Star Children

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Chapter One

The little old lady was tired. She wanted to make it to her son’s house to drop off her thirteen-year-old grandson, David Junior, after his weekend sleepover and fiesta of grandma’s cooking. She realized that his having just become a teenager meant that his visits would probably soon diminish and his attitudes would change as he and his group of friends matured. She wanted as much time with her grandson as he now was, as possible.

The alertness she’d felt at the start of their journey had slowly faded. She’d blink her eyes, shake her head, but before she knew it the minivan was drifting towards the center line.

They were only twenty miles from her son’s home. She considered slapping her own face to bring her back to reality but, as a gear shift was going to be necessary on this long incline, instead she fumbled in the ashtray for a piece of gum, slipped it into her mouth, changed gears and the masticating action of the gum seemed to revive her. As her vehicle crested the hill she was blinded by the high-beam lights of a giant semi-trailer astraddle the center line. The driver was asleep and his behemoth truck ploughed into the old lady’s miniscule van.

Jangling, mangling metal, locked brakes screeching as though from within the walls of Hades, both vehicles’ tires bursting with their metal rims scraping up the asphalt, created an horrendous cacophony completely lost to the surrounding silence. The two vehicles, locked together as though they were a large piece of junkyard scrap, were propelled down the hill by the truck’s overwhelming inertia until they fell off the road and collapsed into the ditch, neither vehicle distinguishable through the curtain of dust and smoke.

The old lady died upon impact. She may not have even had time to process what was happening nor even realized they’d been hit. Her beloved grandson was crumpled up in his seat and by the time the paramedics arrived little hope was held for his survival. He’d lost a lot of blood, had a fractured neck and both of his legs were twisted and bent forward at the knees.

The Emergency Room doctors had given up hope when slowly the boy’s eyes opened and he groggily demanded, Hey! Where’s my Grandma?

Springing back into action the medical team hurriedly checked all the lad’s vitals, added more drugs to the contents of the catheter-drip injected into the back of his hand and hoped against hope that by some non-medical miracle he might be on the way to recovery. His parents had been contacted and as soon as they arrived and were ushered into their son’s cubicle, miraculously he sat up, eyes alert, grasped a hand of each parent and said slowly, I love you both but I have to go. I’ll be back. I’ll miss you, but please don’t worry. Goodbye for now. He fell back and died with his eyes wide open and a smile on his face, apparently not in pain nor fear of death.

* * * * *

The double funeral was more than either parent could bear. As if the loss of a child was not enough, the boy’s father had also lost his loving mother. His wife, Lisa, was in a total state of shock, unable to function and subsisted on sedative medication for weeks after the interments.

When Lisa slowly came down from the drugs, she took to sipping merlot as her soother. Fearful that she might drift into alcoholism, her husband, David, slowly weaned her off the liquor by adding a few ounces of water to her half-full bottle whenever she dozed off. In time, normalcy, if it could be given such a name, returned to the Lassiter household. Unfortunately, the grieving process had taken just too long and both parents had reluctantly been let go from their prestigious jobs.

David, a military brat, had been broadly educated and managed to find a way to work from home, writing interesting articles for on-line news magazines and attractive, up to date content for uninspired bloggers which, along with the help of a small inheritance from his deceased mother was barely enough to keep the wolves at bay. Lisa, on the other hand, settled into being a housewife, certain in her mind that there was no way she could focus enough to hold down a full-time job. At least not yet. The emotional pain was still more than she could handle and sleep always seemed to be calling.

Chapter Two

David Lassiter lay in bed, unable to sleep as had become the norm. Night after night, he and Lisa had sat in the living room side by side, hand in hand staring mindlessly at the television as they had done every evening after dinner since their son’s death. It seemed as though it had been forever and that forever might never end but the evening meal had been a ‘celebration’ of sorts. It was the anniversary of their son’s death and Lisa had prepared David Junior’s favorite meal, mac and cheese.

David, as usual, became aware that they were only sitting, staring and not ‘watching’ anything on the flickering screen. It was he who suggested they should go to bed. So, there he lay, wide awake and restless, his wife a lifeless body beside him.

She had drifted off at least half an hour earlier but for him, sleep was elusive. He tried to meditate but failed; he rolled from side to side, tried laying on his back with a pillow behind his knees. Not a blink. Having read of its longevity-enhancing benefits he experimented with slow-breathing which induced yawning but he still felt that he simply could not cross the frontier into the Land of Nod.

Memories of his son played through his mind like a slow-motion movie. How they’d played catch with a baseball in season and threw long passes in football season. How they’d each supported opposing teams in both sports and always went to those games just to see who could cheer the loudest. How he’d adored that boy. Where did the time go? He worried about his wife’s ongoing emotional condition, about their loss of jobs. There was no way his mind could handle all of the flurry of endless impossibilities hurtling through his brain. His thoughts became an annoying, ambling muddle without the slightest hope of creating order from his mental chaos.

Maybe he should get up and take a pill. That might work. Now, where did Lisa keep her stash . . .

Suddenly his eyes flashed open and he was wide awake. Had he actually been asleep? He didn’t think so. But the wall clock . . . 3:30 a.m.? He must have been asleep for at least four hours! Did he dream he’d been awake all that time? Dream about raiding Lisa’s stash? As he lay there, his thoughts returned to his son’s and mother’s deaths in the car crash exactly three years ago to the day, but as he began slowly dozing off again, he had a momentary recall of a dream. Was it simply a flashback to one of the innumerable Déjà vu nightmares he’d suffered through over the past few years or was it a dream he’d actually just experienced? But it seemed so real, as though he’d been talking to somebody. He lay awake in confused contemplation waiting for the sun to shine.

Hours later, when Lisa stirred, yawned and rolled over to pull up the blanket to cover her bare shoulders against the dawn’s chill, David offered her a cup of coffee. Hey, Lisa, are you awake? I think I had a dream and our son is alive.

Lisa struggled to an upright position, adjusted her pillows for support and through one half-closed eye looked contemplatively at her bleary-eyed husband and whispered, Darling, our son and your mother are buried side by side in Palmhurst Cemetery. We were at the funeral, remember? Her frown became a scowl, You do remember, don’t you?

I know. I know, but listen . . . he paused, swallowed and went on, you probably won’t make any sense out of all this, but in my dream an Extra-Terrestrial Being told me that David’s soul was saved and he’s been resurrected as an Earth-connected Star Child.

His wife choked on her coffee as she spluttered, David, are you sure you’re alright? Did you hear yourself? I think all your research for those lazy blogger clients of yours is befuddling your brain. I know it pays the bills and all but maybe you should try to get back into your engineering field.

Yes, yes, but just hear me out. David was rebirthed as a Star Child with a twin sister. They’re living safely on the Outer Banks and training. I don’t know quite what that meant, but his sister, whose name is Quin is about to give birth to twins. The Being in my dream told me we’d be advised when we can go over there and visit the four of them.

Four of them? Really? She faked her response to sound as though she was excited in the hope that if she humored her husband, he might leave her alone and she could go back to sleep.

Yes, our son, David, his sister, ah, Quin is her name and their new twins. I guess we’ll be grandparents of some sort! The pregnancy was two years long but they’ll have a life-span of at least five-hundred years. So, I guess a pregnancy of two years really is a mere blip in the space-time continuum, no?

Lisa took the last sip of her coffee, put the cup on the bed-side table, looked sadly at her apparently demented husband and softly whispered, David, that must have really been some wild dream you had. No hottie space girls in it? No sex? No Barbarella? And the name ‘Quin’, where did you come up with that one? Rhymes with twin, you know. I think you need help. Look, I’m going back to sleep. You should try to as well. You look haggard. She tousled her flaming red hair, adjusted it on her pillow and just before she fell sound asleep, she mumbled, Darling, when we go shopping, remind me to buy you some real pajamas. That T-shirt and shorts ensemble just doesn’t do it for me anymore.

David stood there, bewildered by her lack of enthusiasm. Did she have no desire to know more? He felt so strongly about his dream . . . or was it really a night-time visit from a stranger? But, well, he loved that face, that hair, those eyes. As he turned away, he thought, I really am a lucky guy! He wandered back to the room he called his ‘study’ which was only comprised of a sturdy oak table and an ancient office chair to sit upon so he could work at his laptop. His giant ‘World’s Best Dad!’ cup of coffee sat cold and untouched. A wobbly pile of reference books from where he gathered blogging material was stacked in one corner of the ten by ten, one-time sewing room.

Over the ensuing weeks there was never any mention of David’s ‘dream’, of the ‘space girl Quin’ or of ‘David Junior’s being alive’. It was a non-event and sleeping dogs were left to lie . . . although they lay listlessly. David had almost put the matter behind him and racked it up to the ongoing sadness he felt at the loss of both his son and his mother. It had slipped from Lisa’s mind just as quickly as forever asking her husband to carry the trash out to the curb slipped from his.

David continued to write and Lisa continued to cook whenever she was awake and out of bed. Their sex-life had reached a stalemate and hopefully but tentatively David had suggested that they could possibly arrange a ʻdate night’ at least once a month but Lisa felt disinclined to participate. So, David filled in an hour or so each night, alone, watching pornographic videos on his laptop. Their lives had reached that point where every day blended into the next and nothing seemed likely to change. Rather than being a happily married couple, they were just two sad people who lived in the same house, shared the same bed and ate together in total silence.

Most of the inheritance David’s mother had left them which had been earmarked for her grandson’s college education had been used to pay off the house mortgage. So, living expenses were light and the cost of food was the only ongoing budgetary issue. Both would probably grieve for their only child for the rest of their lives, but Lisa, through her emotional turmoil and resultant indifference was needlessly punishing her husband, although unwittingly.

David’s outlook was that Life must go on regardless of the difficulties and obstacles cast in their parallel paths. He threw himself into his blogging and writing with a zealous vengeance. It took his mind back into the real world. Lisa’s attitude was that if she made it through the day and woke up sometime tomorrow, Life still wouldn’t be worth living. She knew David loved her and she remembered that she had loved him but couldn’t find a way to express it anymore.

Mothers since time immemorial had faced the same traumatic dilemma. The loss of a child was of far greater importance to her than the love for her husband. And everybody suffered as a consequence.

Chapter Three

The number of UFO sightings across the United States and Mexico had increased. Air Force pilots were among those who claimed close encounters with unidentified flying objects which seemed to be tailing them