What We Didn't Know Then

 

But we sure know now.

          There were agents on the earth. Sometimes people called them cryptids. Other people swore they were alien life forms from some other place. Their nature was hard to nail down at first, and they were just plain hard to see.

          People began to notice changes in their friends, their co-workers, and even their most loved family members. The changes were subtle. It presented as a kind of coarsening of memory for one thing. Dear old family stories and jokes were received with blank stares. That gentle nimbus of understanding that people had with lovers and friends thinned out and became almost commercial. That wouldn’t make sense unless you had experienced it. It was like some alternate message was being broadcast inside people.
          Those who noticed the change had a hard time describing it, and God help them if they tried to describe it to one of the changed. The initial reaction was usually a cold estrangement, turning quickly into blistering rage if the innocent persisted.
          There were visible signs.  But at first no one knew what they meant.  It got to be a public joke.  You could see them in the dark. Glowies. If one sat on a bench they left a shiny little legacy behind when they left the bench. Homeless tent cities glowed at night with a sulfurous miasma. It was one of those jokes that aren’t really understood as funny.  It scared people.  Nobody wanted to glow like that. It was also contagious.
          What we didn’t know was that we all carried it to greater or lesser degrees depending on strength of one’s immune system, exposure to others, and something else that was intangible.
          Our protagonist was a farmer. He wasn’t around other people very much. He had a wife. His children were grown and had left home. There were three of them. He and his wife kept in close touch with their children. The farmer and his wife were Luther and Milly Hancock. They were in their late 60s. They lived in an agricultural area fifty miles north of Seattle generally referred to as the Skagit Valley. He raised red potatoes on a ten acre section, and a smaller amount of cruciferous green vegetables on five acres near the road.
          Sometimes even a solitary type like a farmer needs to go into town. If he and Milly were doing some serious shopping Milly rode along into Mount Vernon. In the fall he drove loads of potatoes to N&N’s Potato Shed in Burlington. It was a pleasant drive along highway 11 into the small but busy city of Burlington. The ladies at N&N’s knew Luther well. They always had a nice chat when he came in and his spuds were being unloaded. The one he knew best was a farmer’s wife working at the shed, named Susan Tork. A kind friendly lady who didn’t really need the job.  She just liked to get out of the house in the fall when the potato harvest was on.

          So, in late September of 2025, as was his custom, Luther drove some of his potatoes into Burlington, heading to N&N’s. It was a mild day in early fall. Children were back in school. Leaves were turning. The sky was blue with some perfect clouds up there for effect. A bit of wood smoke was in the air.  It was a little cool in the mornings now and people were lighting their woodstoves to take the chill off. The drive was so plain and normal that he relaxed into a dreamy state, smiling a bit at dairy cows, other farms, whatever. He liked it all.
          At the shed he got his reds weighed as usual and walked upstairs to the desk to get his check. Susan was there.
          She wrote out his check without looking at him and thrust it at him, waiting impatiently for him to take it. “Hey, Susan,” Luther said, “how’s it going?” She looked at him as if she had never seen him before and didn’t smile.
          The light kind of went out of the day for Luther.  He didn’t understand Susan at all. That was strange incident number one for Luther. When he told Milly about it she seemed unconcerned.
          Their days continued normally. Thanksgiving week came. Milly invited their children to dinner, naturally. There were no grandchildren. Their kids were all married professionals. The two sons didn’t pick up their phones, nor did they respond in any other way.  Their daughter, Terri, answered but was noncommittal about Thanksgiving dinner. She said she would talk to her husband, but never called back. Luther and Milly were mystified and greatly hurt. This second incident seemed like the beginning of something terrible to them.
          One night, when Luther was having trouble sleeping, he happened to look over at Milly who was solidly asleep. On her face and in her hair he could see a slight orange glow. Her pillow was glowing a little bit too, where her head had lain. This was number three for Luther.
          Now, Luther wasn’t one to just accept this. He lay thinking, and praying, long into the night.