Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Buck's Enlightenment

Did I ever tell you about the time I saw the light? No? Well it was an amazing night. Pretty much re-defined everything I’d ever believed in. Before that, my days had been filled with the everyday, mundane, trivialities of life. Well, I should say nights – I slept most of the day away. I just felt like nothing big or important ever happened to me. I’d get up, eat something, say hi to a friend or two and hang out for a bit, go off on my own, get things done, eat some more. I loved the place that I lived – it kept me safe and dry and warm – all a guy could wish for, right? But I was restless. I used to roam far away from home, just wandering up and down, meeting up with girls, saying hello to others that I knew, and eating some more food here and there. I got pretty good at looking out for bad guys too – you know, people other than me who wandered around at night. So yeah, that was pretty much my life. Eat, drink, hang out, sleep, eat again.

But then there was this ONE particular night – I wandered farther than I’d ever gone before. I was alone, and I came to a great open expanse that seemed very lonely to me, but lovely at the same time. There were trees surrounding this field, and as I gazed over to the other side of it, I noticed something strange. All of a sudden, a cloud moved over the moon, which only illuminated the small lights that I saw off in the distance, going back and forth. At first I thought they were fireflies, but they didn’t blink – they were solid lights, and they went across the horizon very quickly. Naturally, I walked all the way across that field to where they were coming from. The lights were actually pretty sporadic – I would see one, and then it would be a while before another came by, but it was enough to keep me going in the right direction.

It had been dark for a while when I finally approached the place where the lights had been flying, and stepped through the trees timidly. There were more trees on the other side, but in between was an odd expanse. It stretched from end to end as far as I could see, and it was very flat. I placed my foot on it – it was also very smooth and hard. I was about to step out further, when I heard a sound – it was a sound of roaring, rushing, and I had never heard it before. I stepped back from the expanse in terror, and would have run away, but as I looked in the direction of the sound, there was the light, and it was very bright. No, I mean, this light was BLINDING. It was actually two lights right next to each other, like eyes - they swooped down upon me like a pack of teenage wolves, and froze up my limbs in an instant. I couldn’t move or look away – all I could do was stare blankly into them as if at the mercy of some higher power, begging for my life – hoping beyond hope that if this thing didn’t kill me, it would at least impart some kind of knowledge to my feeble being. Man, it was wild. It’s like I finally understood the reason I’d been brought there in the first place – for a moment, everything made sense.
The whole thing lasted maybe two seconds – far less time than it takes to describe it. Before I could even think, the light was gone. I could move again, and took a deep breath, before bolting back into the trees. Hey, maybe someday I’ll go back there and do it again – but two seconds of divine inspiration is about all that I can take in one night.

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