Under the Barn

The Departure

Milo watched his mother hang Christmas lights. The warm lamp light from inside the house, where his father read, shined through the window. He always to busy reading to help with anything else. There weren't enough Christmas lights to reach the end of the house.

"Milo? Can you bring me the extra Christmas lights from the garage?", Milo's mom asked. Milo ran into the house and stopped.

"No running Milo" the father said without moving his eyes from his book.

Milo walked to the garage door entrance and peered inside. It was dark but the light from father's lamp shined into the dark garage like a ray of light that grew thicker the more Milo opened the door. He searched box to box, but no lights. "Where would I hide my lights?", Milo thought for thoughts were all he could muster. No one had heard him speak a word since he was born. Some thought he was faking his muteness while others believed. His father was adamant he said a word one morning, but over time he thought he may have dreamed it.

"The barn!" Milo thought. He walked through the living room, passed his father, and out the front door. The mother was too busy hanging the last strings of lights to notice Milo running out into the darkness towards the barn.

There weren't any animals in the barn. There hadn't been in decades. It was dark and quiet and full of boxes. There were boxes of books, magazines, antiques, whatever caught his father's eye. Milo's favorite collection was about horses. He saw one near the barn one day from his bedroom window. It came closer and closer until he could touch it with his bare hand. He remembered how soft and smooth his nose was and the heat from the air coming out of the nostrils. It wasn't a dream. After the violent earthquake that shook the entire town, he never saw the horse again.

Milo quickly scoured the barn for any boxes with lights. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he noticed the moonlight coming through cracks of the barn walls and his mother in the distance, finishing up the last of her Christmas lights. Then he noticed lights under the floorboards of the barn. He walked towards them. There was a latch right above where the lights were. He grabbed the large latch with both of his small hands and yanked up with all his might. A wooden door opened. In the opening of the door colorful lights blinked, flashing like stars in the night, only these stars were in the ground, hidden away. Stairs led down.

Milo stepped down the stairs into the dark opening. He reached for the lights, but they were too far. He stepped further down and reached again, but again, too far. He took one final step, reached again, but again too far. As he stepped back up, he slipped and fell into the opening. Expecting to land harshly, he covered his head, but he fell into a cushioned chair that shaped to his body.

"Lights!" Milo thought, staring at them all blinking and moving like waves of an ocean around him. The opening above his head in which he fell through closed. He panicked, but he couldn't get off the chair. The waves of light grew larger and quicker before his eyes. He was trapped.

The lamp in the house shook. The father shot up from his chair with his book still in hand. "Earthquake!" He shouted and ran outside. He helped his wife come down the ladder and as they looked for Milo, the barn lifted from the ground. A large dark and oval object appeared underneath the barn, lifting from out of the dirt. A bright light the shape of a circle shined from the object's front face. The barn walls and collectibles toppled over as the oval object rotated and tilted towards the sky. The object was levitating from the crater it left behind. The parents watched. With a blink of an eye, the object shot into the sky and vanished into the night.

"Where's Milo?" the mother asked.