The air hung heavy and wet, steeped in the smell of cracked asphalt and the restless promise of distant rain. Mark, vibrating with the twitchy desperation of a man three hours into a failed quit, leaned close to Jerome, his eyes sharp with need.
“Jerome,” he rasped, voice low and shaky, “you got a smoke?”
Jerome, whose resting face suggested he’d watched the universe cough and found it mildly inconvenient, fished a battered pack from deep in his worn jacket. He peeled back the foil with the slow, deliberate cruelty of a man who knew exactly how bad Mark wanted it.
“Yeah,” he drawled, giving Mark a flat look, “got a couple left. This ain’t no damn party pack, though.” He held the pack just out of reach, a sorry offering balanced in his calloused hand.
Mark’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He edged closer, breath short and ragged. “Man, I’m fiendin’. Just let me borrow one, bro.” His fingers hovered, trembling, like a vulture eyeing roadkill.
Jerome’s brows shot up, disappearing under the cracked brim of his cap. He jerked the pack back. “Borrow one?” he said, dragging the word out slow and disbelieving.
Mark nodded fast, a flicker of hope cutting through the desperation. “Yeah, man. Borrow. I’ll give it back when I’m done.” He mimed dragging a puff, then handing back an invisible, crumpled butt.
Jerome stared, the edges of his mouth twitching. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and finally lowered the pack, the two precious cigarettes clutched tight.
“And what,” Jerome said, voice dry as dust, “I’m supposed to do with a chewed-up cigarette butt? Build a frame for it? Hang it over the got damn fireplace?”
Mark just grinned, sheepish, scratching his head like he was trying to dig the thought out of his scalp.
The porch settled around them, thick with humidity and the steady buzz of cicadas. Mark sagged back in his wobbly lawn chair, squinting toward the blurred line where treetops melted into a bruised sky. Jerome sat across from him, smoothing the crinkled foil of his cigarette pack like it was a ritual.
“You know, Jerome,” Mark began, dragging the words like a fisherman pulling a heavy line, “I was just thinkin’. What if they landed right out there?” He waved a hand toward the yard, vague and grand.
Jerome’s sigh was deeper this time, like a man about to listen to a bad sermon. He finally lit a cigarette, the flame briefly catching the creases in his weathered face.
“Who, Mark? Jehovah’s Witnesses again? 'Cause if Sister Agnes comes at me with another end-times pamphlet while I’m tryin' to enjoy a smoke..."
“Not them.” Mark flapped a hand. “Them.” He gave Jerome a pointed look, brows waggling meaningfully.
Jerome exhaled slow, smoke curling into the thick air. “Them who? The fellas stealin' my garden gnomes?”
“No, Jerome! Aliens! Little green men. Flying saucers.”
Jerome chuckled, a sound like gravel in a tin can. “Mark, you been watchin' too much 'Twilight Zone.' Ain’t no flying saucers landin' in Betty Lou’s petunias. This is Coosa County. Closest thing to excitement around here’s a two-for-one on Vienna sausages at the Piggly Wiggly.”
Mark leaned in, undeterred. “Just imagine it, Jerome. We’re sittin’ here, mindin’ our business, and bam, big shiny ship floats down. Doors hiss open. Out they step. What do you reckon they’d be like?”
Jerome dragged long on his cigarette, mulling it over. “Prob'ly lookin' for a barbecue joint. Or needin’ to borrow a cup of sugar. Neighborly stuff.”
Mark’s eyes widened. “Or maybe they got ray guns! Or probes! They could be studyin’ us like bugs under a microscope.” He gave an exaggerated shudder.
Jerome flicked ash off the railing. “If they got probes, you might wanna go first. Might finally figure out what’s rattlin’ around in that thick head of yours.”
Mark ignored him. “But what if they’re friendly? What if they got technology? Flyin’ without airplanes! Curin’ the common cold! Maybe even get us a decent Wi-Fi signal out here.”
Jerome snorted. “Now you’re talkin’. If they can fix my internet, I’ll give 'em all the Vienna sausages they can eat.” He paused, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You know what the first thing they’d probably ask?”
Mark perked up. “What?”
Jerome grinned, wicked and wide. “If anybody’s got a spare cigarette.”
Just then, a small gray lump tumbled from Mark’s shirt pocket and landed with a soft thud between them — the mangled cigarette butt he’d borrowed earlier. It sat there, pitiful, in the dying light.
Jerome stared at it, then at Mark, slow grin spreading.
“Well, looky here,” he said, voice full of dry amusement. “Guess somethin’ alien did land on our porch after all.”
And somewhere between the rustle of that crumpled pack and the ridiculousness of a borrowed cigarette, the world — as it always does when fools talk too loud on porches — shifted.
It started subtle.
The streetlamp across the cracked pavement flickered once, a final spasm of light, then went dark.
It didn’t blink.
It stared.
And then it watched.
The air dropped ten degrees, just like that. No breeze. No warning.
Just the sharp, invisible snap of a place exhaling something it shouldn’t.
Jerome froze, squinting into the stillness.
“Mark... you feel that?”
Mark didn’t answer. Not fear. Not yet. Just confusion, the look of a man who knows the world’s off-balance but can’t tell which way it’s tilting.
The stray dog that barked at every shadow? Silent. The low hum of distant traffic? Gone.
Even the usual drone of the night held its breath. Then, the sky tore.
No thunder. No lightning.
Just a sound like a zipper pulled across bone and time. A flash of light.
A shape.
A spaceship.
Maybe. But wrong.
Not quite in the sky, not quite on the ground, hovering, folding into itself like origami made of shadow and regret.
Jerome, unfazed, slid a single cigarette across his palm, as solemn as a priest handling communion.
And then, it dropped.
Hard.
Not so much a crash as a cosmic insult.
The kind of landing that didn’t just shake the ground, it offended it.
Like the earth itself gagged and said, “Now what in the hell is this?”
It hit right behind the pawn shop that never closed, beside the dumpster that had legally declared itself a habitat.
A ship, if you could call it that. Less "sleek alien cruiser," more "metal fever dream on probation."
Lights sputtered. The hull coughed smoke like it had lungs. Something inside hissed like a broken promise.
It hadn’t come from anywhere you could find on a map. Not from space, not from anything you could trace with science, satellite, or prayer.
It came by mistake. A wrong turn.
To the wrong planet.
At exactly the wrong time.
And Mark?
Poor Mark had just tucked that cigarette between his lips, like he’d finally achieved something worth celebrating.
He didn’t even get to light it.
One second, blessed tobacco hope.
The next, Splat.
Jerome didn’t scream so much as let out a drawn-out, offended, “DAAAMN!”
The porch exploded in a rain of splinters, cigarette ash, and the shredded dignity of two men now officially on the universe’s “Oops” list.
They weren’t soldiers.
Weren’t heroes.
Weren’t chosen.
Just two fools with bad lungs, worse luck. And now?
They weren’t even part of the welcoming committee.
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