The Pulse

I was in the kitchen with my Mom when the sky changed for the first time. As scary as it was, the pink celestial haze and glowing streaks that painted the sky were really quite beautiful. 

Everyone heard the thunderous roar as the sky cracked, we all stepped outside to look upon the change. Dogs barked, people stopped to look. I watched some neighbours start praying, weeping as they feared what this could mean.

And that’s when it pulsed. Softly, like a gentle heartbeat, a subtle continuous pulse.

A car suddenly screeched to a halt and crashed into Mrs Robinson's hedges. My father, the man he is, ran from our front steps to help, not even realizing the other car speeding towards him.

“Dad, look out!”

A larger pulse shook the earth, lit up the sky like a sunrise. The car speeding towards my father was mere seconds from hitting him when it suddenly vanished, taken by the light. Less dogs barked, less people cried, and when I turned, my mother was gone.

Me and Dad watched the news while we ate, we had to hope that Mom was safe. The news that day was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. An “Uncategorized Cosmic Anomaly” they called it, but soon we mostly called it the pulse. Some called it Aliens.

On the TV, helicopters circled survivors in the Sahara, people who had been at home reading the morning paper were now suddenly in the desert wearing housecoats. Congressman found on Chilean fishing boats, Buddhist monks found wandering West Virginia.

It wasn’t just people who were moved.

Drone footage circled a highrise with a sedan barely balancing on the balcony. Palm trees shivered in the Alaskan wind, as Ostriches walked up and down our boulevard.

Everyone was advised to STAY INDOORS but it didn’t make a difference, thirty hours after the first pulse hit, the second one came.

Then a third.

It wasn’t until the fourth pulse that I became a victim of that pink sky.

I stapled the missing persons poster to the telephone pole, just one of the hundreds hung up by people searching for their family. I looked at the photo of my mother, as I heard the faint pulse begin. Part of me hoped every time that the sky would bring her back.

The pink light flashes, and I’m suddenly somewhere new. The cold sea air hits my cheeks as the smell of salt water fills my lungs.

Where am I?

A young boy in his pajamas, cries nearby in the grass, clutching a spoon in his hand as he looks around frantically.

I drop the staple gun, crumple the poster in my pocket and approach him slowly. “Hey, hey are you okay? Do you speak English?”

The boy shakes his head. At least he understands me.

“It’s okay, I know this is scary,” I try to convince myself as much as him. “I’m gonna try to find out where we are, let’s try to get home.”

He pulls himself to his feet and puts the spoon in a little pocket. He reaches his hand up and grabs mine.

We walked for what felt like hours. I felt bad for the poor kid, he didn’t want this. None of us did. After a while we found some help, an older man who told us we were in Greenland.

It would take time for us to get home. Planes were on a thirty hour schedule, since pilots could just disappear, so we had to wait out the next pulse before we could get on a plane.

The young boy disappeared. At the same time in his place, a donkey appears in the man's kitchen.

A seaplane took me back to America, I cabbed as far as I could until the next pulse spit me out on a country road.

The streets were empty so hitchhiking isn’t as much of an option. I walked for hours roadside until I saw a light. Up the road I see a sign displaying:

SHUFFLED REFUGE INSIDE

Heading in I saw a group of people wearing large backpacks. They were setting up cots for sleepers, handing out blankets, rations and small backpacks for others.

A woman wearing a blue shirt with a homemade KNOT written on it “Hi there, have you been shuffled?"

“Shuffled? Like, you mean the Pulse?" I answered.

“Whatever you call it. Come in, sit. We’ve got go-bags ready for any new stragglers.”

Her name was Gloria, she told me who they were.  “We call ourselves KNOTS, tying people together, we’ve been handing out aid in case you get shuffled in the wrong spot.”

“Shuffled?”

“Think of it like cards in a deck, taken out, shuffled around. Some don’t move, some go back, but everything gets shuffled around.” She gave a half hearted smile.

I felt a little hopeless hearing that, sure there's a chance I’ll get sent home, but more than likely I’d just be teleported somewhere new. The pulse was so random, it displaced everything from people, trees, cars. Who knows if I’ll ever get home.

Gloria offered a kind hand of reassurance, her eyes tired but steady. “The Pulse won’t stop,” she said. “But neither will we. Every knot tied makes the world a little stronger.”

I wanted to believe her, to think Mom was safe, maybe even walking through a refuge like this one, tying herself into another knot.

The sky lightly pulsed, another shuffle was coming.

Just then I spotted someone, the little boy with the spoon! He made it here! I looked at the crumpled photo of my mom. If there was hope for him, surely there's hope for her too.

As the sky flashed pink, something inside me just knew I was going to be shuffled in the pulse, but with my new KNOTS backpack on, and newly ignited hope in my heart, I was ready.

The sky pulsed, brighter, its sound growing louder.

The pink light pulsed, and just like that, I vanished.