The Competition

“This was a good idea, Babe,” I say as I lay on the sheet in the backyard looking up at the sky. The Lyrids are making an appearance tonight. A bright meteor shower zipping through the calm sky. The planes flying by had lessened in the early morning hours.

“All my ideas are good, remember?” he says playfully. He was laying next to me, his hand in mine while I cuddled close. He always put off heat, and I tried my best to cling to it to stay warm. April nights are still chilly.

He looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes that had a twinkle to them whenever he was in a good mood. He was so handsome. He still made my chest get that tight, in-love feeling after eight years.

He kisses me quickly and then picks up his binoculars. I  watch only him for a few minutes. He was like a kid on our star gazing nights. Happy and excited. It was tough to wake up at 2 am, our phone’s alarms vibrating, telling us to get up or we would miss The Lyrids. Our sleepiness usually wore off once we got outside in the chilly night air.

“What’s that?” he asks suddenly.

“Where?” I had my face turned into his shoulder trying to warm up my nose so had no idea what he saw.

“Over there,” he points in front of us. To the west, there was a line of yellow lights flying over the horizon and then slowly approach the sky overhead. Then they seem to pick up speed.  I wasn’t sure about that though because they could be flying closer and it just looks like they are faster.

Out of the north, more lights appear, and these were yellow, no, wait, now light blue as they approach the first set of lights. We look at each other completely confused. A third set arrives from the South and are all red!

“How many are there?” I ask. They were now all together and not moving. 

“I don’t know. What the hell are they?” He sat up and then stood. He kept watching them and as he does, he starts walking slowly towards them. I follow him, and we walk the length of the yard to stop near the reeds. I hand him the binoculars he forgot about. 

“Thank you,” he mumbles, totally entranced by these now stationary lights.

He fits the binoculars to his eyes, adjusts the focus, and goes still. The light breeze from the water smells bad. “Low tide,” I mutter. “What do you see?” I ask.

“Babe, this is...I don’t know what I see. I’m actually afraid to say what I see. Here. You look," he says as he hands me the binoculars.

I put them up to my eyes, adjust the focus, and try to see what has made him uncomfortable. The lights were not as bright and...wait. Something on one of the lights moved! What the hell? I try focusing on just one of the little balls of light. No wonder he didn’t want to say anything. I don't want to drop the binoculars and lose sight of this tiny diorama. I don’t know how else to explain it.

There was a man and a woman. The man is standing straight and motioning with his arms like he is public speaking. He was wearing what looks like a toga. Light blue. The yellow light illuminates him and the woman. She was wearing a flowing gown of the same color as the man. They have white fog all around their knees and feet obstructing my view of what they are standing on.

I lower the binoculars and look at the balls of light with my naked eyes. It is quiet. The meteor shower is still in the sky. We always have a contest going on who could spot the most meteors but I think we are putting this competition on hold.

I raise the binoculars and try to focus on one of the blue lights. This blue light has a...man, I think. He has a head, no wait, many heads? It is hard to tell. It looks like his head is in one of those hurricane wind machines you find at science museums. His heads are always shifting to the next one. It is making my eyes hurt so I focus on the second figure. She is dressed in a robe of pink and green and has a very tall headdress. 

“Babe, what are you seeing?” he asks impatiently. 

“The same thing you saw, I think,” I answer as I swivel to the next colored light. 

“Holy shit! There’s more! Look!” he says pointing behind us. Green lights come overhead and fly past us to join the other lights.

I focus on the new arrivals and find one ball of light that has already stopped moving. There is a man dressed in white but has black skin. Actual black skin. The woman beside him is also dressed in white with the blackest skin I have ever seen! It was like looking at two shadows playing dress-up.

“Babe, either we are dreaming, or some gods and goddesses are having a meeting,” I say. I am kind of joking when I say this but having said it out loud, it sounds true. “I’m not drunk, you’re not drunk. Neither one of us in high. And I know for sure that we got out of bed an hour ago. We are not dreaming.”

He looks at me. He looks confused but also nervous. “We cannot be the only ones seeing this.”

I look at so many of the lights and their figures that my eyes are tearing up. I saw a beautiful Asian woman with a headdress of gold spikes and a flowing robe of red; a man who had a two-toned colored face and held a snake-like staff; a man who looked like a Pharoah; an old man with the longest white beard and hair I had ever seen, outside of an anime book; there was another god, that looked that first one, wearing a toga but he looked younger.

“OH MY GOD!! I see Odin!” I shout. “He has the helmet with the wings! Look, Babe!” I hand him the binoculars.

He focuses the binoculars to where my finger is pointed. “This is...this is not real. This is some sort of projection from someone who has too much time on their hands. This can’t be real. There is an explanation for this that does not make us sound crazy.”

“I don’t care! It’s beautiful. I wonder what they are meeting about? They are all taking turns talking.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” he says as he lowers the binoculars and just stares at the lights. 

We are both so engrossed in watching them that we don’t see the stars move, at first. 

“Babe?” I say as I notice a group of stars move towards the very first man and woman, I spotted. It is the constellation Orion. His stars are moving! They were grouping together to make what looked like one star. Other constellations are moving and grouping together! What is going on? The sky gives me a dizzy feeling like the world was moving too fast, and I am going to fall down if I don't have something to hold on to. 

It took only a few minutes but the whole sky came together in one bright shining star. Then, that lone star suddenly vanishes! The sky is blank. We hadn’t noticed what happened to the little balls of light and the people. They are gone too. The world is now black. I can't see anything. I can't see the man standing next to me. 

“Babe?” I asked anxiously.

“I’m right here. I will always be here,” he said.

I was diagnosed with a brain tumor earlier that day that had been impeding my vision on an increased rate. I wanted to see The Lyrids once last time. I had no idea that the tumor would grow to also impede my parietal lobe along with my occipital lobe. My reality is not other people’s reality some days. My vision is now completely gone. That night in April was the last time I had my eyesight. I was told that what I saw that night never happened. I was on the sheet in the backyard, looking up at the meteor shower, counting the ones I could see, and winning when I was suddenly not myself. The doctor’s told him that the tumor had grown and was now not operable. 

He now leads me outside to look at the stars and meteors. I cuddle next to him for warmth and tell him not to cheat. He counts the meteors out loud for me and lets me know which ones are my meteors. Tells me which direction they are coming from. I win almost every time.