you haven’t won the war.”

              “A cliché isn’t making your case better”. She giggled

              “How about you buy me dinner and we’ll see if you can redeem yourself?” She asked with a wry smile.

              The smile from Jeff’s face resonated as bright as the lights lining the street, a brightness that brough forth unknown joy and warmth, there were no words, just a resounding yes written on his face. Their hands interlocked as they began to cross the street, Jeff looked up towards the sky again, briefly mesmerized by the star’s luminescence and he was brought back the growing sound of a car horn.

              “JEFF GET OUT OF THE WAY”

              The grip of her hand was abruptly ripped from his own as he felt a colossal push in his side, thrusting him through the air, time had stopped and came back just as fast when he plummeted onto the pavement with a thunderous thud. Laying in the middle of the street like a limp ragdoll, on his back those tiny metallic dots in the night sky were again all that he could see.

              “Jeff, hey, can you hear me, jeff, JEFF. Come on give me anything, Jeff, Please!”

              “I’m okay, I think, I just feel like a sack of potatoes that fell off a building” Jeff replied

              “I don’t know what the hell you were doing looking up at the sky when we were crossing the street but a car came rushing down and nearly hit you, I pushed you as hard as I could, the car barely missed you. Didn’t your mom tell you to look both ways before crossing the street? Hell, even look one way!” She exclaimed

              Gaining his ground again, finally able to stand up on his two feet the world felt surreal, his body filled with echoes of death. People didn’t feel real, his legs didn’t feel real, the world didn’t feel real. His arms extended out before him, the centerpiece of his vision but completely lost on his body. One near death experience and everything was disconnected, instantly.

              “Checkmate Jeff, you win the war of scaring the crap out of me, I’ll take you back to your place and drop you off, my apartment isn’t too far from here; you deserve some rest.”

              “Yeah I want that and I think I need that now, rest.” Jeff replied hollowly

              “Here, I extended the front seat all the way down, just lay down and I’ll take you where you need to be.”

              “Ok, that sounds nice, can you just do me a favor? Can you open the sun roof? I wanna look at the stars, I think it’ll help me.” Jeff said with a soft smile

              “Of course, we’ll be there in no time.”

              Those tiny metallic dots back again in view; captivating, breathtaking and entrancing. The slow murmur of the car engine slowly began to fade with all attention focused on the sky. A car gliding across an ethereal plane with lightness and delicate touch. A serendipitous journey across smooth glass, gliding through the air. The soft sound of bells gently infiltrated his ears in growing waves until a serene warmth cascaded across his skin. The warmth radiated outward from his chest, like rays of heat pulsing out of a bright orange morning sun in sunrise. He began to feel himself lift upwards, ascending towards the stars in the sky, with a magnetic pull roping him closer and closer. Taking a look down, he saw his own body still in the car, tiny like an ant. Jeff overwhelmed with the feelings of weight and weightlessness lifted what he felt to be his arms outward.

              On the street his arms didn’t feel real, with bone, muscles, skin and hair all formed with each other to make them; connected in body but disconnected to Jeff. This time, he held his hands outward and saw their outline, illuminated with a mix of neon blue and pure white light, an airy nothingness filled where bone, muscle, skin and hair once composed them. He felt connected to them, fully aware of every single minute feeling coursing through the entirety of his body as he reached the top of the sky. His face was asphyxiated with a deep smile that he had never known. Looking around, he realized that she wasn’t there, that this journey was his and his alone now, it was meant to be, tonight.

              “Jesus Christ Jeff, you idiot, you IDIOT, what were you looking at? What was so important up there huh?” She cried out on the city street.

              The seal of self-control was destroyed and the tears came roaring out with the power of a waterfall, splashing all over the ground. Some say that everything is meant to happen for a reason and most people also say you should look both ways before you cross the street. Broken, and beaten down to her knees, keeled over burying her face in her hands to muffle her cries. It didn’t matter, as the wails rang of a pure heartbreak, sadness she had never known but will now forever remain. Her body projected bloody screams of deep torment, the echoes of death pierced across the city street. Raising her head out of her hands, the lights were all gone, the bustle and rhythm of the night now a pitiful silence.

              She looked up at the sky, and saw how beautiful all the stars filled its black sheen; one star kept ascending, higher and higher until it burst and residual pockets of brightness etched across the night sky, like shiny metallic dots.