Dust (Part 1)

Doctor Simpson leaned back into the cushions of his garden chair and breathed out a long happy sigh of contentment, he picked up the iced lemonade from the table beside him and took a long, slow drink.

Buying the semi-rural house with its sprawling garden and views of the surrounding countryside had been an expensive venture, but moments like these made it all worthwhile. The small, but well- equipped laboratory he'd had built in the basement allowed him to do much of his work from home now, instead of facing the daily city rat-race. Work that recently had become more and more of the lucrative freelance type.

He placed his glass back on the table and savoured the sweet scent of the flowers, he glanced around appreciatively at the lush foliage, the vibrant colours. Birds chirruped and chirped from the trees, an occasional insect winged past, a few dust motes drifted lazily in the bright shafts of sunlight that streamed through the tree branches.

Doctor Simpson settled deeper into the chair and closed his eyes, smiling to himself, all was well with his world.

His eyes suddenly sprang open, and he sat bolt upright.

A feeling of deep unease flooded through him., as if some subconscious alarm bell had been triggered, as if something was not quite as it should be. The scientist in him tried to shrug off the feeling, he was a man of logic not superstition or irrational fear, but the feeling persisted, the feeling that something was not quite right.

Then it came to him, the dust motes, they swirled and moved in a way that dust motes shouldn't, they were moving against the breeze. He stood and went closer to them and watched the tiny specks for a few moments, they definitely seemed to be moving with purpose and uniformity.

He smiled at his silly fear, there was of course a rational explanation for this, thermal currents or such-like, but his curiosity was aroused, he went to the basement and returned a few minutes later carrying a sample flask and seal.

Capturing one of the motes proved difficult, it was illogical but the damn thing seemed to be trying to avoid the open flask top, eventually persistence paid off and he managed to get the flask around the speck, and place the seal. The tiny bit of dust remained unmoving, stationary in the centre of its transparent prison.

As he walked back to the house he noticed a strange low-lying cloud casting a dark shadow over the nearby hills, this too was drifting against the breeze, and heading directly towards the city.

He returned to the basement, and placed the flask beneath the powerful microscope lens and proceeded to zoom and focus on the dust mote.

A dozen clicks with the computer keyboard and the blurred image appeared on the two-metre wall screen, a few slight adjustments, the image solidified into crystal clarity.

Doctor Simpson stared at the screen, his logical brain refusing to accept the impossible insanity of what his eyes were telling it.

On the screen the minute craft and its uniformed crew of four were almost life-size. The intricate propulsion cones beneath the machine, and the bristling weaponry it carried were futuristic and alien in their detail.

One of the creatures stared through the window of the ship, and directly into the lens. The face that looked back at Doctor Simpson from the wall had a look of malevolently intelligent awareness in its eyes, and an expression of pure hatred.

And it was grinning.

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Continued in :- Dust (Part 2)

©2011 Stephen. J. Green.