Valley of Light: A Loop Serial Story

Part 2, by E. M. Young

[Picking up the story from the paragraph beginning: “Steve leaves for work at 7 a.m. each morning. His wife, Becky, kisses him goodbye without knowing exactly where he is going or what he is working on. His work is secret ... Where does he go? What secrets does he keep?]

The problem is that Steve talks in his sleep. And Becky is a light sleeper. Steve is often restless in his sleep, too. Sometimes what Steve blurts out in the quiet of the night puts an end to Becky’s rest and is largely responsible for her chronic insomnia. But she can’t admit that to her well-meaning friends or even to her concerned doctor.

What does Steve mean when he says big doors on the side of some mountain open up and he flies in? Didn’t he leave the driveway in his old pickup? Where has he gone? Which mountain? We’re surrounded by them. And just how far inside does he travel? What big elevators going way down? To where and on what fast trains?

One night he bolted straight up in bed and announced, still asleep, that he is NOT working with THOSE ones! Those little ones smell bad and the way they read his thoughts unnerves him. He likes working with the ones who look more like us. Look more...?!

Another night Becky was more curious than startled when Steve softly murmured in her ear that the Earth looked so small and beautiful and vulnerable from where he was observing it. And in the next breath apologized that he got caught trying to bring home the little souvenir for her. “Captain was real angry I even attempted to put it in my pocket. Maybe another time, dear.”

By first light in the valley, Becky was typically already up and brewing the morning coffee. And mulling over whatever was the night’s “report” from her sleeping husband. Was he just a vivid dreamer like the ones she’s read about in the ladies’ magazines at her hairdresser? Or were his dreams truly the troubled outbursts of a person under chains of silence and daily experiences of other worldliness she could hardly imagine might be true?

She dare not ask and add to Steve’s stress. Well, at least not yet. But things were surely coming to a boiling point with the new baby now well on the way.

or Part 3 click HERE