Lightspeed: Year One

Unless, of course, you never ever heard it before.

Witness A (One)

I runs the last bit. I’m getting really scared. Even though there’d been no bang nor nothing. I mean, the house lights were all out.

When I gets there I nearly has a heart attack because the front door is standing wide open.

No light—no, one in the lounge. I say lounge—size of a kitchen table—nowhere else though.

Upstairs, in the tiny little mouse room we called our bedroom, I hear a long wild wailing noise.

And I fucking know that noise.

It’s her, fetching off, like they say.

It’s sex.

I thought, hang on maybe she’s just fixed herself, me not being there.

Then I know.

Then I run upstairs fast as I could. Sounded like an elephant to myself, in all the quiet.

When I pushed the door open, there they are. Her and him.

There they are.

Witness E (Two)

He rang the door bell. I think that was it . . . He must have done.

So I opened the door. It wasn’t that late. Anyway, I was bored.

The utter rubbish on TV. I’d been going to check the washing-machine because suddenly it seemed so silent that presumably it’d packed up, with all my gear in it, oh, and his favorite three shirts—unforgiveable!

I thought I’d seen a kind of flash in the sky earlier. But I’m always seeing things in the sky. Altogether, in the past two years, I’ve seen six unidentified flying objects. Everyone laughs at me. But I did.

Anyway, standing outside the door is this entirely gorgeous man. There is no other way to describe him. He looks like—oh, God knows. Too good to be true. No, I don’t remember what he was wearing.

Yes, I’d been drinking. I always mean to cut down, never do it when I’m at work. But sometimes, well. But not that much. I mean, I could see.

He was so beautiful.

And he said, “Here you are,” and he smiled this wonderful smile.

No, not charismatic, nothing so clichéd. You looked at him and—

I fell in love with him. On sight. I fell in love with him.

Can I stop now?

I need some water, please.

Witness E (Three)

We’d been going to go up to the ridge. There was supposed to be a meteor shower. He said so. We’re both very interested in that sort of thing—space, you know. He has a wonderful collection of meteor bits—dark fusion crust, really special.

We’d only been together a year. It was awful when he lost his job, but luckily I still have mine. Very luckily, as it turns out. I mean, it’s just boring office work, but I’ll still need a job, won’t I? Or not, for a bit, perhaps.

Anyway, we set off quite early, around sunset. It was lovely, the light sinking over the fields and the birds singing. I know the songs are only territorial, their way of saying Keep Out! to other birds. I never knew that till he explained it to me. I just thought they sang because they could do it so well.

The ridge is the highest open place for miles.

We sat down and looked at the dark coming, and then all the lights coming on all round, the two towns, and the city to the north, and the little villages. You can never go far here without seeing people, or signs of them.

It got dark then. The moon was already quite far over to the west, though still high enough to make the upper sky that deep night blue. Lots of stars.

We didn’t see anything for a long time. Then this thing just erupted out of the zenith.

He jumped up. We both did.

“It’s a fireball—” he shouted. “My God—it’s colossal—”

It seemed to be falling straight on us, but somehow neither of us could move.

Then I remember being aware of turning, as if I were being turned, not doing it myself—and our shadows peeling out jet black behind us and then realizing the meteor was rushing down to the south, in front of us, not directly on to our heads.

He started to run. He was running after it. He didn’t wait for me, or even call to me. I suppose he just thought I’d do exactly what he did, I’d be so desperate to see. But I was scared. You know. I mean, it was so big and blazing bright—and yet so dark. I didn’t know you could have fire like that, black fire—it must be a phenomenon associated with certain types of extra-terrestrial objects.

So he’d sprinted off, and the fireball went down on the land. And then—no shock wave, no sound—it just went out. Like a blown candle. Like that.

My legs had gone to jelly. I had to sit down. I thought he’d be all right; after all nothing had exploded or was burning. What a coward I was, and he was so brave. He’d really tell me off. Perhaps I could get up and follow him in a minute, pretend I’d fallen over something as I ran—

Then I noticed how completely quiet everything was. Nothing is ever that quiet. I’ve been out with him enough nights to know. Animals move about, there is the distant hum of traffic from the motorway, or a plane. Even trees sort of settle.

And even the quietest flick of breeze moves the leaves. And I could see the leaves on trees moving a little. So the silence was just for me, somehow I’d been closed in some sort of bubble of soundlessness—

Then I stood up.