Broken Symmetry Read online

  “We’re not sure...perhaps something to do with the witnesses’ ethnicity, religious beliefs—or their absence. It’s amazingly complex and disturbing, with very few reputable scientists willing to investigate, put themselves on the line.”

  Penfound’s hard face assumed a pensive cast, like someone afraid to admit he’s lost. “Well, that sounds like something beyond my control. Goddamn...”

  “Please continue,” Jim said.

  “All right. It moved, kind of awkwardly, toward my car. Big goddamned thing. And the closer it got, the more I pushed back against my seat—like that would help! Christ. It stopped. White, pure white. First time I saw, don’t know why, I thought it looked grayish, ashy.

  “It turned and looked at me. The fright hit like a punch. The eyes were...like bicycle reflectors, hypnotic, maybe two inches in diameter. Felt like I was five years old again, about to piss myself.”

  “Others report the same sensation,” Jim said. “You’re not alone there.”

  “It faced me. When it did that, I felt like the only person alive...a terrible sort of...loneliness. Don’t know how else to describe it.”

  “Tell us everything, no matter how trivial it may seem.”

  “None of it seems trivial. I felt vulnerable. Not used to feeling that. One other thing. I thought of my father. Images...overwhelming—this crushing guilt.”

  Jim said, “These images, did they come naturally? Or as if from outside?”

  “Struck a nerve, there. Outside...like a broadcast. Creepy as shit, man. I hated it. Complete loss of control. I got the hell outta there, guys.”

  Jim nodded. “You’ve given us a lot, Rob. Anything you’d like to add?”

  Penfound paused, gazed at the floor. “I wish I’d gotten to know my father better. Miss ‘im like hell. That’s what I’d like to add.”

  “Thank you. We might publish this interview. Okay if we use your name?”

  Penfound stood. “Sure. Guess that’s fine. I’m not ashamed.”

  I shook his hand. “Thanks, Rob. You’re adding solid credibility to the entire matter. I admire your bravery.”

  He was going to need that bravery.

  Most witnesses to the unknown have no idea how risky it is to go public.

  We promised to follow up in a few weeks. Some people have but one experience with the phenomenon; others, many. There can be no predicting the effect on their lives.

  One thing we did know: whatever the ultimate source of these anomalies—“monsters,” UFOs, ghosts, mysterious “people” like the so-called men-in-black—theirs is an inhuman intelligence, seemingly hostile or perhaps indifferent to ours; strangely fractured. We may never understand it.

  In my bleaker moments I wonder why we bother.

  ***

  The next two weeks flogged us. Worse, my wife came down with some flu-like illness that flattened her for six days. Tending to Diane, I read through the transcripts from our various interviews.

  Our town and its more rural neighbors were besieged by anomalous events. So many, there was no way for Bowles Neff Investigation to cover even one-third of these. Indeed, the entire region was undergoing a “wave” of UFO and monster-sightings. Waves occur once or twice every ten years, as they did in 1947, 1952, 1966, 1973, 1984, etc. No one knows why, but serious investigators theorize something akin to a conditioning pattern that combines periodicity with unpredictability. We do not understand the motivations (if indeed there are any) behind this, nor who or what is responsible. But the implications are ominous—even chilling. Ignoring the phenomenon or pretending it does not exist, is irresponsible and, quite possibly, dangerous.

  The best we can do is track and document the sightings. Observe the effects on witnesses and treat them with the human decency others may be denying them.

  We’re watching the Watchers.

  ***

  Wednesday, I was about to call Gray Mercer when Jim dashed into the office. “Drop whatever you’re doing, we’ve got a sighting in progress!”

  Not Jim’s usual laid-back style—he couldn’t be joking. I stood. “What kind? Where?”

  “Entity. Cross Falls—some picnic area near the ballpark.” He clamped his cell phone to his ear. “Yeah—ten minutes. Of course. Stay put.”

  Already he trotted down the hall toward the parking lot. I grabbed my keys and followed.

  ***

  In the truck Jim prepped our cameras and recorders. “A Darcy Patel,” he said, “is seated at a picnic table on her lunch break. I had a hard time hearing, for obvious reasons, but she says the entity is about thirty feet up a pine tree, apparently unaware of her.”

  I had the truck pushing sixty, my heart hammering. “Can’t believe it.”

  “Christ, I know. Hope she’s able to sit still.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “Oh man.” Jim grinned, nodded.

  “Look out for traffic,” I warned, “and cops—we’re way over.”

  “You got it.”

  We barreled out of town, and I held back when the needle ticked eighty.

  The road dipped, walled by dark spiky pines. One or two minutes passed—almost there.

  “On the right—watch it,” Jim said.

  “I see them.”

  Two girls on mountain bikes crossed the road.

  Here was the picnic area.

  Nosing the truck into a parking slot, I killed the engine and we climbed out. Careful not to slam the door, Jim plucked our gear from the seat and we made for the trail Darcy Patel had described over her cell phone.

  The unseasonably warm weather had worked in our favor, bringing Ms. Patel out for what she’d hoped a quiet lunch.

  Moving as stealthily as possible, after a hundred feet or so, we came to a small clearing, air rich with pine dust—and more.

  Jim glanced at me, pointed at his nose.

  An odor, like burning wire, stood out in that silent space. I fought to control my gushing breath.

  Darcy Patel, head tilted back, sat still and solemn as the forest.

  Hearing us, she glanced over her shoulder grinning, eyes wide and brown.

  “Oh,” Jim whispered, “oh my God...”

  He aimed the camera and started shooting, sweat beading his brow.

  Darcy again looked our way, and I could see she wept, mouth opening and closing as if fighting for air.

  Suddenly Jim cried out—collapsed in a gasping sprawl.

  At that moment a moaning gale swayed the pines, bearing our future for good or ill.

  ***

  In St. Luke’s emergency room I had a hard time explaining our situation. The attending physician (a pale man with tiny round glasses who looked barely of drinking-age) regarded me with a quizzical squint. Had trouble with the words paranormal, anomalous phenomena and, especially, entity.

  So unimaginative, these youngsters. I’ll tell you, doctor or no, I wanted to deck the guy.

  Darcy Patel, a complete stranger, kept repeating, “Please let him be okay...please let him be okay.”

  I echoed this mantra.

  The doctor—Reisner or Riser?—asked whether Mr. Neff used recreational drugs. Dammit, hadn’t he asked Jim?

  An hour later Doctor R. reported that Mr. Neff had fainted from low blood-sugar and some kind of shock. True, Jim hadn’t eaten. True, he’d had a “shock,” all right. But he passed all the vital tests and was released.

  I can’t help wondering how well the good doc might have held up, seeing what Jim had seen.

  And I had not.

  ***

  We gathered in my home: my wife, Jim and his girlfriend Tina, and Darcy Patel. After a hearty round of roast beef sandwiches and coffee, we settled a bit.

  Darcy appeared happy, yet cried and cried. “I am so thrilled,” she said. “I can hardly bear it. Garuda. We saw it—and so clearly. Unbelievable.”

  Seated across from her, I could see and hear the jolt of hysteria. Darcy’s eyes shone with ecstasy and dread; her voice tight with a terrible y
earning, perhaps years of it. (She’d told us of a bleak childhood orphaned in Calcutta, where both material and spiritual starvation were common.) She mustn’t let the sighting implode her life into a kind of metaphysical anarchy. After all, we didn’t even know what we were dealing with.

  “Darcy,” I said, “weren’t you afraid?”

  She pursed her lips. “Yes. Of course. Garuda is not beautiful, in the way we apprehend beauty. It is not meant to be. We are right to fear, because Garuda gazes into our souls.”

  She does understand, I told myself.

  On my birthday (mere days before Gray Mercer’s sighting) an old friend had brought from Tibet a distressing tale, and a carving depicting the fierce, winged Garuda carrying Vishnu the Protector to blood and glory. The synchronicity of the gift chills me still.

  I said, “These entities have ruined many lives—people have died in connection with them—”

  “Oh,” Darcy said. “No...those who die are the craven, the self-indulgent. Their own fear helps to kill them, like cancer of the soul.”

  “In that case,” Jim muttered, “we’re all doomed.”

  “Jim!” Tina said.

  Had I heard correctly?

  Jim’s pale face and ugly grimace failed to hide his anger, his fear.

  ***

  Some people are lucky.

  They see things.

  Gray Mercer...Rob Penfound...Darcy Patel.

  Jim Neff.

  They saw, and you—reading this—know they did. You don’t know what they saw.

  Nor do I.

  Because I saw nothing.

  I have never seen.

  Even after gazing for hours and hours at the photos Jim managed to take. Weeping over them. I’ve tried fooling myself: Your vision is shot, pal. Nothing. Perhaps some day I’ll be strong enough to admit that to Diane, Jim, and all the others. Perhaps not.

  Ruin takes many forms. Some of us suffer because we aren’t allowed to glimpse the unknown and its terrible truth...its deceptive beauty.

  Sometimes I wonder if I’m the lucky one.

  Over and over, I choke on the grim fact: There is no fool worse than a sentimental one. How to admit my soul is an empty room, waiting for the unknown to enter. To have the symmetry of day and night broken.

  Waiting.

  Watching.

  END