This is Far Beyond Us

There’s nothing wrong with the Nichols. You love seeing them, meeting them for brunch, attending their annual summer picnic. But this time, it’s been almost a year since you and Gregory split, and over the last few months, they’ve been ramping up their attempts to set you up with their affluent friends. You don’t want that to keep you from attending this year’s gathering; they mean well. Plus, their coastal estate is gorgeous, and it’s a great place from which to see tonight’s astral spectacle.

Enid’s Comet is on course to sail overhead late this afternoon. The news stations claim it is the largest ever to veer this close to Earth’s atmosphere. No doubt it’ll be incredible to witness.

Aunts Chris and Louise are more involved in their city’s business than you can explain—something to do with City Hall, something to do with the local university. All you know is they make a shit ton of money, and as the only other queer person in the family (as far as anyone knows, at least), you do look up to them, if not with some reserve. There aren’t many lesbian power couples taking Connecticut’s seaside municipalities by storm. They’re kind of crazy for it, both in workloads and personalities, but you love them nonetheless.

Thankfully Victor is riding with you today, donning dark sunglasses to conceal an obvious hangover. Your brother is midway through his college career, taking full advantage of any and all off-campus ragers, bless his soul. He’s leaning on his hand, skull lightly bumping up against the passenger side window with every left curve in the road. For most of the hour-long ride, he fought off sleep, but he’s succumbed to it at this point. You appreciate him for coming with; your parents are indifferent about visiting your aunts. Their love-hate relationship ebbs and flows like the tide. And they couldn’t care less about their rich friends, let alone a rock hurtling through the sky.

The road hugs Long Island Sound, its water catching the sun in golden, starry flecks. You wonder how many young people you’ll see taking their parents’ boats out to engage in the usual summer debauchery. You want to scoff, but when you think about it, that was you once, visiting with your aunts nearly every summer. In the grand scheme of things, anyone else might have seen you as “one of them.”

“How much longer?” Vic asks, stirring in his seat. You pretend you don’t see him wiping a bit of drool off his chin.

“Only another ten minutes or so,” you say. “How you feeling?”

“Hmph,” he grumbles.

You can’t tell how asleep he actually is for the rest of the drive, but next thing you know, you’re pulling onto the property after a quiet ten minutes or so. The gravel driveway snakes up toward the house, a large New England coastal build, faded siding making up half of the home. White trim and navy blue shutters give it dimension and style, matching many of the other houses in the area, but the size of this one is, of course, borderline over the top.

It all takes you back to weekends here as kids . . . Chasing each other around the yard, trudging into the water, all the cousins set up for sleepovers in the living room. The memories after sundown have always been shadows looming just over your shoulder for reasons you can’t quite place. That big, buzzing tube TV you’d watch movies on: a nostalgic safe-haven, and yet, its electric-blue glow and sibilant static were inexplicably nightmarish. Like a lot of things were back then. Childhood fears of the unknown are phantom insects crawling across your skin. You shake away the thoughts, like the tide erasing drawings in the sand.

Aunt Chris is bustling about the back yard, moving chairs and setting up umbrellas. She’s talking to Aunt Louise, still inside. Her voice carries loudly down the hill. You can hear her from the car. For Aunt Chris, talking and shouting are the same volume. Even when she’s calm, it’s hard to feel like you’re not in trouble for something.

You park, grabbing the wine you’ve brought, and head into the yard that overlooks the Sound from atop a small cliff. Just as you remembered it, a dirt path snakes down toward the shore, meeting the smallest sandy patch that greets the water.

Aunt Chris meets you before you can make it too far into the yard.

“Hey, Aunt Chris, we brought some—”

“Hi, hi, hi,” she interrupts, quickly planting kisses on your cheeks before taking the wine out of your hands and heading inside through the back door. It’s hard to make out her expression behind her large sunglasses, but given her eyesight, she is one for strange faces all the same.

The only other person in the backyard is an older man at a table nearest the cliffside, sipping a margarita.

“Want anything?” Vic asks from behind you. “Gonna get a drink.”

“Sure. I’ll take a beer, thanks.”

He heads inside, leaving you alone with the man at the table. A part of you wonders if this is your aunts’ way of setting you up with one of their fancy gay friends, though he is a bit old for your taste. You sigh and approach him.

“This seat taken?” you ask, wondering why you’re choosing to lead with bizarre flirting.

The man looks up at you and smiles. “All yours,” he says. His smile seems kind enough, but he too dons sunglasses, making him hard to read without seeing his eyes.

“Are you a friend of Chris and Louise?”

He pauses for just a few seconds too long before looking back over at you and reaching out a hand to shake yours.

“Duncan. Nice to meet you. I’ve known Louise for eons. We go way back.”

After possibly the weakest handshake you’ve ever encountered, Duncan returns his gaze back to the Sound, as if not wanting to miss a second of sky leading up to the passing of Enid’s Comet. Duncan does not ask your name or anything about you, so you drop the conversation and sit with him in silence. After some time, you find yourself joining him in his watch, letting the sea mesmerize you with its glistening serenity. Perhaps this moment of silence was the peace you never realized you needed. It drowns out the harmless memories of this place that somehow still fill your veins with dread. A past life, almost, where the only thing that intimidated you was your own imagination.

Your brother arrives with your beer, snapping you out of your oceanic trance.

“Thanks,” you say, but Victor is already too distracted by his phone to respond.

Soon enough, more people arrive—familiar faces and strangers alike. You’re as friendly as your internal social battery can allow. Appetizers are served, from shrimp cocktail to fresh bruschetta. The sun sets, bathing the yard in deep oranges and purples.

By dinner, the outdoor dining tables are occupied and the air is full of chatter. You laugh with a cousin you miss spending time with, reminiscing about playing here in the yard as kids. How strange a thing time can be. It’s like yesterday you were all in sleeping bags, chins propped up onto your hands, watching some cartoon on that big TV, way past lights out. Like a safety net, where everything in its glow is untouchable by whatever you’re imagining just beyond its borders.

“Not much longer now,” Duncan says aloud, making eye contact with no one.

“What’s that?” you ask before you realize he’s referring to the comet.

You exchange glances with your cousin, who raises an eyebrow. You smirk and shrug your shoulders.

“Be right back,” you say, deciding that now’s the time for a bathroom break if any. Just before you leave the table, you can’t help but notice Duncan shifting in his seat, visibly uncomfortable at the notion of anyone missing this rarity of an event.

Aunt Louise is putzing around in the kitchen when you pass through to get to the bathroom. She’s washing dishes as she observes the party through the window above the sink.

“You should be out there enjoying! Don’t want to miss all the fun,” you say as you walk by.

She turns and grins, tossing her hand towel up to drape it over her shoulder. As she puts a hand on her hip and faces you, you realize grabbing her attention was a wrong move—she’s now going to grill you about your love life and prevent you from peeing.

“I could say the same to you! So glad to see you, sweetie. I see you’ve met Duncan?”

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. “He’s a . . . nice guy.”

“And he’s cute! We’ve known him forever. Really sweet guy.”

Sweet is . . . a word, you think.

You use this break in conversation as a good moment to excuse yourself, heading to the fancy water closet down the hall by the den. Blue accents in hand towels and floor rugs compliment the white shiplap walls, a beachy theme that mirrors the exterior’s color scheme. It fills you with a sad nostalgia, this once familiar place, updated since you frequented it. A fresh coat of paint, only the paint is time. You pause, taking in the comfort it brings. Perhaps all of this nostalgia, this yearning for simpler times, is rooted in the anxieties that the future holds. Adulthood comes with the uncertainty of choice, wandering paths that could lead anywhere. Gone are the days of worrying only about what snack you’ll be having after dinner or what scary stories your cousins will tell to give you nightmares this time.

You think about whether it was staying in a home that wasn’t quite yours that gave you that sense of apprehension. Outside your comfort zone. There was never anything to fear, yet the quiet of a house at night can feel loud as TV static. The disquiet of an unassuming space allowing your imagination to take hold of your mind invites a sinking feeling that you can’t explain. Overthinking the inexplicable. Perhaps childish fears are easier to digest than adult ones.

After snapping out of your derailed train of thought, you opt out of turning on the lights, as the sunset filtering in through the sheer curtains fills the room in byzantium glow.

You try to hurry, to not miss the skyward spectacle, but you can’t help but get lost in the light again, just for a moment or two. In a small space like this, there’s nothing to hide.

Much to Duncan’s dismay out at that picnic table, you realize you’re missing the comet, for it arrives with a bright white flash, filling the bathroom, nearly blinding you for a moment—like someone has taken a photo. Just about pressing your face to the window, you watch as it drifts through the sky, trailing fiery debris behind it like a tail. Slow motion from here but incredible speed in real time up above. Truly a sight to behold, even from the confines of this room. You are awash in a strange comfort.

While turning around to leave the bathroom, you notice that not only is the door to the hall open but it is gone completely. And the darkened hall itself stretches impossibly forward, longer than it should, until it reaches a shadowy corner at the end and turns to the right. Windows on either side let in streams of grainy, blue light, another impossibility, for the other rooms in the house should be adjacent. And they emit an unnatural, electric glow . . . This dark, this strange—it materializes as an upsetting feeling in the pit of your stomach. As if life itself is mocking you for being afraid of the dark, of muddling your memories with existential dread that you simply couldn’t have had so young.

Or, maybe Enid’s Comet had more to say than a passing greeting. Maybe she’s introduced everything we’ve all worried about in the far recesses of our minds. Or something far more sinister.

You make your way down the hall for far longer than it should take, walking quickly but not quickly enough, like a liminal space in any dream. Eventually, you do turn the corner and enter the kitchen again, where Aunt Louise is furiously scrubbing a dish over the sink. You walk over to her and place a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” you say, your voice shaky with nerves, “is everythi—”

You stop short when she turns to face you. Her right eye is uneven with her left, slowly sliding down her face. Tears are streaming from the duct of that one eye, dribbling down her cheek and off the tip of her chin. Her smile is contorted and reveals far too many teeth.

The sight causes you to jump backwards, bumping into a cabinet behind you. She cocks her head with concern.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” The voice that leaves her sounds like many, layered and deep in pitch. All you can do is nod and hurry out the back door, hoping that, somehow, none of this is real.

Only Duncan and Aunt Chris are outside. He is standing by the cliffside, taking in the sights of the Sound and the marbling colors in the sky as the sunset concludes. You note that the volume of the tide is not only unnaturally loud but quicker in rhythm than normal for any time of day. You also note that Enid’s Comet is still in the sky, tracing the stars as they emerge for the night. But she is closer now. Larger.

Your aunt is crouched over the cooler, digging for something in the ice. No sign of your cousin; no sign of Victor. Your face heats up with worry as you make your way over to her.

“Aunt Chris, have you seen Victor . . . ?”

She does not stand, but she brushes her hands up behind her head, moving her hair above the top of her head to drape around her face. You lean in to help her, assuming she is having trouble standing, but then you see a face peering up at you from the back of her scalp, beneath her hair. Long, black strands grow out from within its open mouth, cascade from behind eyes that dart around in their sockets, as though trapped in a dream yet wide awake. The mouth hangs agape, frozen in a silent scream.

You retreat but stumble, slamming down hard onto your back. Now both of your aunts lean over you, worried but unable to show it, for the texture of their skin moves and shifts as if displayed on a screen.

“Oh my God—are you alright?”

“Take my hand. Let us help you up . . .”

You shoo them away with a wave of your hand. You’ll worry later about how rude that is, but for now, all you can think to do is put distance between you and them. Something is undeniably wrong here.

When you turn, you find yourself somehow just behind Duncan at the precipice of the cliff overlooking the water. It does not seem as though he recognizes your presence.

“She sure is something,” he says, turning. “And with so much to say.”

He is smiling as though he’d organized that comet’s appearance himself. A cosmic messenger. Whatever secrets he keeps in his eyes are hidden behind his dark sunglasses.

“Sorry, uh, I . . .” You look for the words to say. “Where is everybody? Have you seen Victor? My brother?”

Duncan nods. “Nothing is between, just about.”

The sound of the water is distracting now. What remnants of sunlight dwindle beyond still render Duncan a silhouette, dark against the landscape. One hand in his pocket, the other clutching an empty glass.

“About . . .” you repeat, trying to make sense of anything he’s saying. The comet is closer still. Even larger than before. Her trail glimmers in the evening light. You swear you can make out pieces that have broken off in the distance, raining down over the forests on the other side of the Sound.

“Vic! Victor!” The name escapes you in a panicked yell as you turn, and your voice echoes into the yard, though now it fades into black, reminding you of the old tube TV glow—what lies beyond that border is moving and shifting and watching, but you cannot see it, and it might not even be there. However, nothing about what’s been happening since the comet arrived has made any sense. Distortion unearthed.

To your left, the house still stands, but it, too, has been dipped in wrong—the stairs from the ground floor now ascend through the roof and infinitely off into the sky. Rooms jut out from one another at impossible angles. A bizarre blueprint. All the doors have disappeared. Every window emits that strange grainy blue glow.

“The waves here are many, and they are none.” Duncan’s presence behind you makes your spine shiver. But his voice makes you notice that you no longer hear the Sound. Eerie silence surrounds you.

You turn to him. “What is going on here? Who are you?”

“It’s never this easy to get there from here,” he says, now facing the water—or where the water used to be. What was the Sound is now a dry crevice. Plants that flourished on the seafloor stand stiff and dead. Bones of fish and crustaceans litter the dirt, half-buried. The moon now hangs high in the night sky, her pale luster illuminating the dried soil, no ocean to claim the darkness from beneath the surface. You are unable to catch your breath, for there’s no denying that, while this is all hard to explain, it is nothing short of real. The feeling in the pit of your stomach has wound itself into a knot.

The more you look, the more you start to notice mangled metal beams sticking out from the earth like the roots of a dark future. Vague industry overtaking nature’s beauty. Inexplicable modern monuments. You’re speechless, hopeless, unable to take it all in, but then you see a face in the ground, far below; it appears to be Victor’s, and it wriggles, as though trying to shake and loosen the soil that keeps him buried.

“Victor!” you shout, sprinting down the hill and following the dirt path to the shore, where you both would race to the water as kids. You’d both charge right in, ignoring how cold it would be. Fearless at first. Despite it all, he would bring that out in you. That energy of youth.

Now, it’s like an enormous drought plagues the Earth, rendering the seas barren. You make a run for Victor, kicking up dirt as you move. Along your path, you notice more metal protruding from the ground, large plates implying entire structures emerging. Either Enid’s Comet has revealed a not-so-distant future, or she’s causing very realities to clash—portentous, nevertheless.

The face in the ground is Victor’s, but it isn’t. Featureless aside from eyes, nose, and a gaping mouth, but you can tell it’s him. He has no teeth, and the color has drained from his face. He is like a clay figure, writhing about as much as the earth will allow.

“Please, Vic, please . . . This can’t be real, this isn’t real.”

You are crying as you dig at the dirt around his head, thinking not about your nails starting to tear from their beds.

Duncan’s voice carries down from the clifftop: “This is far beyond us, but we are here!”

Looking up, you find the towering cliff has too been replaced with a solid block of steel, a monolith atop which Duncan stands, illuminated by the glow of Enid’s Comet’s coma. An electric light all her own. She is descending, no doubt well past Earth’s atmosphere. This is where she will land.

The strange man’s arms are outstretched, welcoming this fate. His smile is visible even from where you are, still crouched over what you hope is your brother’s face. The coma light hits his sunglasses as it nears, reflecting outwards in beams. A lighthouse uncanny.

You gasp as a chunk broken off the comet collides into the peak, obliterating Duncan and sending glassy debris in all directions. Pieces of the monolith tumble down and kick up dust that envelops you. It fills your lungs and stings your eyes. The sounds are deafening.

When it clears, the pile of steel rubble settles. From a gap in the debris, a blue light awakens, its sibilant static calling out to you. If only you could pull the covers over your head and wait for this nightmare to end. But this is no nightmare.

This is a convergence of thresholds, and you are caught in the crossfire. Worlds you unknowingly dreaded surfacing.

You close your eyes as Enid’s Comet approaches from behind. You are awash in her light.