BY Mary Thorson
We learned that the sky was made of metal and people in the dark of the shortest day of the year. Just as fast as rain, the sky ripped open orange and our town’s population grew by 259. They grouped together, sleeping next to one another.
With a surprising boldness, they sleep-walked through our town. We found them out on the street, their suitcases emptied because they were here to stay. Their shoes off and on the lawn to be polite, because they were dirty and covered in jet fuel.
They came to watch the TV with us–our routine before bed. They liked our UK programming, even though they must have been used to violence and sex on American cable. They saw Harry Corbett play with Sooty and they laughed–or they might have. It was something we could imagine, because some of them looked just like us. Their perms growing out and their eyebrows trimmed just the same. But their eyes were
closed. We would let them sleep.
We found them inspecting our gardens. A girl in blue crawled over the hedges and laid there, right on top, which we thought was odd but maybe it was a custom we didn’t quite understand. She was still pretty. She was still young. Maybe this was how she did it. Her own routine before bed. We would let her sleep.
We found them hanging from our roofs, still strapped into their seats, dozing with their bare feet reaching down to the ground. Maybe some of them were nervous to come all the way down. That’s okay, we would wait for them. We would make room for them. But for now, we would let them sleep.
They were messy, which we expected. Americans tend to be. They had so many things. Their clothes and arms and purses and legs and driver’s licenses were strewn all over, from Tundergarth Field to Sydney Place to Sherwood Crescent.
We wanted to welcome them, and so we took their things. We took their clothes and we washed them and ironed them and folded them. We did not even stack them, we kept them separate from each other because Americans are such individuals, and we wanted them to be able to find what was theirs straight away. Christmas was in just days, and we wanted them to be able to dress their best.
They were quiet during mass, but so was our priest. He was new, too, and he was tired.
We took them home with us and we kept them because this is where they came. This is where they fell. We would take care of them. We would let them sleep.
Mary Thorson lives and writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She received her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her MFA from Pacific University in Oregon. Her stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Review, Milwaukee Noir, Worcester Review, Rock and a Hard Place, Tough, among others. Her short story, "Book of Ruth," will be appearing in Best American Mystery & Suspense, '24, edited by Steph Cha and S.A. Cosby. Her work has been nominated for Best American Short Stories, A Derringer, and a Pushcart Prize. She hangs out with her two feisty daughters, the best husband, and a dog named Pam when she isn’t teaching high school English, reading, or writing ghost stories. She is represented by Lori Galvin at Aevitas Creative Management. She is currently working on a novel.