“Heeeey, Jimmy!” How’s the dogs today?” said the sharply dressed woman in the Wall Street pantsuit, talking to the man behind the food cart, in the center of the city park.

“Yo, Ximena! Everything is roses. You know how we do it.”

Jimmy opened the cart, and reached for two Italian sausages. The usual.

“How’s the markets today, boss lady?”

He said, placing steaming onions, peppers, and extra potatoes - Ximena’s favorite - on the Italian style dogs. The smells made Ximena’s stomach growl.

“You up, or you down, today?” Jimmy had talked with Ximena many times before, and he knew her story, like all of his regulars.

“You know, I manage a hedge fund, Jimmy,”she said warmly. “Up or down days don’t matter to me, I make my money in the middle.”

“That’s right” said Jimmy handing the dogs to Ximena. She was a big deal on Wall Street, but in the park she was simply Ximena.

“How’s your daughter, Jimmy?”

“Oh she’s great, we had her college graduation last month, bright future ahead of that girl, she makes me so proud.”

“She studied AI and data science, right?” Ximena asked.

“Yeah she did, I don’t understand all that stuff. She’s taking a break for the summer and traveling with her boyfriend.” Jimmy said.

“Well, don’t forget to have her give me a call.”

Ximena took another bite, wiped hot juice from the corner of her mouth, and looked up, casting her gaze across the green slopes of the park.

“A lot of people in the park today,” she said. “Everyone’s looking up. What am I missing?”

“Yeah. It’s a beautiful day, but look at that sky. Something different about it today. Looks all Technicolor, like Wanda Vision. You watch that show?”

Ximena looked at the sky and considered it. The sky was beautiful. It looked like the sky from any other sunny summer day. Except, when she took time to consider it more closely, there was indeed something different. There were strange color patterns in the sky, not in the clouds, and not quite the colors of sunrise or sunset. These colors were more vibrant than the sunset. Like ribbons of color in the fabric of the sky.

Why hadn’t she noticed this while walking through the park? She didn’t know.

It was unnerving. Unknown.

It was not a normal sky.

There was a sheen to it.

Occasionally …

The sky rippled.

She gasped. It was more than subtly unnerving, and absolutely captivating.

Jimmy noticed her unease, like a poker tell, and Jimmy had noticed the sky ripple too. This had been happening all morning, but only if you watched closely, and it freaked him out, but he didn’t say anything to his customers.

Ximena regained her composure.

“Oh, you’re right … it does look a little Wanda Vision, doesn’t it?” she said.

“There were news cameras earlier, a news anchor lady, and some scientist. They left in a hurry about half an hour ago.”

“What were they looking for?” she asked. Ximena gathered enough composure to take another bite.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s aliens, right?” Jimmy laughed. “Or some weird climate shit, and we’re all doomed.”

“Well it’s New York. We’ve seen just about everything haven’t we? What else could possibly happen?”

A murmur in the crowd shifted their attention back to the green. Most of the crowd she had passed the way to Jimmy’s cart was gathered on the other side of the hill and out of view.

They couldn’t quite make out the words, but the tone implied a complaint, danger maybe. A disruption of focus away from the sky.

Then the crowd slowly became silent.

She scanned the horizon to find a person.

There were no people.

Ximena gasped again.

Off in the distance, a figure crested the hill, walking in the direction of Jimmy’s cart on the paved path, about fifty yards away.

Tall, gray, and walking with an unnatural gait.

“What the hell is that, Jimmy?”

“Look at that. looks like the Grim Reaper from Outer Space or something.” Jimmy laughed.

The tall, gray figure walked fast, following the path path towards Jimmy and Ximena. It didn’t walk quite like their minds expected, there was something very different about it.

“Oh, check it out. It’s getting closer.”

The figure approached. It was, in a word, dreadful. It had a face like a black visor, with absolutely no features. The walk conveyed a sort of extreme confidence, a self assured purpose, a feeling of … what was it, dominance maybe. And a sense of wonder and curiosity that was, oddly skewed. Curiosity infused with darkness.

It’s arms and legs were clearly strong, but too long, overextended like they were stretched or something.

The figure was muscular - but the angles of bicep, tricep, and shoulder were all off.

“Whoever made this get up is brilliant.

Now it’s starting to make sense,” Jimmy told himself. “Must be a movie shoot or something,” he said, laughing.

Ximena heard a little crack in Jimmy’s voice.

Something more primal made her want to run.

Ximena de Santos hadn’t run from anything her entire life, she wasn’t going to start now.

“That’s weird as shit,” she heard herself saying, her tone excited, like a kid watching the Macy’s parade. But inside Ximena De Santos shivered just a bit, like a ripple in her soul. Sal didn’t notice, he was too focused on the figure.

“Hey! Welcome to Central Park.” Sal said in the direction of the figure.

He, or she, or it, was now walking past the stand, about fifteen feet away from the cart.

It had some type of suit on, not a business suit like Ximena wore, it was something more like what you’d see in a movie, Predator maybe, but without the strange crab face.

Now that it was up close, much to their surprise, it was much, much taller than they expected.

Maybe 9 feet. Or 10. Imposing.

The Banker took two steps back and leaned against the dog stand. Her muscles clenched.

“You going to a costume party, or a movie shoot, or what?” Jimmy asked the figure.

The figure stopped walking forward and it’s foot made a loud clap. They both realized it had been walking completely silently.

Then it turned its gray body towards Jimmy and Ximena and focused all of its attention on them, considering them. It began to step toward the cart.

The air around the figure vibrated. No, scratch that, Ximena thought, the air pulsated around the Reaper. It was like air bent as the Reaper moved through it, changing the reality of air. Ximena thought it looked like radio waves vibrating, if you could see them, and it mixed the edges and contours of the figure and the air around it. Like reality was blurred.

“How do you get your suit to shimmer like that?” She asked the figure as it stepped forward.

The figure said nothing. It was unnervingly quiet and Ximena wanted to yell at it to make it go away. But she did not.

Now it stood directly in front of them, towering above, studying them. Ximena had to tilt her head back to look up towards the figure’s visage.

It was empty. Cold, devoid of … anything.

“Here, have some dogs, on the house. You’re freaking me out with this suit.” Jimmy said in his New Yorker accent. Breaking the icy vibe.

The Reaper looked down at Ximena, and then at Jimmy, and it extended its dark gray, oddly muscled arm and pushed its hand toward Jimmy and the cart, turning the palm of its hand upwards, opening its hand and flattening its figures.

Ximena could smell the figure now, or it’s suit, it smelled strange and foreign to her. Like ammonia, and rot, and something sickeningly sweet, all in one.

Ximena felt like gagging. It was revolting.

The air around the Reaper was deathly cold, and Ximena’s body shivered.

Jimmy set the Italian dogs in its hand.

Jimmy mumbled something about the long fingers looking like Jim Carrie’s hands in The Grinch. Ximena barely heard his words. She was gripping the food cart tightly.

The towering gray, cold and empty, dreadful Reaper lowered its chin and gazed on the Italian dogs in toasted bread resting on its hand, waiting to be enjoyed.

Then the day got much, much weirder.

The hot dogs pixelated - like that black and white mayhem you see on your tv screen late at night when there’s no content running - in the Reaper’s strangely proportioned hand. Except the pixels were in color. Not the color of a hot dog. Rainbow technicolors.

The hot dog blurred. The air around the dog and the color pixels it had become vibrated together. Then the hot dog drifted away, disappearing in a cloud of technicolor pixels.

A sick magic trick.

“What the F was that!” Jimmy screamed.

Jimmy’s body language indicated he was no longer under the illusion this was a costume party or a movie shoot.

Neither Jimmy nor Ximena wanted to believe it was more than a magic trick.

The Reaper turned its gaze on Jimmy and flipped its palm face down, spread its fingers - and pointed them at Jimmy. Blurred waves of air pulsed from its hand and entered Jimmy’s chest.

“Nooooooooo!” Ximena screamed, “Leave him alone!”

The sound of her voice was captured, the sound waves drawn into the air that was now vibrating inside Jimmy, she said the words but they didn’t make a sound that anyone could hear.

Ximena could see Jimmy screaming for help, he was both right there in front of her, and - somewhere else.

Jimmy started to glitch.

He was caught between two realities, here in the park, violently shaking, pixelating, his colors changing into rainbow pixels, and somewhere else in a technicolor nightmare.

Jimmy’s eyes screamed “Help”

His mouth formed a scream.

But no sounds came.

Jimmy’s hand grabbed Ximena’s arm.

Jimmy’s body, and clothes, and face blurred, transforming into a pixel cloud.

Then, Jimmy was … gonez

“What are you doing to us?!” She looked down at her own body and looked back at The Reaper. “What … are … you!!!” and she started to scream.

The scream lasted a fraction of a second. There was no pain, only panic, and unraveling. An existential unraveling.

The sound of Ximena’s scream danced on a technicolor cloud that had once been her body, now drifting away to some other place.

Oh shit Oh shit Oh Shit Oh Shit, she thought.

Breath very rapid, heart rate high.

Ximena looked at her hands. They pixelated and dispersed. Disappearing before here eyes. There was no pain - only nothingness. And that, somehow, was much, much worse. Panic overcame Ximena in waves. She tried to scream again but no sounds came. Oh how she just wanted to go back to work.

Her mouth quickly started to disappear and her eyes saw a Technical rainbow blur.

Then, nothing.

- - - - - - -

A bit further down the path a young mother approached with her stroller.

Alina immigrated to the United States four years ago, met Matthew in New York City while working on a Broadway show, and fell in love.

Today, she walked her baby in Central Park, observing people and watching the breeze in the trees point things out to baby Emily.

So good to be outside. This was her first outing with baby Emily since she had come home from the hospital.

Alina enjoyed strolling in the park, and it was even better now with her beautiful baby. Matthew was working today and couldn’t join in the fun.

Lots of people in the park today gazing at the sky. Beautiful today. Something different about the sky. Alina’s creative mind imagined that everyone in the park noticed the sky, and few talked about it, in the back of their minds mindful that some spectacle may be about to unfold. What an interesting observation to have, she heard herself thinking.

There was Jimmy’s Italian Dogs cart up ahead. Jimmy was talking to a Wall Street banker she’d seen before, or maybe she was a fund manager.

Alina didn’t remember her name. Nice lady.

Emily started to cry. Strange. She’d just had her nap and food, and, Emily loved walks in the park.

Alina looked down at Emily and soothed her, tucking Emily inside her blanket.

Then she heard the sirens starting,

All across the city, and all at once it seemed.

It was not just another walk in the park.

There were many strange “things”observable, walking through the park, among the people Alina and Emily had just seen along the way.

These gray monsters started to more clearly come into view. Horrific, strange arms and hands extended, and pointing at people, giving Anastasia a sickening feeling.

People started … disappearing.

There was no blood. No gore.

No screams.

People’s bodies blurred, the air … it seemed to vibrate, and then they were gone.

Not quite gone, their bits and fragments floated away like cosmic dust.

Alina looked back towards Jimmy’s cart. Jimmy and the banker were gone. One of the gray monsters was walking away from the cart and headed towards Alina and Emily. There was a cloud of Technicolor dust floating in the air behind the monster.

Then the sky ripped open. It made a terrible sound like missiles breaking the sound barrier. Out of a technicolor hole in the sky came waves of dark metal shapes flying through the air.

Dark metal, like a massive sword in the sky plunged through an office building. There was a crunching and crashing sound of metal and glass. Alina heard screams.

Other metal shapes, massive, moved in the sky above the buildings just a bit higher.

There’s another one. This one ripped the sky. No other way to describe it.

Alina glanced quickly around the park, there was a young couple, two friends walking, and an elderly couple holding hands on a park bench, looking at the sky.

All of their bodies crumpled to the ground at the places where they had stood or sat - as if they were suddenly sick.

Their body mass changed, their composition, their matter … it simply pixelated, drifted apart and moved into the Technicolor sky.

3 saucers streaked across the sky above her

Like silver discs traveling impossibly fast

Large machines, or vehicles

Alina had seen war machines in her youth

These were not from this Earth.

Of this, she was sure.

Alina picked up baby Emily and ran.

She was going to find Matthew

And save her family.

👽

💥