The Silver Thing

Preface

Working at a daycare is never boring work. You could call it exciting or you could call it damn there back breaking, I'd call it both. The day started off like any other frazzled Monday. The children were still bawling from being ripped away from their parents arms after a long weekend. The previous Friday had been July 4th. It all seems so ironic now.

Right after lunch and before nap time is coloring time.

Who could have imagined coloring time could change so much?

I knew something was out of sorts when the children all went to the crayon bucket bin and pulled out a silver marker. In fact, two children got in a little push fight over who got the last crayon. I calmed them down and scrambled to find a silver marker to place in the child's hand. Little Caleb who I had known since he was 1 years old, looked at me with a blank stare and lips that looked liked as if they would never move again.

As they sat at their coloring tables with shoulders hunched over and eyes that seemed to stare at sheets of paper without blinking, my phone buzzed in my pocket. My friend Trina worked at the local elementary school only 2 miles a way. A drawing of of a silver saucer popped up on my cell's screen. It was straight out of a 1950's sci-fi flick. Silver crayon had been swirled in perfectly streaked circles to create a classic flying saucer. The text under the drawing read:"Are your children drawing the silver thing?"

I looked back at the children as their arms rotated frantically and their eyes still...never blinked. I walked over to a little boy with bright green eyes and chestnut brown hair named Jordan and quietly asked him, afraid to pop his bubble of concentration, "What are you working on Jordan?"

"The silver thing," he droned barely opening his mouth to speak.

"And you Kayla?"

"The silver thing."

I texted Trina back, "yes."

"Turn on the news," she wrote back.

A male reporter with jet black hair that could make it through a hurricane unscathed announced that teachers, stay at home moms and daycare workers were reporting from all over the world that their children were drawing these...silver saucers and calling them The Silver Thing.

As soon as the broadcast ended a silver thing miles wide stealthy appeared from behind the protection of the clouds and parked high above our windows. The children ascended effortlessly with their eyes wide open and their arms stretched out through the ceiling of the playroom.

They looked like angels. You'd think I'd be scared, but my heart fluttered with the idea of the beings in the saucers giving them a better life...taking them to a better world... better than what we here on earth had ever given them.

That was of course until 30 seconds after they disappeared into The Silver Thing... blood began to rain down from the sky.