The Afternoon

A man stares out of his window to see a strange oby

Arthur Finch loved the quiet hum of his clifftop bungalow. It was an old place, built into the rugged coastline, with a wide veranda that offered uninterrupted views of the cerulean expanse of the sea. He’d retired here five years ago, leaving the cacophony of city life behind for the rhythmic crash of waves and the cries of gulls. His days were filled with reading, tending his small herb garden, and simply watching the world go by.

This particular afternoon, the late autumn sun was casting long, golden shadows across his living room. Arthur was nestled in his favourite armchair, a well-worn copy of ‘Moby Dick’ open on his lap, a mug of lukewarm tea beside him. His gaze, however, was fixed not on Ahab’s obsession, but on the horizon.

That’s when he saw it.

At first, he dismissed it as a trick of the light, or perhaps a smudge on the windowpane. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and peered again. It was still there.

Far out, perhaps a mile or so from shore, something floated on the water. It wasn’t a boat; there were no sails, no tell-tale engine plume, no characteristic outline of a hull. It wasn’t a piece of debris, either. Debris bobbed, drifted, sometimes glinted. This thing was… static. And perfectly, impossibly black.

Not just dark, but utterly devoid of light. It seemed to absorb the very sunbeams that touched its surface, creating a void in the shimmering blue. It was a perfect, unyielding black, like a hole punched clean through the fabric of reality.

Arthur’s cartographer’s instincts, long dormant, began to prickle. He reached for the old brass telescope resting on a tri-pod near the window, carefully adjusting the focus.

Through the lens, the strangeness only intensified. The object was larger than he'd first thought, easily the size of a small house. Its shape was deceptively simple: a sleek, almost oval form, with edges so sharp they seemed to cut the air around them. There were no visible seams, no rivets, no indication of its construction. It was just… there. A monolithic, featureless void on the surface of the living ocean.

He watched, transfixed, for what felt like an eternity. The gulls, usually raucous, seemed to have fallen silent. The only sound was the familiar sigh of the ocean below the cliffs, now imbued with an unsettling, lonely quality.

Then, it moved. Not with a drift, or a bob, or a shift. It expanded.

Slowly, deliberately, a segment of the black mass began to separate, unfolding like a colossal, obsidian petal. It didn't break or ripple the water, but simply extended, a silent, smooth articulation that defied the laws of physics as Arthur knew them. As it unfolded, a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer began to emanate from within the newly exposed crevice. It was a colour he couldn't quite name, a deep, shifting violet that seemed to swallow light like the rest of the object, yet also pulsed with an internal glow.

A low, resonant thrum began to vibrate through the floorboards of his bungalow, rising from the depths of the ocean. It was a sound he felt more than heard, a deep, infrasonic hum that rattled his teeth and made the teacup on the table dance.

He gripped the telescope, knuckles white. His mind, usually so orderly and rational, raced to find an explanation. Geological phenomenon? An undiscovered deep-sea creature? Military experiment gone awry? None of it fit the profound, unnatural stillness of the object, or its silent, geometric unfolding.

The violet light intensified, now forming a perfect circle within the expanding black shell. It wasn't illuminating anything; instead, it felt like a window, a portal into an immeasurable depth. As he stared, Arthur felt a strange, cold pull �" a profound sense of otherness that reached across the water and tugged at something ancient within him.

He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the world he thought he knew had just fundamentally changed. He was no longer just an old man in a bungalow, watching the sea. He was an observer, perhaps the only one, to something utterly, terrifyingly new.

And the strange, silent object on the horizon, with its pulsing violet heart, was waiting. Waiting for him, perhaps, or for something else entirely. He didn't know whether to run, to call someone, or to simply keep watching until his eyes gave out.

He just knew he couldn't look away.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Well, you left us with a cliffhanger! Your writing is excellent, and held my interest all the way through. I would like to have seen the issue resolved, but that's okay. The old fellow's comfortable state is certainly rattled.