Lights in a New Mexico Sky (standard:science fiction, 2297 words)
Author: Bart Meehan	Added: Jun 15 2004	Views/Reads: 3168/2037	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story about two people living in New Mexico. Set in a bar, where the characters are watching a neighbour from their trailer park being interviewed on TV, about a video he captured of UFOs. This becomes the background for a review of their own lives.

Lights in a New Mexico Sky 

Steve Earle was on the jukebox and a low cloud of cigarette smoke cut
the bar room in half. 

I sat down in a booth with a clear view of the big screen TV at the end
of the bar and pulled a packet of Marlboro out of my shirt pocket. 

“I thought you were giving up” 

I looked around.  Terri was standing behind me, balancing a tray of
beers, on her right hand. 

“You're sucking in more of the stuff than I am, working here”  I said. “
You look tired” 

She shrugged and brushed the lose strands of hair off her face with her
free hand. 

“Its been busy, quietening down now though” 

She motioned towards the TV.    “You seen them interviewing Gene yet?” 

I shook my head, and lit the cigarette. 

“Heard about it at work.   Thought I'd have a beer and see if I could
catch it on the news” 

“You're not going to hear much, over this racket” 

“Don't matter – just want to see what Gene looks like on the big screen”


She smiled “Fatter and balder” she said, and took one of the beers off
the tray and placed it on the table in front of me. 

“Isn't some one going to miss that?”   I asked 

“They're five or six drinks, passed missing anything.  I have a break in
15 minutes.   You want to go outside for some fresh air” 

“Sure” 

Terri made her way back to the bar, as always, a sad swing in the slow
walk. 

We'd been friends for three years, ever seen I came west from New York. 
 She lived in a trailer couple down from mine in ET-ville.   Gene was 
between us.   The night I moved in, Gene came over to welcome me to the 
Park, then  spent most of the evening trying to find out why I had 
moved to New Mexico. 

“It must be quiet after the big city.   I don't suppose anyone leaves
there unless they have to?”   He waited for an answer, which I never 
gave.   It really was none of his business, but he was right.  I left 
because my father had thrown me out of the house, after a friend down 
at Murphy's Tavern, said he'd seen me holding hands with another guy in 
Central Park.   My father didn't like fags, and he wasn't going to have 
one in his house.   Funny thing was the guy I was dating found some 
else the same day and I was left with nowhere to go.  I went to the bus 
station and took the first bus out, and kept taking them until I ended 
up in New Mexico.  There was no plan, it just seemed like the right 
place to stop – with enough money left to rent a place and find a job. 

Gene didn't accept silence (or subtle hints about privacy) and kept
pressing about my motives.    Did I have family here?   Did I have 
work?   In the end, he came to real question:   Had I ever been taken? 

Funny thing is that I had never really known that New Mexico was alien
central.   I came from a strict Catholic family who believed the only 
extra terrestrials came from Heaven.  I grew out of that, into 
cynicism.  I didn't really believe in anything much at the time. 

The problem was that Gene did and more than that, he was paranoid.  When
I appeared to be evasive about my past, he began to assume that I was 


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