The Spaceship

Ron Koppelberger

The Spaceship

The spaceship was a sensational vastness in wary shadow; it eclipsed the sun and cast a silhouette across the endless acres of saffron Nate had planted. The delicate stitch of a drama in arrays of spider silk crept and cajoled the Black Widow in the corner of Nates barn, she predicted night because the lattice light shining through the slats in Nates ancient barn had gone gray with the advent of the spaceship. She began spinning silk in wide patterns of glossy weave only pausing to survey the flies she had captured. Outside Nate stared upward at the encroaching visitor. “Damnation,” he whispered, “….it’s as big as a planet.”
Nate watched the spaceship as it rippled and wavered at strange angles and soft humming dance. He swayed in rhythm to the oscillating disk, entranced by a rapturous peace.
The spider had accomplished ten rounds of silk in perfect circles of creation when she discovered the flies she had wrapped tightly in silken cocoons were breaking free. She fought the urge to attack and skewer her fare as the buzz of three or four flies, the delicate want of a Black Widow spider, queen of kings and deadly in demeanor began to fly in circles of unbroken light; a halo of flies in measured resurrection from the dark abyss of death, flew and celebrated their new life.
Nate swayed and stared at the giant disk as it sang to him in secret music, in sweet tones of youth and awakening bloom. If anyone had been watching the North pasture near the edge of the saffron expanse, they’d have been startled as the ground tore open and old Zeke, Nates horse and former partner, crawled out of the ground as good as new, in fact the horse was younger and in perfect shape.
Nate watched as birds by the dozens flew up from the soils of the farm and there was a buzzing as a thick cloud of resurrected insects flew up into the sky.
The last thing Nate remembered was the sound of his wife’s voice. She had been dead for ten years, buried in the family cemetery. There were others, some in ancient cloths but all cautiously young again.
The spaceship traveled the great expanse of the planet and near twilight tide the earth was new, nascent, reborn.