LUCID

There aren’t lampposts out in the country.  Dark is dark.  Alternatively, when they're there, lights stick out against the black background like a fully lit baseball stadium. 

From the front porch you could see the light show.  The satellite relays on some of the news vans protruded upwards and lights came from inside the vans.  And one or more of the tents set up on Skinny Arbogast’s land featured a generator of some sort.  Multiple sedentary lights glowed from within tents, distinguishing themselves from the flashlight glow and the headlamps floating in orbit around the makeshift camp, squatters doing their best to navigate the lumpy earth.

Earlier in the evening we’d watched a news report on ‘Camp Maddy’ and one of the people from the camp, a Lewis, had told the reporter he was just going to screen Jack and Maddy movies on his iPad while waiting for the chance to actually see them live and in person.  The reporter had asked him what he’d do if that chance didn’t materialize. 

“Not gonna happen,” said Lewis.

“You’re going to see them.”

“Absolutely.”

“Meet them?  Get an autograph?”

“Don’t need it.  Maddy’s already signed my heart a thousand times every second of one of her movies.  She’s the best.”  The fan turned to look at the camera and then directly at the camera.  His left eyelid drooped.  His face was sunburned.  And he had a pronounced gap in his teeth. 

“We love you, Maddy,” said Lewis.  “We love you.”

 

Lucid cover sketch courtesy Jenny Dayton.

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