12.23.2015
The bus rumbled away from the stop and made its way down a series of side streets before coming back to the main artery which they would take further north, to the shopping mall. As the bus swang right, to head north, Tern sat, once again, facing the mountains. The dark line of the clouds stretched away into the distance and looked to be growing taller as well.
A white haze rolled through the low points in the mountain range, like carbonated water over flowing some oddly shaped fountain. As the bus made its way up a grade, he could see more of the surrounding foothills, which lay under a coating of yellow-tinged smog.
And a flicker drew his eyes. Not there anymore. And then they winked back into existence. The three lights now above the smog, and just above the mountain tops. Pulsing brightly against the darkened cloud backdrop.
The lights grew a bit stronger as their pulse quickened. He looked around the bus briefly and inhaled. He had to ask. He leaned a bit over to the lady beside him, the one who resembled Christy, and asked as he pointed out the window, “Do you see any light out near the mountains?”
“Well, there are a couple radio towers, I think.”
“I mean higher up, like on the mountains themselves.”
“Uhh,” she said and squinted with focus. A few seconds later she said, “Nope. I can’t make out anything.”
“All right. Thanks, must be a trick of the eye,” he said and straightened back up in his seat.
He sat there and watched the three lights pulse above the mountain tops, sure of what he saw, yet unsure of what it meant. Tern looked over his shoulder, around both ways, in an attempt to find any other dots that might be out of his view. He could find non, but when he sat straight ahead once more, he saw those three phantoms winking there.
They grew brighter as he watched them as the bus bumped along the cracked pavement. And then the dots elongated to red ovals and their colors and shape shifted slowly in a strange rhythm, as in the diner.
When the bus turned and move the mountains out of sight, he didn’t crane his head to follow them. He knew they’d be there when he departed the bus.