Min-Min

David had no idea what was bearing down on him. He was out in a field, somewhere. Just a flat, seemingly void expanse. Suddenly, an orb so brilliant appeared in the landscape and began closing in on the Aboriginal man. He was like an animal caught in the headlight of something unstoppable.

David’s options were limited. Panic was about to set in. He wore light trousers and a buttoned-up shirt. He had shoes on. Whatever the light was it provided him with a means to escape. Shoes allowed him to negotiate the terrain. He bolted, his body casting crazed silhouettes that led the way. Starlight. Shrubs. Tussocks of grass. A soft, sandy floor to run upon.

Pain overtook his legs. He felt the prickly leaves of all kinds of scrub rip across his calves. The white flare of the mysterious revenant and its static being was almost on top of him. He could feel an energy tickle the short hairs on his scalp.

The fuck is this?! He wasn’t an athletic person. Nor was he aggressive. This situation made no sense. Adrenalin injected him. He was determined to stay unharmed. He was yet to conclude that his life was in peril. All he needed was a solution, or a bargaining chip.

There weren’t any streetlights or structures on the horizon. He dreaded the consequence of having nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.

LEAVE ME ALONE!

An incessant buzzzz was now within reach of him and he felt some type of impact was imminent. He ran, throwing his arms about. If he was yelling it was because he had little control over his voice. The weight of his body, the flailing of his limbs resulted in a violent crash, arms and legs, and tumbling torso. He caught a glimpse of his convulsing form; it cast shapes of lunacy into the afterglow.

The luminosity of the object was spectacular! It hovered for seconds above the mess of David’s collapse. Then, unbelievably, the phosphorescence died, without a trace of residue. His eyes took longer to recover, the effects were as intense as a solar flare.

He rolled into a foetal position then lay on his back. The stars twinkled above him. He exhaled his terror. He gulped silently, his heart beating against his chest. He grasped himself tightly. The orb had burnt its imagery into his conscience. Would anyone believe him? Could he believe it? Any proof of what had just occurred disappeared into a fading whisp of smoke.

Looking around him, small specks of flash blind-danced in his eyes. Rubbing his eyes gave him little relief. Every time he blinked the inside of his lids reflected magnesium glimmers.

He rolled his neck. His body began imagining the pain it was recovering from. He was embraced by darkness. And it quickly became apparent that not a cricket nor any other living creature disrupted the peace in David’s vicinity. He remained prone, tenderly moving his lumbar region, testing whether or not he was the victim of a delayed spinal injury.

He allowed himself a gentle whisper, ‘What…was that?’

He lay, half comatose by brain chemistry and his own inability to solve what had happened. He lifted himself somewhat, his aching elbows allowing him a small elevation above his surroundings.

Where the fu—?

Amid the still dark, where not even a breeze dared to meander, the forty-year-old Aboriginal man fell back into the earth. If he was anywhere, he was a world away from where he should have been.

The ground faulted, but as silently as the surrounding night. David’s body was swallowed in an instant depression, so chimerical it was, that his last glimpse of the orbiting heaven was coldly nefarious in its wonder.

The insanity of the soil shared witness to a hundred dark, festering hands, tearing at the man’s helpless body, limpid as he was snatched; pulled under by an unknown entity, the cavity coughing a blasting cloud of dust. Evil-smelling digits wriggling back into the hellish frenzy from where they’d rapidly emerged.