“Really,” I said, feeling so strangely calm all of a sudden that I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.
“If we fizzle and fizz out on you, don’t be disturbed,” the woman said.
“If we get a CME, we might revert,” the man said. “Kind of like a solar flare, but worse.”
“Much worse,” she said, as if bitterly amused.
“Why don’t you get yourself a cold beer,” the man said, “sit down and join us for a while?”
“Would you like one?” I said.
The man seemed as surprised as I was that I’d said this, then said, “I sure would love a beer, come to think of it.”
“Yes, I’m just dying of thirst and I would love a cold beer,” the woman said.
I went into our little kitchen and got three bottles of Budweiser from the refrigerator. On the way back to the living room I looked in on Olivia. She was still sleeping soundly, on her back, her mouth slightly open. At least she looked peaceful, though. The furrow was gone from her brow. I took the beers into the living room, opened them, and gave one each to the man and the woman. We raised them slightly to one another, in a little toast.
“How did you get here from that far away?” I said. I didn’t know much about physics and astronomy, nothing, really, but I was smart enough to know how long it would take even a ray of light to get here from five million light-years away.
“Can’t really explain it,” the man said. “We don’t normally have bodies like this, not limited to this.”
“Are you normally made of light?” I said.
“No,” he said, shaking his head and laughing, not unkindly.
“It has more to do with the fabric of the universe,” the woman said. “Sort of.”
“Negative energy,” the man said.
“Cosmic inflation,” the woman said. “Kaluza-Klein.”
“These are just terms some people are using these days,” the man said. “Their ideas are a little wacked, but they’re going in the right direction.”
“Okay,” I said. “But if that’s the case, where did you get those bodies you’re in?”
The woman grinned.
“Well, we did get these from the hospital, so in that sense we came from there.”
“It’s just easier, logistically,” the man said. “If there’s trouble with the police, or if the hosts have a little problem with the occupancy. And it’s just down the street.”
“I thought you both looked a little familiar.”
“I used to be an usher at the Royal Theater,” the woman said. “This body did, I mean.”
“I was a policeman,” the man said. “A homicide detective, actually. Busted down to traffic cop. I may have given you a ticket.”
“How did you end up in the hospital?” I said. I’d almost said “asylum,” and just caught myself.
“Drugs,” said the woman.
“Depression,” said the man. “Really bad depression.”
I said, “Do you know the old man who hunts imaginary lions on the grounds?”
“Oh, sure,” said the man.
“Imaginary?” said the woman, and she laughed.
“Mr. Hunter, believe it or not,” said the man. “He never got to hunt, before he went crazy.”
“He’s bagged two since then,” the woman said. She laughed again.
“Really.”
“You wouldn’t be able to convince him otherwise,” she said.
“You’ll have to forgive us,” the man said. “Sometimes we take on certain characteristics of the hosts.”
“Like crazy,” the woman said, bumping her eyebrows up and down. “You’re awfully young,” she said then, grinning. “I’ll bet you two ran off.”
“Yes,” I said. “We did.”
“Where are your parents?” she said. “Are they in another state?”
“No.”
The man and the woman looked at each other for a moment, then nodded. Whatever they were thinking seemed to make them very happy.
“May we have it, when it’s born?” the woman said.
“What?” I said. “No. Of course not.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed.
“Well, let’s think this over,” the man said. “We don’t have to actually have it.”
“No, I suppose not,” the woman said, cheering up just a bit. “But you could let us have it now,” she said, leaning forward. “We could take it, and it would be like it was never there.”
“Not like an abortion,” the man said.
“No, not like an abortion,” the woman said. “Just zip, gone,” and she snapped her fingers. “Gone! Into me, I mean. This lady’s not as old as she looks.”
“No side effects,” the man said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We want to keep it.”
“All right,” the man said.
“But if you change your mind,” the woman said, “just let us know.”
“Okay, but we won’t.”
“All right,” the man said. “But maybe you could let us be close to the child, somehow.”
“Like godparents,” the woman said.
“Yes,” the man said. “We’ll be available for advice. And if anything happens to you, we can take care of it.”
“Or help take care of it.”
“We’re from a very advanced civilization, for lack of a better term.”
“All right, sure,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” the man said, “we won’t interfere.”
“We have so much to offer,” the woman said. “And this place is our interest. It’s our subject, if you will. Like God.”
“You believe in God?” I said.
“Of course,” the man said.
“Well, not in the same way people here do, of course,” the woman said.
“Did you come from God?” I said. It seemed a logical question at the moment.
“Oh, let’s just not get into that,” the woman said.
“Right, yes,” the man said, laughing, closing his eyes and shaking his head, “let’s not.”
None of us said anything for a moment, me standing there in my boxer shorts holding the sweating beer bottle, them sitting on the sofa in their aged bodies and white pajamas, seeming to glow with heat and a strange satisfaction.
“It’s a glorious time for us, you see,” the woman said. “I suppose you could say we’re in the prime of our lives.”
I didn’t know what to say. I turned up the bottle and finished my beer. When I looked down at them again, they were still there, looking at me. Then she sighed and looked at the man.
“We should go now,” she said.
“Thanks for the beer,” he said.
“It was delicious,” she said. “Nice and cold.”
They said goodbye again and stepped out onto the deck. I hadn’t noticed earlier that they were barefoot. They made their way carefully, even tiptoeing on the balls of their pale, blue-veined feet, down the rickety staircase. They crossed the yard and walked down the street in the hazy light of the streetlamps, now blueish with the mist of early morning dew. I watched them from inside the screen door. At one point she turned and gave me a little wave, and I waved back.
AFTER SHE WAVED, and I had waved back, something changed. It didn’t look as if anything had changed, but it felt as if something had changed. I looked back down at the street. The strange crazy man and woman were gone. Everything else looked the same.
I went out onto the deck. If there had been a breeze, the old structure would have been swaying in it. But everything was very still. Almost as if before something terrible, like an explosion or the ground collapsing in on itself, sucking everything in. The trees stood massive, dark, and still, not daring to tremble their thin hard leaves. A vast cloud limned about its edges with moonlight seemed not to move even glacially across the sky.