Space Girl Blues
by Bruce Pavalon
Table of Contents
or Chapter 1...
A young man with a troubled past falls in love with a young woman who believes she’s been abducted by aliens and that one of her alien abductors has fallen in love with her.
Chapter 20: Dream #5
Stars twinkle in the winter sky above a suburban subdivision. Snow blankets the streets and the roofs of the modest houses. Inside a small house, a sixteen-year-old Aaron sleeps in his bed. His room is sparsely decorated with handmade baskets and knittings.
The sound of a Green Giant commercial reverberates through his thin door into his room: “From the valley of the...”
In the other room, Aaron’s mother, a sick, gauntly woman covered in a Hudson Bay blanket, sleeps in an old chair in front of the TV. Her breathing is faint and sporadic. The Green Giant commercial on TV and the bright orange coils of a space heater are the only light sources in the room.
“Ho, ho, ho,” says the Green Giant on TV.
Aaron’s mother takes her last breath of life. Her head droops forward as the chorus on TV sings, “Green Giant.”
Bessie sniffs her way into the room, looking for crumbs. She sniffs at Aaron’s mother. She realizes something is wrong and cries. Bessie gets up on Aaron’s mother’s lap and licks her face, trying to wake her. Bessie’s tail touches the orange coils of the space heater, burning her. She yelps and kicks the space heater.
The space heater falls down, landing on the old rug, and the bright orange coils ignite the rug. Bessie backs away from the growing flames and barks at Aaron’s mother. She grabs Aaron’s mother’s sleeve with her mouth and pulls, but Aaron’s mother has no life in her and falls over onto the burning rug. Barking, Bessie runs to Aaron’s closed door. She frantically scratches the door as the flames grow behind her.
Aaron wakes up and gets out of bed. He looks toward his closed door and hears Bessie scratching and barking. He goes to his door and opens it. Heat and flames throw Aaron backwards, and Bessie runs into his room.
Aaron scrambles to his feet, opens the window and grabs Bessie. With Bessie in his arms, Aaron steps out of the window into the deep snow, glancing back as flames fill his room. Sirens wail in the background.
Copyright © 2015 by Bruce Pavalon
