Threat of Nuclear Milk

  Sonora, Texas 4:28 a.m. 1995.
  3,140 souls slept soundly in the early morning hours of a warmer than normal July.  The county seat of Sutton County, Sonora was just a typical small town in the Western Hill Country of Texas.  Sonora was just one of a half dozen small towns that Jim had deliver to that Friday morning.  Sweeping across the darkness he drove the highways and roads that connected these towns on his milk delivery route.  One stop after another like some version of a lactose infused Santa he made his deliveries six mornings a week climbing into his delivery truck at three am.
  Jim didn't really mind the odd hours, the endless miles, or even the hard work, hell he couldn't remember a job he had that haven't at least involved one of those demands.  He enjoyed being off early enough to pick his boys up from school, one just out of kindergarten and the other in elementary school.  That was truly his career, being a father, that was where he shined brightest.  Jim would not let his boys have the kind of father he had, that is how they ended up in their own small town being raised on the rivers and baseball fields that small towns could still offer at the time.
  Jim could only laugh to himself as he was headed to his next town on his route that the only light in town was turning from green to yellow and red.  With the groaning of metal and brakes his truck came to an ungraceful stop under the bright red light of the stop light.  He noticed at that time a beat up Ford pick up was pulling up next to him at the same light.  "We got about the same luck mister," he thought to himself as he nodded to his companion sitting in the Ford next to him.
  In that moment of stillness, a yawn began to creep across Jim's face and then without warning a bright red flash crashed across the sky.  Jim leaned forward as far as he could, his head moving past his steering wheel into his dashboard scanning for the origin of the light in the night's sky.
  The light itself was moving west to east across the sky parallel to the horizon, red and bright in color moving at steady pace.  Jim stared motionless at the light as it crossed from one side of his window shield to the other and back into the darkness of the night.  Jim's mind panicked as he tried to imagine what he had just witnessed, with no real shape to describe it.
  The quiet of the night was interrupted harshly by his companion in the Ford letting loose a honk of his horn and signaling for Jim to roll down his window.  Jim reached over and manually rolled down the window creaking with every rotation of the handle.  "What the fuck was that?" said the man in the Ford that Jim supposed was around the same age as him.  Jim being as dumbfounded this stranger in the night replied, "I don't...I don't....I have no idea man!"  With a shuck of the shoulders and a "wow," the man in the Ford moved forward under the green light of the stop light and into the night.
  Jim continued to sit there, alone now on the street and he felt a fear begin to enter his thoughts.  "My boys, oh no, no."  He turned on his radio and began spinning the dial seeking out radio stations for the news.  Had it made it to the news yet, had the government warned anybody, how could they not? There had to be a station with news of the attack, how could nobody be talking about that rocket or bomb he had just seen headed towards San Antonio or Houston?
  After ten minutes of searching the few stations he could pick up, he came to the realization that there had been no attack, no rocket, no bomb.  His boys were still safe, asleep at home.  As reality slipped back into frame Jim noticed the hairs on the back of neck stand up.  Jim also realized he didn't know what that light was.  Red. Bright. Burning. Tearing across the Texas Hill Country sky.

"Humanity hasn't found God yet because we only look where we have been told and taught too."