“Dude, your car is on empty. I told you I would pay for gas. We are out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Pax man, Pax. We are still good. The Green dragon still has plenty of gas. I can go until the needle is below the E.”
“Oh, ok; I feel so much better.”
“Just relax and enjoy the ride.”
Dave leaned back in bench seat, his arm hanging out the open the window. It was a hot summer day, and the two of them decided to go for one of their random drives in Eric’s affectionately named ‘Green dragon. The Green dragon was a 1974 Chevy Chevelle Malibu, forest green, hence earning its nickname.
This road trip had led them to a dusty country road, a cornfield on one side and the small wooded area on the other. Eric continued to drive down the dusty country road, the two of them listening to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on 8-track. The old 8-track player had become stuck on that one song for no apparent reason. It had taken two dimes and a nickel, wedged between the tape and the player to even get it to play, and now it was stuck on a continuous loop.
After a mile or two Eric turned to Dave, “The corn looks ripe. We should stop and pick a few ears to eat later.”
Dave glanced back at Eric, “Sure when we run out of gas we will at least have something to eat.”
“Don’t worry man; we have plenty of gas. I am going to pull over to get some corn.” Eric began leaning forward looking over the dashboard, scanning the roadside for a place to pull the Green dragon into without it getting stuck. Dave leaned out the passenger car window to help find a place that was clear of the ditch running along the cornfield.
“There’s a place,” Eric shouted and pointed off to the side a bit farther up the road.
“Yeah it looks good, the ditch stops, and you should have enough room to pull over.”
Suddenly the Green dragon began to sputter and shake; it almost sounded like it was coughing. Eric tried to feather the gas pedal as Dave just looked at him. Eric shot him a glance, ‘it’s not gas, the needle is still at the E, not below it.’ Then the music began to slow down, stopping just as the car came to a jolting stop.
“I didn’t say anything, Eric. I don’t think it is the gas as well.”
Eric made several attempts to start the Green Dragon, but she would not even turn over. There was no power; not even the dome lights would turn on. Eric popped the hood to the car, and both of them got out. The auto was aptly named as they opened the hood to the engine, which once raised looked like a gaping maul of a dragon. They both glanced around at the engine, looking for any signs as to why the car suddenly stopped.
After a few minutes of no success, a slight hum began ringing in their ears.
“Eric, do you hear that? A low hum and it is getting louder.”
“You hear it too? I thought it was just me. Is it coming from the engine?”
“I don’t think so, and it sounds like it is just in the air.” The two of them looked around, seeing nothing their attention refocused on the engine. The two of them stood there for another minute, dumbfounded by why the Green Dragon was not roaring back to life. As they talked, the humming noise grew louder as if a swarm of gnats was buzzing in their ears. Their discussion over the engine and now the increasing humming came to a sudden stop.
“Um, Dave, do you see the flashing light reflection on the hood?”
“Yeah, it looks like a freaking colorful disco ball. I don’t want to turn around and see what it is.”
“I know man; those are not police lights. We do have to take a peak to see what it is.”
“Agreed.”
The two of them spun around to an unexpected, otherworldly sight. Ten feet in front of them was a spinning rhombus approximately one foot in length. It was whirling, strobing with the rainbow of colored lights. The fascinating thing that they both noticed, aside from there was a one-foot rhombus, hovering and spinning in the air was that it was not three-dimensional. It appeared flat, like a sheet of paper.
It slowly began to move towards them and then stopped. Now, the rhombus’s whirling sped up, emitting colored light rays, and it doubled in size.
“Dude, let’s check it out.”
“Are you serious Eric? We are in the middle of nowhere, the car died, probably because of that thing and now you want to go get a closer look at the colorful rhombus?”
“This is so cool, let’s just take a few steps toward it and see what happens.”
Dave shook his head, “You know this is how people get abducted or teleported to another world. But what the hell, you don’t see something like this every day.”
They took a few steps towards the object. The object reacted by increasing in size, humming grew, and the light rays now stretched out across the entire row. The corn in the field next to the entity began to pop on the stalk!
Eri and Dave stopped in their tracks, both turning their heads to look at the popping corn, then looking at the thing, and ending up just looking at each other. The whirling dervish rhombus suddenly began moving towards them, growing in size. The multi-colored rays focused into a single beam that appeared to be scanning Eric and Dave. The rhombus came to a stop just a few feet from the two of them. The whirling motion slowed as the light rays washed over Eric and Dave. The strange object stopped forming what looked like a doorway, tall and wide enough for both to them to pass through.
“Dude, that does look like a portal or doorway to you?”
“Yes it does, this is pretty cool, Dave. Should we go through?”
“You know that if we step into it, we will probably end up somewhere that is not on earth. You do realize this could be a trap, a way to capture new specimens.” Dave paused for a moment looking at the portal. “Or it could lead to another world.”
Dave rushed around to the passenger side of the car, leaning in he grabbed his phone and satchel, which had a tablet in it. He returned to the exact place he had been standing just a minute before. Eric looked at him.
“You know those will not work if we end up somewhere else.”
“True. However, the camera and music player will work, for a while at least. Might as well be able to take photos and listen to music if we end up someplace interesting…” Dave’s sentence trailed off as the humming from the rotating rhombus grew much louder.
They looked at each other and then back at this otherworldly gateway. Before Eric and Dave could utter another word, the light beams encompassed and encased them, forming what appeared to be a bubble, then as quickly as snapping one's fingers, the bubble pulled into the portal.
Only the incapacitated Green Dragon heard the last words spoken simultaneously by Dave and Eric, “Oh shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiit!”
