Illumine

At the concrete rail of the bridge, Brynn stood staring over the tops of the gnarled leafless trees that sloped into the ravine, trying to decide if the meds he was on for his ailing colon could account for what he was seeing; a light glimmering so fiercely in the crystalline sky that he could scarcely believe it was a planet.

But what else could it be? No matter how hard he stared at the light, it didn't resolve itself into small aircraft, a balloon, a cloud, or a patch of fog, wavering instead between amorphous states. Was this one of those "aberrant climactic patterns" people worry about – some super-localized aurora borealis?

Brynn's cellphone was new. But although he had already found himself fetishizing it, gripping it like a bone blade as he walked, he had never used the camera – and hoped he could learn in a hurry.

Setting down the big pharmacy bag full of tissues and body creams he was bringing home for Lorelei, he dipped his fingers into his breast pocket and extracted the slick faced gadget - seemingly nascent, a tiny newborn slip of glass and metal that didn't even have a wallet or scratch protector yet. He scrolled and flipped through the apps, frustrated at his inability to recognize any sort of camera icon on the first pass. Finally finding it, he flipped the phone around, raising it up just as a red, three-wheeled banana-bike came racing up the sidewalk, tall backrest covered with signs saying "eat the rich" and "1% is Milking Us," its rider bearded and mad-haired under a toddler's silver helmet, scowling, shouting, "Get outta the way!"

The cyclist swerved around him, riding the curb before bouncing down onto a sewer grate where the front wheel caught and quickened the contraption's uncontrolled and unexpected emergence into traffic, setting off a chorus of squealing tires and blaring horns.

At the first sign that Mr. Three-Wheeler was unharmed, Brynn glanced back over his shoulder, then in awe of what he saw, spun around to gaze at the cloud that filled the entire sky above the city, a soundless reflection of the ambient light that shattered outward without so much as a boom, a whine, a whir or a crack.

Squinting into the brilliance, he held the cell phone straight out – but couldn't see anything to actually take a picture of – as the needles of illumination swept down from above like a hail of spears - one of the beams plunging straight into the tiny lens of the cellphone. He heard himself scream, even though it didn't hurt – as light from the screen turned his hand crimson, translucent, then invisible. He dropped the phone and watched it fall like a tiny comet into the ravine, then stood staring at his still-glowing hand. The engines and car horns behind him had gone silent, replaced by the sounds of slamming doors, astonished shrieks and sobbing, he looked back to the street, where the mad cyclist now stood swaying at the curb – a beam of light that had penetrated his forehead still protruding like a physical thing. It softened and shrank like a familiar male body part, oozing light, filling the man's beard and staining his shirt. Then his electric eyes snapped open and he grabbed his belly and light arced from between his lips, splashing dazzlingly onto the concrete in front of Brynn, turning the concrete into bubbling lava.

No. It wasn't burning, but simply writhing and squirming. Simply?? Only at that instant did he realize how completely terrified and overwhelmed he was.

Fully half the people on the street had been hit by beams of light and had stumbled from their cars and sprawled in neon splashes across the tarmac.

Picking up his shopping bag with a hand that glowed like a halogen array, Brynn ran the rest of the way across the bridge toward home. Maybe Lorelei had been in the bathtub and didn't even know what had happened. Maybe it wasn't too late for them to get away. By the time he reached the park at the entrance to his neighbourhood, the glow had spread from his hand to his shoulder and become faintly visible through the fabric of his tawny jacket.

Trying to fight it off was like denying cold symptoms. It just wasn't working. Two blocks from home, his mantra mutated from "we have to get away" to "I must drive the dark away, must spread my seed ever further."

A block from home, he began to fill with inappropriate emotion – a warm, fulgent yearning that threatened to bring him to tears. Longing and love and deep pride....and an overwhelming sense of duty and parenthood. By the time he pushed open the front door, he could feel the egg sacs glowing like embers in the bone kiln of his chest, could feel their countless consciousnesses multiplying inside him.

He ran through the kitchen and the living room, without taking his shoes off – straight to the bedroom –where his wife was just sitting up in bed.

"How was your walk, dear?"

He smiled at her, with more warmth than normal. His glow reflected in the mirror, filled the room with rippling light. His head looked like it was on fire. He grabbed Lorelei's wrist, pulled her from the bed and wrapped his arms around her. As he told her how much he loved and needed her, he had never been more sincere. He kissed her until the light ran down the inside of her thighs and pooled on the floor at her feet. He kissed her until his lips burned away and their skulls dropped to the floor, exploding into ash with orgasmic pops.

End