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They Came From Heaven

"Damn office." I muttered as is gripped the wheel of my old 1994 Toyota Tercel. I was stuck in the glorious evening traffic as everyone tried to get home at the exact same time. Didn't help either that I lived in a suburb built exclusively for people who worked at the local Spam cannery. Spam! I worked at a god damn Spam cannery as one of the button pushers who sat in an office and made sure all of the finances and shit like that were in the black. Sean Holder, executive button pusher, that was me.

I had been working this exact same job for a decade. Sure, I had the decent pay from being a senior member of the "Spam family" but you could only take it for so long and I was getting pretty close to becoming one of those people who snapped and shot up the work place.

A horn behind me honked which caused a cacophony of other horns to begin to blare. I don't know why they were honking, it wasn't like it was going to make traffic move any faster. Every car was bumper to bumper and moving at either 0 mph or 1 mph, no faster. It was like this most days. Wake up at 6 in the morning, take a shower, get dressed, grab a bagel and a coffee and sit in traffic for two hours, work for 8 hours and spend another two hours driving home, five days a week for most of the year.

There was a loud metallic screech somewhere in front of me and I rolled down the window to look out. The intense summer heat poured in, quickly overwhelming the attempts of the failing AC to keep the inside of the car livable. I mindlessly turned it off as I leaned out of the window, already sweating profusely. I couldn't see what had happened, but I knew someone had just rear ended another. If I and the thousands of other people tuck with me were lucky, it would be dealt with swiftly and we would continue at the pace that would make the tortoise laugh.

We were not lucky. Some moron decided to change lanes when there wasn't any room at all and ended up getting the entire back side of their car flattened by the semi he cut off. There was no way he was going to simply drive off after exchanging insurance information, a tow truck would have to be called. The thing was, how was a tow truck supposed to get to us, when suddenly a 6 lane freeway that was stuffed more than a fat kid in a candy store, suddenly became a 4 lane one?

It was another hour before I got to see the actually crash. Two officers were on scene, they had actually come from the other direction, driving on the other side of the highway where there were barely any cars and parking off on the side. They were talking to a rather small woman who was pointing and cursing at the truck driver. The Truck driver was sitting on the foot step of his truck, just taking it all in. I envied his cool headedness, if I was him, I would have just punched the lady. At least that way, the cops would drag me off somewhere else.

There were cones set up to help divert traffic and I slowly, but assuredly moved on by. I checked the dim clock on the dashboard. It was nearly 8. Normally I would have gotten home at 7:30 and there was probably another hour of slowly crawling along.

I tried the radio and was pleasantly surprised to hear some slow soothing classical. I normally wasn't one to appreciate Mozart or Beethoven, but I needed it right now. I listened to the slow, but oddly dramatic music as that I imagined was in tempo with the flow of traffic. It seemed that each time the symbol clashed through the speakers, I as forced to step on the brakes as the red tail lights of the vehicle in front of me blared. It was already getting dark and the rather dull sea of cars was turned into a vast array of red lights going on and off and like before, I imagined it was in tempo with the music.

Was I really entertaining myself with classical and brake lights? I didn't care at this point because it was something to keep myself occupied with. I sat back in the chair that had the perfect print of my back in it from so many years of use and was somewhat enjoying myself.

I'll have to but a tape. I thought to myself. I would by a CD if my car had something to play it with, but there was nothing wrong with a tape. I had grown up in a rather old fashioned household. My father despised most types of technology and had only recently bought and old flip phone. He had grown up in the woods, and his entertainment was going out and shooting some animal that he would turn into dinner. He was a dying breed of men from an age long gone in most of the country.

My mother on the other hand was much more open to new things. She was the one to force my father to buy the phone. Ever since I had moved out, she would tell me about how she had slowly converted the house into something modern right under my dad's nose. She would joke about how he didn't notice the new surround sound system that she had installed and that dad would only comment about how the cable was coming in more clearly.

I grinned at that. After living 18 years inside of a house that for the longest time had a computer which ran DOS, I had tried my best to integrate into modern society. I lived in a middle class one story house in the suburbs of Los Angeles that had actually air conditioning that didn't come from an open window. My mother loved to come down from and visit from Montana, yeah that's where they live, Big Sky Country. She would make me take her out shopping and always commented about how I was so lonely, living in a big city without anyone.

I didn't even have fish, not enough time to take care of a pet. They would starve or run away from the lack of attention I would give them. I had contemplated adopting a cat or something, since they were largely independent and didn't require constant attention, but decided that I was better off alone after reading an article about how cats would claw everything up and then piss on it. I admit, the house did feel a bit empty at times, but I hardly spent any time in it anyways. It was more of just a place to eat, sleep and watch television for a few hours each night after getting home.

I wouldn't be watching the evening news tonight. A wave of red brake lights flooded down the freeway as everyone stopped at once.

"Not again." I lightly banged my head on the wheel causing the horn to accidently go off. It was nothing but a quick bleep as I pulled my face from the wheel, but someone, somewhere heard it. Once again, it was monkey see, or hear in this case, monkey do and my ears were filled with the repetitive sounds of horns blaring. Turning the knob that controlled the volume up, the sound of _In the Hall of the Mountain King_replaced all outside noise. I closed my eyes, trying to think of what was causing the traffic to stop this time.

Another wreck was most likely. Everyone's nerves were frayed and it wouldn't take much, just a small lapse in concentration and bam, another rear ending. That would add another hour to the already 3 and half hour drive.

I was about to just get out of the car since traffic wasn't moving at all now. At this time of day, it would actually be somewhat cool with the sun down. It would be nice to just sit on the roof of the car until traffic began to move. I put the car into park and in buckled my seat belt. I could more than a few other people had the same idea, a young man, who must have been a college student due to his Stanford University shirt, was standing on the roof of his car, a grey Corolla.

He was looking up at the sky. It was too bright in the city to see any stars and a layer of smog usually blocked out the sky anyways. I bent forward and looked up as well. To my surprise, I could see something, several things.

There were small yellow points of lights that could be seen through the grey blanket over the city. At first I thought that they were just bright stars, but they were moving too fast. They were moving. They thought shot into my mind. There were too many for them to be planes as well.

I shut off the car and clambered out. It was cool, like I had suspected, but the smell of exhaust was overwhelming. I climbed on top of my car, partially to get away from the noxious fumes, but mostly to get a better look at the points of lights that were slowly drifting like pollen. There were thousands of them, each moving in their own direction.

Others were beginning to get out of their cars to watch the spectacle and that created a domino effect. The hum of engines was soon replaced with silence as everyone had stopped what they were doing. Thousands of eyes stared upward at the sight.

They were getting closer, I could tell that. The lights slowly became brighter and I could begin to make out a shape inside of the center of the light as they began to pierce the smog. I squinted my eyes and brought a hand to my brows to help me focus. There was definitely something in the center, but is still couldn't make it out.

It didn't dawn on me that these things weren't plummeting to the earth like meteors, they were almost fluttering like a leaf or a butterfly, but much more slowly and gracefully.

Someone took out their phone and began to record it. I thought that it was a great idea and I soon followed his lead. What was once a freeway filled with the red of brake lights was now white with the screens of phones.

I had left my phone in my car. I quickly jumped down from my car and opened the door which squeaked loudly. It needed oil desperately and a couple glared at me for interrupting the silence. I ignored them, I was angry at the sudden squeak as well. This was some sort of phenomenon and I wouldn't want some loud squeak in my video or memory. I pressed the latch on the glove box and pulled out what was, at the time, the newest thing I owned. It was the latest version of the IPhone. Don't know why I bought one each year, something about owning the latest that just drew me in.

With my phone in hand, I quickly turned it on and went to the camera app. I fiddled with it until the little red light on the corner came on. I zoomed in on the sky. The thing in the center was beginning to take shape, it looked like a figure rolled up in the fetal position.

"It's aliens man." A man in an oversized tie dye shirt shouted out. He was atop a Volkswagen van that was missing the iconic logo on the front. "They're coming for us." He sounded stoned, much like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. He began to jump up and down on the van. The suspensions bounced and the body of the van rocked about.

A man nearby in a white silk shirt and slacks walked over to him. "Shut the hell up." He hissed, looking back at the sky as if he wasn't entirely sure it wasn't aliens.

The stoned man didn't pay him any head. "It's the reckoning, they're going to take us all. It's the end man." He continued to jump up and down and I couldn't help but think of a child on a trampoline.

"Stop it." The man yelled from below. Several other people were beginning to crowd around the van as well, except they weren't trying to stop him. They were listening to him as if he were some preacher, which he was now.

"They're mad at us for ruining mother earth and have come to stop us." He had stopped jumping at this point now that he had an audience. He raised his arms to the sky. "I shall greet them with open arms."

The man in the silk shirt had given up, trying to stop him. He stormed up, looking a bit worried every time he saw one of the points of lights.

"Let us rejoice at the Earth's salvation. Let them take us so that nature may live on." He had the attention of two dozen people of all sorts. There were a few other hippies, but most of the people who were listening to him were just normal people trying to get home from work.

I looked back up to the sky, the points of lights were now a mere 20 feet up. The figures in them, weren't human, they were all too dark and hard strange pigmentation, but I still couldn't make them out. What I could tell, was that one of them was coming right for me. They had stopped their fluttering and were making a bee line for various people. A surge of panic hit me.

What if they are aliens and they're going to take me. I thought. I tried to move to the side, but it changed direction to follow me.

"It has chosen you man." The hippie was talking to me. "Don't resist the inevitable." He looked down me from his van with a smile.

His words didn't help. The idea of being chosen by aliens to be taken didn't sit well with me. I couldn't run, the damn point of light would simply follow. I stood my ground, accepting that whatever the hell it was, it was going to reach me.

I was shaking as I watched the orb of light with whatever it was inside, slowly came closer. Even though it was very close now, the light was too bright to actually see what it was. I could tell it was black and brown and nothing else. I looked around nervously, there were other points of light going towards other people as well. Like me, they all looked nervous.

The orb came within reach and stopped right in front of me at chest level. I hesitated, I could feel a warm glow coming off of it. I realized I still had my camera and had been recording the entire time. I turned off the camera and put it in my pocket. There was something about the light that drew me to it. My worries and frustrations were slowly drifting away from me the longer I looked at the bright light. It was bright, but not like the sun, it was a soft kind of light. It's hard to explain.

I reached out into the light and it settled down on my open hands. I felt something soft and... alive. The light slowly began to fade away and I saw what was inside.

"It's a dog!" The silk shirt man yelled out. "Not an alien you moron."

It really was a dog, a puppy. It was no larger than the hands that carried it. By the way it looked, I guessed that it was a Rottweiler. It was mostly black, with brown socks, brown eye brows and some more brown around its snout. I looked down at it, unsure but filled with an urge to protect it. It was as if this little pup had an aura around it that beckoned anyone affect to protect it and nurture it.

"It is merely a façade." The hippie was still preaching even though his predictions of aliens that were here to take us way were quickly being tossed aside. The people who listened to him were storming off, embarrassed that they had even considered him to be right. "They will spring up when we least expect it."

A shoe from somewhere flew up and hit him in the face. He fell back onto the top of his van with a thump, knocked out.

"What are you going to do with it?" The silk shirt man walked up to it, studying the sleeping puppy in my hands. He seemed kind now that the hippy was no longer speaking.

"I... I don't know." I had owned a dog as a child. My dad had gotten me it for my third birthday. She was a Border Collie and was named Lucy, but that was 32 years ago. Lucy was long dead and I hadn't had another dog since. Now I suddenly had this one.

"I wonder where they came from." It was the question on my mind. It wasn't every day that it rained dogs, especially gravity defying, glowing dogs.

We both looked down at the small thing. Several others had come over and were forming groups around the people who had also been "chosen." I didn't know what to do, traffic wasn't going to be moving anytime soon with all of this happening.

I looked down at the dog, something about it was telling me everything was all right. The worry went away again.

"They came from heaven." I said. I didn't know if I was right or not, but it would have to do for now.