When Martin told us about the green projectile, we all had fun speculating what it might possibly be. Aria seemed set on the idea that she had witnessed a U.F.O entering the Earth’s ozone layer. Max on the other hand, leaned in the way of tangible science, insisting that the object was probably a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. While Martin remained unbiased in his analysis, unsure of what he had seen, I chose to play the role of the instigator, siding with Aria and pushing the consensus in the way of extraterrestrial life.
They had witnessed the spectacle one night in late August, right before the start of the new school semester. Aria, my next-door neighbor, had gotten stranded at the Urgent Care in Lexington Park after swimming in jellyfish infested waters. Martin, being my only friend with access to a vehicle, picked her up from the Urgent Care shortly after eight o’clock. I was playing video games when Martin knocked on my door. He stormed into my room and immediately recounted his story of his and Aria’s ride back from the Urgent Care. Aria heard his rantings and made her way over to my room, followed shortly by her boyfriend, Max.
“You said it was green?” I asked Martin, who was sitting on my bed nervously munching Swedish Fish.
“Well, no. The actual thing itself was kind of a goldish color, but it was surrounded by green, and its tail was green.”
“Yeah, it had a kind of a green aura surrounding it.” Aria chimed in.
“Aliens.” I said. “You guys saw a fucking U.F.O.”
“Dude, maybe.” Martin looked at me wide-eyed.
“I don’t know.” Aria paused. “I’ve been reading a lot about new government ships that maybe look like what we saw.”
“That’s true.” I said. “And the naval base is just down the road. Maybe you guys witnessed some new hardware in action.”
“Whatever it is,” Max turned to leave, “I’m not about it.”
“You guys saw some CIA shit. Something you weren’t supposed to see.” I looked at Aria and Martin each in turn. “Either that or aliens.”
“I need to tell my dad about this.” Martin popped another Swedish Fish into his mouth.
“Tell your dad, tell your cousins, tell Professor Brennan.”
“Yeah, I bet Charles would have something to say about this.”
“Well… Goodnight.” Aria left her post in the doorway and waved goodbye. “Thanks for the ride, Martin.”
“Of course.” He looked at me. “I should get going too. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“Totally.”
“Thanks for the Swedish Fish.” He handed me the bag.
“Keep them! I’ve been eating too many of those things.”
“Alright. Thanks man. Hey, have a good night!”
“You too dog… and look out for aliens!”
I called after him loud enough for Aria and Max to hear as well. Martin yelled something back to me, but I couldn’t make out the words. I was at my window, looking up for signs of comets and rocket ships. At first nothing out of the ordinary appeared. Then I noticed the moon. Larger than usual, it was resting at a peculiar angle, right on the horizon and donning a bright orange hue. It seemed to be nearing its fullest state, a waxing gibbous four or five days away from its climax. Why the strange angle though? And why the orange hue? I hadn’t heard anything about a blood moon recently. The St. Mary’s astronomy professors and local newscasters would undoubtedly have the answers.
The school year started a few days later, and Martin moved into a suite a few buildings down from my own. After class one day, he came over to my apartment and told me that he had talked to Charles Brennan from the physics department about what he and Aria had seen. He said that through Professor Brennan’s ramblings about how he was aware of recent green entities like the one Martin had seen, and how the entire science community was at a loss as to what they really were, a tone of reservation could be detected. Martin said that it seemed as though Professor Brennan was trying to keep something quiet.
“That’s ‘cause its aliens bro.” I told him. “He probably just doesn’t want to freak people out.”
“Ha-ha yeah, maybe.” Martin smiled but his eyes gave him away. “You don’t think it’s something really serious, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like serious… like… apocalyptic… serious.”
“Apocalyptic?” I rubbed my chin, pondering the question. “Hell, it might be. Then again, everything’s apocalyptic these days…”
Martin’s eyes widened, and I immediately felt like a jackass.
“It’s probably nothing though, right? In my experience, things as ridiculous as C.I.A operations and aliens are usually just that… ridiculous. Now c’mon pal, let’s play some PlayStation.”
On the Greens that weekend, Christian Mayhew threw a homecoming party with all his rugby buddies. Martin told me about it, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to make an appearance. On the way to meet Martin at his suite, I was looking at my phone and absentmindedly walked headfirst into a young maple tree in the middle of the courtyard.
“Yo! Heads up eh, Aaron?!”
I looked around and recognized two underclassmen from one of my Spanish classes the year before. They were standing under the arches leading out of the commons. I stared for a moment, and they stared right back, but I wasn’t looking at them. The moon was up and looking bigger than ever behind them on the horizon. It looked as though it had just passed through its fullest profile and was entering its waning phase. It must have been an optical illusion, but it seemed almost twice the size of when I’d last seen it. With its orange hue, it would have made for an awesome picture with the two kids centered under the arches, had I thought to take it. I shook my head clear of the tree, the kids, and the moon and made my way onward to the back of the commons where I found Martin outside his suite, talking to a guy named Thomas and munching on sunflower seeds.
“Aaron, how are you?” Thomas raised his hand, interrupting Martin who looked slightly annoyed.
“Good man, good.” I shook Thomas’ hand. “Have you guys noticed the moon lately? It’s freakin’ huge man!”
“Aaron, dude, I swear to god if you say aliens again, I’m gonna fucking rip your face off.”
“Woah there!” I laughed at Martin. “It was a simple question dude. The moon’s just incredibly huge today… has been all week.”
“Yeah, whatever man.” Martin continued crunching sunflower seeds.
“Yeah.” I looked at them each in turn. “Well, are you guys ready? It’s almost eleven, and this thing probably started an hour ago. Unless of course you’d rather just hang around eating sunflower seeds.”
“Nah we’re ready.” Thomas grabbed a bag of beer off the ground and started towards the arches.
“Yeah alright.” Martin followed suit. “But the sunflower seeds are coming with.”
Shortly after eleven, Thomas and I were sitting on a couch in Christian Mayhew’s living room, drinking Budweiser and listening to the band playing on the patio. A few students who I’d just been introduced to but whose names I’d already forgotten were playing Jenga on the floor next to us. A tall redheaded girl with dark eyeshadow came into the room and sat down in the chair opposite our couch. I recognized her as Martin’s ex-girlfriend, Kayla. I felt a nudge in my ribs and saw that Thomas had noticed her as well.
“Hey man, don’t look now, but that’s Martin’s ex over there.”
I nodded slowly, indicating that I understood. Kayla was now watching us both. Even though the party was loud as hell, she seemed to know, or else sense that we were talking about her. She got up out of her chair and walked over to us. She sat down next to Thomas and grabbed his hand.
“Hey Thomas.”
“Hey Kayla.”
“Hey…” Kayla looked at me, and I could tell that she didn’t remember my name.
“Aaron.” I raised my beer and looked around for Martin who was nowhere to be seen.
“Right… Aaron.” She raised an eyebrow. “So have either of you guys seen Martin. I saw him a few minutes ago, but I think he ran away when he saw me.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised…” Thomas averted her stare.
“Excuse me?”
“Uh— I mean.” Thomas chortled. “Nah I haven’t seen him.”
“No? What about you Aaron? I know you guys are friends.”
“Yeah, you know what Kayla, I think I saw him dip outside with a couple of rugby dudes. One of them mentioned something about tipping over the lion statue outside the faculty building.”
“Really?”
“That’s what he said, yeah.”
“Children, all of you boys… Children.”
Kayla got up and rushed out the front door, no doubt to try and find Martin at the non-existent lion statue outside the faculty building.
“Lion statue… good one bro.” Thomas raised his can appreciatively.
“Thanks. This worries me though. I’m gonna go try to find Martin.”
“Alright… Me too.” Thomas stood up, sloshing beer on one of the kids playing Jenga. “I’ll check outside.”
Making my way onto the kitchen, I asked a couple of people taking shots next to the fridge if they’d seen Martin.
“Who’s Martin?” A girl in tight spandex shouted.
“About five foot eight! Curly hair! Hispanic!” I shouted back.
She shook her head, but one of the dudes next to her grabbed me by the arm.
“I think he went upstairs dude!” He shouted in my ear. “He looked pretty faded man!”
In the upstairs bathroom, I found Martin between the toilet and the shower, cradling a bottle of New Amsterdam gin. He looked up at me as I tried to help him up, eyes wide and discombobulated. He’d been puking, and he seemed to be doing everything he could to hold back a stream of tears.
“She’s here!” He looked at me and attempted a laugh. “She’s here with him already!”
Looking down at Martin’s drunken physique, I tried to remember the terms in which his and Kayla’s relationship had ended. It hadn’t ended well; I knew that much. There was something to do with an old flame coming back into her life and a disagreement about the last season of Game of Thrones.
“I know buddy, I know.” I pulled Martin to his feet and allowed him to lean on my shoulder. “Let’s go get you some air, eh?”
Drunken shouting and loud rap music greeted us downstairs. Apparently, Martin felt confident enough to walk on his own because he threw my arm off his shoulder and made a beeline for the front door, knocking over the Jenga tower in the living room as he did so. The kids playing the game yelled at him in frustration, but he was oblivious. I smiled as he slammed the door behind him. I opened the refrigerator and found a pack of Hi-C juice boxes.
“Anyone mind if I snag one of these bad boys?” I asked the kitchen crowd, all of whom ignored me completely. “Great thanks.”
I took two of the juice boxes and made my way outside to the Greens. On the frontside veranda, I found Martin leaning against one of the pillars and staring up at the giant orange moon, which was now the size of the Capitol Building and donning an odd greenish tint. I stood next to Martin and offered him a juice box. We sipped our beverages slowly, gazing in wonder at the monstrous sphere in front of us. A few of the partygoers shouted and applauded as a silver orb shot across the sky, coated in a gaseous green layer and dragging a neon tail.
“You’re seeing this, right?” Martin asked me, eyes wide.
“You’re goddamn right.” I nodded, equally horror struck. “Hey, you feel up for a little hike?”
Martin slurped the last of the Hi-C from his juice box, and I could see clarity returning to his complexion.
“Well, I’m not going to bed anytime soon! Hell, I don’t think anyone is.” He threw his empty juice box onto a nearby pong table. “What did you have in mind?”
“The water.”
The bystanders became farther and fewer as Martin and I walked out of the Greens and over to the top of the hill next to the Admissions Building. We stared out at the St. Mary’s River for a moment, in awe at the reflection of the moon in its waters, so coarse in their bed of usual tranquility. Another silver orb flew across the sky, much larger than its predecessor. This time, Martin and I watched as the object passed us overhead and took a swan dive into the water in front of us. A huge splash told us it had made its mooring not far from the shoreline.
“Dude…” Martin stared at me.
“Dude…” I stared back, “Please don’t rip my face off…”
“What do you mean…”
“Aliens.”
“Come on.” He rolled his eyes. “Let’s go check this out.”
At the bottom of the hill, we looked both ways before crossing the street even though there was little need to do so. No sound-minded person would be out driving tonight, and this fact sobered me greatly as Martin and I crossed the road, entirely exposed to the galaxy and prowling moon in our hindsight. On the bayside of the street, we bore left until we found the gap in the guardrail that led to my private beach. Everyone at St. Mary’s knew about this beach, but I still called it my private beach because it made me sound rich when I was talking to friends from other threads of life.
Down the concrete steps and onto the sand, Martin and I were surprised to see the backside of another person wading into the brackish water. It took me a moment before I realized that this person, whoever they were, must have also seen the projectile fall into the water, and that they were on their way to retrieve it. They waded out until the water was naval-high and slipped on a rock that no doubt lodged a colony of barnacles. They stumbled forward and emitted a fluid stream of colorful obscenities. The voice was familiar, and Martin and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“Thomas?” I called out.
“Aaron?”
“You alright, Thomas?”
“Martin? What the bloody hell are you two doing out here? I cut my foot on some barnacles, I think.”
“I found him Thomas!” I shouted. “He never left the rugby party!”
“Of course, you found him! Martin, I was looking for you, you know? Well, guess what? I found something else!”
Fifty feet away, he was about to dive headfirst into the water.
“Are you sure you want to touch that thing, Thomas?” Martin said, eyeing Thomas’s abandoned shoes on the beach. “It could be dangerous man!”
“Yeah…” Thomas seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Eh, I’m sure the waters cooled it down by now.”
Before Martin could try and talk him out of it, Thomas plunged into the depths of the river. He was under less than three seconds before he emerged, his hands above his head as though under arrest. He was panting heavily and, as soon as his feet touched the bottom, he started wading back towards us as fast as he could.
“Nope!” He shouted in hysteria. “Nope, no way not today! Ha-ha!”
“What happened? Did you see it?” I asked, tossing him his shirt so he could dry off.
“Oh yeah, I saw it.” Thomas sat down on a large rock to catch his breath.
“Holy shit.” Martin looked at his friend in awe. “What did it look like?”
“Yeah, I saw it. Hell, I grabbed the thing. Stupid thing to do. First, it’s about the size of a mini fridge. I don’t know what made me think I’d be able to carry it. Oh, and it’s about as hot as a barrel of molten lava. It’ll probably be cool enough to touch by Thanksgiving.”
We stared out over the river as Thomas continued to dry himself. The water seemed to have adapted an eerie calm since his departure. Martin and I made eye contact again, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. If this was the third chunk of the moon that we’d seen contact the Earth’s surface in the last few days, how much more was coming? We’d learned in astronomy that the moon revolved on an elliptical orbit, but Professor Brennan had always made the possibility of an unstable orbit seem… well… impossible.
“Guys, I’m scared.” Martin was chewing sunflower seeds again, staring at the monstrous reflection of the moon encapsulating a sailboat some hundred meters offshore.
“Hey, look on the bright side,” Thomas laughed somewhat maniacally, “at least we know it’s not aliens.
The sound of a distant car alarm drove all thoughts of alien life from our minds. A crash, then a scream from one of the dorm buildings down the road. As Martin and I sat down next to Thomas on the beach, watching the squadron of meteors soar over our heads in the reflection of the St. Mary’s River, one of my last thoughts was something I really didn’t need to be thinking about. I was thinking about Aria and her jellyfish sting, and how Martin really hadn’t needed to go pick her up from the Urgent Care facility that night. Someone had abandoned her there, and because they had, I’d had to call Martin, and an extra trip had to be made. Only forty minutes round-trip, and Martin was driving his mom’s Subaru, but still, there was some odd five gallons of gasoline that didn’t need to be burned and omitted into our atmosphere. It’s stupid, I know it’s stupid, but as all those particles were burning up in our artificially weakened atmosphere, and as the world was falling apart and us along with it, some part of me was wondering about the difference between meteoroids and meteorites.