The Firefly

July 20, 1949

The day of the discovery began with a muted sun and a balmy breeze, a rarity in July. Dillmont, the sleepy suburb I grew up in, awoke with the sun. Its bleary eyed residents emerged from their homes and soaked in the refreshing Saturday morning on their wicker porch furniture. As the sun rose above town, lawn mowers traced uniform lines across the primped front yards, tea kettles screamed, and the weekend seemed to be off to a pleasant start.

Unbeknownst to us, the object sitting in the center of Sunday Road was prepared to change that. It patiently awaited its discovery as its black mirrored surface gathered heat and glinted in the sun.

I still don't know whether or not this object had a conscience, or any concept of the turmoil that would ensue following its discovery. There were countless unproven theories about the origin of this object and who placed it there. Uncertainty surrounded the object, but one thing was for certain; the world would never return to the way it was before little Jenny Ritter discovered the sinister, palm sized object on the road outside her house.

Hesitant to touch it, Jenny's mom went and phoned the neighbor, who phoned another neighbor, and soon every phone on the block was ringing off its hook. Ours, being one of the first to ring, was answered by my sister.

"Silfer residence," she answered, just as she was taught.

The phone was passed off to my mother, who dressed quickly and hurried down the road with my father on her heels. Once our parents were out of sight, my sister and I cautiously followed, curious about the commotion.

We came upon every family on the street gathered around something on the road. They all stood at a careful distance and spoke in hushed tones.

My sister and I joined the gaggle of children pushed to the back of the crowd. At fourteen, I was unsure of where I should stand, but decided not to try my luck with the adults.

It was from this small crowd of disheveled children that I first heard of the object. I picked up slowly from their conversation that it was unfamiliar and intriguing, and I craned my neck to see it.

By the time word had spread farther into town and many other families were crowding around it, us kids had formed several theories.

"I bet it was put there by aliens."

"No chance, it was the government for sure. I bet they're spying on us."

"What would the government want with us? It's a whole new invention. I wonder what it does. We could be rich!"

Unknowingly, the children of Dillmont were the first to make the three most popular claims about the object, also made by world renowned scientists, archaeologists, scholars, and reporters. I was unsure about all this alien business, but the government theory seemed rational to me.

The truth was, nobody ever really found a logical explanation for what it was or who put it there, but it certainly couldn't be rationally explained by even the greatest minds of our time. Not with any current phenomena, anyway.

July 24, 1949

The press took a few days to print of the object's discovery.

The U.S. military was quickly brought in to carefully remove it from the street. Children peered suspiciously through the windows as sturdy army green trucks surrounded the area and safely brought it away.

Reporters had managed to snap a few photos of the object before its removal, and they were plastered across every newspaper in the state within a few days.

As the days went by, the papers in surrounding states caught hold of the story, and soon word of the alien object had bloomed across the country in all directions. My father fervently collected newspapers, poring over them for more facts and writing notes in his unintelligible scrawl. Despite the shared nervous excitement of the entire country, little further information was released on the object, and the newspapers began to run out of headlines.

Unknown Object Found in OH. Aliens Involved?

Government Quick to Hide Suspicious Spy Device

Possible New Species Discovered in Ohio

Just as the press had run out of ways to report on the same thing, a piece of information regarding the object was released. It was small, but enough to keep people interested.

The object had begun to glow.

July 31, 1949

The government had sprung a leak, and information about the object was being illegally shared with the press left and right. Newspaper sales soared to unheard of levels as people devoured the delicious story of the futuristic, alien object discovery in an Ohio suburb.

Aside from my father, most of the people in Dillmont tried to keep their noses out of it. The object had left a stain on our town, and we were now the most famous town in the United States. Reporters scurried like roaches down the streets, scouring for overlooked morsels of printable information. Fanatics even traveled from out of state to see for themselves the conspiracy theory capital of the United States, the place where the alien object had been discovered.

Our dismissive attitude as a town did not influence the rest of the country's population, and the story only gained popularity as the days passed. It even garnered a nickname; The Firefly.

Named for its bioluminescent-like, intermittent glowing, The Firefly's popularity made rich men of every reporter, and the papers could barely print enough to keep up with the sales. Television was just the same, and families sat snugly around their TV sets and crowded around electronic store windows to watch the daily news.

The government was futile in its attempts to patch its leak. Whoever was sharing kept on sharing, but the information got less and less exciting as the days went on. In fact, many people had begun to find the whole situation increasingly concerning.

Scientists had discovered that The Firefly's glowing was triggered by human touch only. This meant that The Firefly was designed for humans specifically, which meant one of two things.

1) The Firefly was designed by humans, for humans. Its purpose was still unknown, and nobody had come forward regarding its invention. If the government knew anything about it, they maintained an incredible poker face.

2) The Firefly was designed for humans, but not by them. This is the option that nobody but hardcore conspiracy theorists liked to talk about, one of them being my father.

While shocking, the significance of the other information paled against the newest bit of information, released only eleven days after the discovery. Scientists had discovered a small number on The Firefly. Some sort of countdown, they said. The number was at 97 when it was discovered, but receded closer to zero each day. It now stood at 81.

There was much conjecture about this number and its unknown meaning, and people were extremely unsettled by its rapid decline.

Here marks an instant change in the American attitude. It is incredible how a countdown to an unknown event will torment the brain.

The American people began to act as a hive mind after the release of this sinister information. Panic quickly ensued.

August 2, 1949

The number on The Firefly had continued its gradual decline, and now rested temporarily at 74. Panic blossomed into many different behaviors. Riots and looting were rampant in urban areas, and people poured from dangerous cities in all directions. Food went out of stock hours after shipments came in, and hoarding became a national crisis as some families struggled to find food.

Dillmont remained the eye of the storm in the hurricane that was The United States. The streets were silent aside from the leaves rustling in the lazy hot breeze. Many families had packed up and left, and in their wake they had left an immense quiet. I half expected a tumbleweed to pass by my bedroom window.

My parents were at odds.

My father had a steely resolve about staying in Dillmont. He felt that we were on the precipice of something exciting, a groundbreaking piece of history being made.

My mother, on the other hand, had a suitcase in the front hall and threatened daily to take it and leave.

Whether she was all talk or she planned to truly do it, my sister and I didn't know. I wasn't sure what was next for the few remaining residents of Dillmont, but I sensed a dark cloud just around the corner, and I was prepared to go with my mother if she decided to truly leave.

August 14, 1949

Nothing ever came of my mother's threats, and the countdown was now at 39. On the morning of August 14th, the seventeen remaining residents of our town were taken in by the government for questioning, my family and I included.

Sitting in the interrogation room with a juice box and a female government agent across from me, I came to a realization. The agent's weathered voice, the tired droop of her face, the incessant tapping of her chipped fingernails on the table all told me that the government had nothing to do with The Firefly after all. I sensed her desperation. She was hoping for one of us to tell her that we knew something, anything.

Taken aback by this realization, I was agitated and resistant to her questioning. I could think only of The Firefly's countdown. Ignoring the agent's interrogation, I asked her a question I knew she wouldn't know the answer to. What would happen when the countdown hit zero? What would happen?

August 28, 1949

Against my father's will, the government moved us into a safe house. Everyone had adopted the idea that only the worst would happen when the countdown hit zero, and all around us the world went up in flames. The countdown stood at 10.

Small wars broke out among civilians who believed they knew best what to do with The Firefly. Several government buildings were rushed by angry mobs searching for The Firefly, and entire cities were evacuated and burning.

Although most papers had stopped printing, word of mouth told me that some people had set up camp in the abandoned houses in Dillmont, awaiting whatever was set to occur with an unsettling patience. I wondered about the strangers living in our home, using our things, eating our food.

In just over a month, The United States had become a war torn land of vigilante justice, and every man was to fend for himself. A few U.S. allies feebly tried to employ their own forces a few weeks ago, but withdrew after losing many men and accomplishing nothing. By my understanding, we had been abandoned in our own country.

September 15, 1949

For the first time in two weeks, I stepped out of the safe house into a wasteland. Debris surrounded us, and ash hung suspended in the air. I inhaled the sharp scent of smoke, and I peered at the muted glow of a fire still burning in the distance.

It had been hard to gather information from the basement of the safe house, but a few broadcasts were transmitted over the radio.

By my understanding, the government stood down after a mob of thousands of people stormed the White House on August 30th. At that point, The Firefly was at 2.

My father had been keeping track of The Firefly's decline, and had estimated the time that it would finally hit zero. At 3 PM on August 30th, we braced ourselves for some sort of world-ending event.

Aside from the soft booms of explosions and collapsing buildings in the distance, we heard nothing. Two weeks later, we emerged from our hole in the ground to discover the truth.

The Firefly's countdown, whatever it meant, had not been a countdown to the world ending. It was not a countdown to some alien attack, nor a sinister government scheme. It was just a number, but the American people had turned it into much more than that. In trying to avoid a catastrophic event, they had created one.

The survivors were airlifted out of America by allying countries, and we were distributed around the world to any country that would take us as refugees. Behind us, we left our abandoned country to burn.

July 20, 2091



"And with no further ado, I present to you the first mechanism of time travel known to man."

A smattering of applause followed the unveiling of the object. The intimate room of modern science's most elite minds sat in awe of it. They were in the presence of history being made, and even possibly changed. This was it, they were experiencing the peak of humanity's brilliance. The peak of science.

After a short presentation, the scientists were allowed to approach. Gentle hands grazed along its sleek surface, people spoke softly and carefully. About the size of a printer, with a smooth, buttonless surface, the scientists were puzzled as to how it worked.

After the scientists had made their rounds on the mechanism and each had thoroughly examined it, they broke for lunch. As they walked down the hall, they spoke softly of its brilliance. They were still quite unsure of how it worked, how an object simply placed atop it could be beamed through time and space and appear in a different century. As the small group of brilliant minds descended the stairs, an intern, proud to be among them, patted his pockets and checked his briefcase. He peered back up the stairs towards the room.

"Has anyone seen my phone?"