Pan de Luz

Sometimes the aliens are more alien than expected

Yesterday I related my experience putting together thirty thousand words in two weeks, combining some transition material and some already written material. This is one of the transition chapters, leading to Indian Shadow’s death in time and re-emergence in a timeless state.

The waitress looked up and said, “Sit anyplace you want to.” She had one knee on the booth opposite a powerfully built man with big muscles and a shaved head. They were speaking confidentially. He handed something to the waitress which she dropped into the pocket of her apron. The muscle man stood and put his fists together behind his head, pushing his elbows out to stretch his upper back and chest. It also exposed his shoulder holster. “I have to go to court today,” he said. “It’ll be all right,” the waitress said. The man said, “I didn’t do nothing.” “Then just tell them that, honey.”

Indian Shadow was at the counter, studying the menu and paying no overt attention to them. Shelter John was reading a throwaway paper and was turned away from everybody else. He and Indian Shadow had in common that they didn’t need to look at somebody to pay attention to them. The man walked past Shelter John, almost brushing against him, and out the door.

“Stupid son-of-a-bitch,” the waitress said, as if Shelter John was her confidant. “What can I get for you?” “You serve breakfast all day?” Indian Shadow asked. “If it’s on the menu you can have it.” She gestured toward the television set at the end of the counter. There was an aerial shot from a news helicopter of a stretch of highway, and along it, an endless traffic jam. “Something fell out of the sky,” she said. “They think it came from outer space.” She walked to the end of the counter and turned up the volume.There was the sound of many helicopters hovering above or making passes over something beside the Interstate Highway. “What is that?” Shelter John asked. “It looks like a patch of snow.” “That’s the alien. Some Mexicans said it was clouds that fell out of the sky, but the doctors said they just came up with that because it was the only thing that was logical to them. The doctors said that you have to make things fit with what you know’s possible or you go crazy.” “What’s it made out of?” “They don’t know. But the way they know it’s not from the earth is that it’s not made the same way as what you find here on the earth. Them Mexicans that saw it happen? They ate some of it. I’d never eat something like that, not knowing where it was from, would you?” She gave them a sharp, predatory glance. “I don’t know,” Indian Shadow said. A stout, round-eyed Mexican was speaking in Spanish. A skinny, dark haired woman with large framed glasses and an Italian accent was translating into English. “We heard this hissing noise, and we thought maybe it was a predator drone looking for Mexicans. I looked up and I saw the clouds that had been over the top of us, fall out of the sky.” The translator stopped to confer with the man. On a crawler at the bottom of the screen he was identified as Jesus Gonzales. The translator looked troubled, like she couldn’t believe what he was saying, but she soldiered on. “I knew it was the clouds, because of the hissing sound they made. It was the same as in my dream last night. I looked up at the clouds and I saw the face of God in them. He looked very sad. He said to me, ‘The game is up. Nobody believes in me anymore.’ Then he started to deflate. He made this hissing sound. Pretty soon all the air was gone out of him and he was laying on the ground like a marshmallow topping.”

“Jesus Christ,” Indian Shadow said. “How did it feel when the, uh, the clouds, passed over them?” the reporter asked. Speedy at first seemed to have no answer, but when pressed, suggested that it felt like a very light meringue. “Jesus Christ,” Shelter John said. The report had cut away from the interview with the witnesses and to a scientist who was explaining that the molecular structure was unlike anything ever before seen. ‘It’s alive, though,’ she said. ‘It’s some kind of living thing. So far it appears to have no ill effect when ingested.’” The report cut to commentators debating whether people had the right to ingest the substance. Some lined up on the side of protecting this creature from being eaten, as it was a treasure. Others lined up on the side that it had been sent down as a gift from a higher power, mana from heaven which, when eaten, would transubstantiate flesh into spirit. “If we eat the body of Jesus as bread,” one commentator asserted, “then we can eat bread as the body of Jesus.” The moderator asked him to clarify that statement and he said he felt it was self- explanatory. The waitress changed to a different channel. “It’s on all of them,” she said. On public broadcasting a noted psychologist was explaining that unsophisticated and superstitious people often see Jesus in a tortilla or the Virgin Mary in the discoloration of a wall. “The pattern is inside the mind,” she said, “and is projected into the container, even if the container is just the faintest suggestion of the internal image. It needs only to be sufficient to stimulate the archetype.” When Indian Shadow finished his bacon and eggs, he pulled out the roll of bills to pay the check. The waitress didn’t stare at it but she saw it. “I got some of it,” she said, “if you boys want to buy some.” “You got some of what?” He handed her a hundred. “The alien,” she said. “That man was in here acting like he’s retarded? He got some of it, brought it back here to sell. The police thought he was selling heroin or something. I don’t know if it was against the law for him to take some of it, but he says it was. I don’t think they’ll do much to him about it. You can have half of what I got from him if you let me keep the change out of this here hundred dollar bill.” “I guess it can’t hurt me,” Indian Shadow said. “You want some of it?” Shelter John’s expression didn’t change. “I guess it’s no worse than cats,” he said. “All right then,” Indian Shadow said. The waitress reached into the apron pocket and pulled out two capsules filled with a white powder. She dropped them into Indian Shadow’s shirt pocket. “If you want some more you come back and see me,” she said.