SMALLVILLE, KANSAS

1980

The lonely house stood on the hill where the freshly cut grass from the earlier day time had sprayed a spring scent. A slight breeze that slowly traveled through brought some coolness from an otherwise agonizing scorching hot day. Inside the house, there was only one light on.

The thirty-something-year-old woman in the bed was on her side not in the slightest bit tired. The day had been unbearable for her. The day at the clinic had not brought her the good news she was dying to hear throughout her years of being married. For days, her family friends have been relentlessly asking her about the news of raising a family. After today, what would she tell them?

A tear had just begun to surface above her eye. The night couldn't cure her, but it was an umbrella of a depressing storm. The sound of crickets singing happily on a warm night under a cloudless sky was the only thing keeping her peaceful. She didn't mind the light from the desk lamp being on. It hadn't mattered at that point.

The door to the bedroom opened at a gradual creak. She didn't move. Her husband, a few years older than her stood there, calculating the words for her. There wasn't anything easy to say. The news from the doctor today hadn't brought any good news they were hoping for. Ever since they got home, she had been lying in bed, unmoving and bearing no emotion but numbness.

"Hey," her husband said softly.

She didn't answer.

"You okay?" he whispered openly.

Her eyes began to burn as they flooded. She couldn't bear to face her husband in this state of despair. But her husband had sensed it.

Without making too much noise, he had gotten on the bed, settling himself near the edge. He laid beside her with one muscular farmer's arm around her, supporting her. Seconds followed, and he felt her hand place itself on his arm.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered against the nape of her neck, feeling her grief.

She tucked her lips inward, blinking back any more tears upon hearing the comfort of his words.

The man sighed through his nose quietly. "I know how much you wanted to have a family," he said placing his chin on her bare tender shoulders. "But you are the family I need. You are my family."

The woman sniffled. She couldn't take it. She turned herself around tears now rolling down freely. Her husband proceeded to wrap his arms around her, securing her.

"I'm so sorry," she wept softly. "I'm sorry."

"No . . .," the husband shushed, holding her even tighter. "I love you more than anything in this whole world. The doctors did all they could. And I don't blame you. Do you hear me? It's not your fault."

The sound of rattling metal from the lamp on the desk drawer beside the bed rang. The light from the lamp started flickering on and off, startling the husband and wife. They shot themselves up from their sides on the bed and darted their eyes all around. They saw that everything hanging on the wall was vibrating, adding along to the chorus of rattling as they felt the bed move on the wooden floor. A tremor began shifting everything around them. Their eyes darted everywhere.

"Oh, God," the husband said, "it's an earthquake!"

"Quick!" the wife shouted as they both darted out of the bed and quickly got themselves on all fours. Fighting the vibrations of the room, the husband and wife crawled under the bed. The husband firmly gripped on the wooden legs tightly while the wife bunched herself within the man's chest, shielding herself from anything. The rumbling noises were then overtaken by another noise. A noise that started as a low whistling sound. The whistling started as high pitched that could pierce anyone's hearing ability. The couple winced, though only at first. The whistling then began to lower its own pitch, but it came louder and louder by the second. At that point, it became too much. The husband and wife both covered their ears as the sound became too loud for them to bear. It became louder, and louder, and—

A large crash followed that was loud enough to make both their eardrums move. The tremor then reached its worst. The shaking became too harsh, that at least two hanging frames on the bedroom walls had given and fallen to the floor. Not even a second later, and the noises had gradually fallen.

Silence.

The husband and wife were still underneath the bed, tightening every muscle, preparing for any kind of aftershock to occur.

Nothing had happened.

The only sound now was the panting of the couple. The crickets' chorus was no more.

The wife ever so gently opened her eyes and all she could make out was the view from underneath the bed. Nothing around her had changed. "What the hell?" she whispered.

The husband cautiously looked upward in curiosity, wondering what would come next. Nothing did. All was as silent as the night before this curious quake.

"What was that?" the wife asked.

"That was short," the husband remarked with relief hidden in his voice.

"That didn't sound like an earthquake" she said. "Sounded like something hit the ground."

The husband decided it was time to get himself out from under the bed and make a move. He lifted himself up and painstakingly peeked through the window that overlooked the front yard and field.

Something had indeed landed outside. Instead of an empty peaceful field, smoke was rising from a large object had landed, forming a depression that surrounded it. Within the dent in the earth were several weak and dying flames. Seconds later, the smoke became thinner and thinner until it was clear from what it was curtaining. The object was nearly the size of a Volkswagen. It had a long looking structure like an oval. Along the sides of it had, what looked like, fins as if it were shaped like a rocket or shuttle.

Some sort of missile, Jonathan thought to himself as he analyzed it. Someone fired a missile that turned out to be a dud? It didn't look like any other missile he's seen.

"Jonathan, what is it?" Martha asked.

"I'm not sure," he answered.

"Stay right here," he said as he got himself out from underneath the bed. He then walked over to the corner of the bedroom where a double-barreled shotgun had fallen from the crash. Grabbing it, he reached into the nearby desk drawer.

"Jonathan, what are you—?" the wife exclaimed softly.

"Martha, stay here," he insisted as he grabbed shotgun shells and inserted them into his weapon. As he loaded it, he peeked his head outside the only window that overlooked the lonely grassy field. Nothing had changed, only that there was far less smoke now.

Martha got up from where she hid and walked over towards her husband to get a peek outside of their house. She saw what he was looking at and stared in amazement. The rocket-looking object didn't have a

"Is it the Russians?" Martha asked trying to make sense of it.

"Out in the middle of Kansas? I didn't think they could get that far." Jonathan hoisted the shotgun with him and proceeded to exit the bedroom as Martha followed.

The two made their way down the stairs which lead them a meter and a half away from the front door leading to the porch. With the shotgun in one hand, he pushed the front door open with his hand. By now the smoke had died down, save for the lighting coming from the little fires that were just about gone.

Jonathan walked out onto the porch with Martha following with her hands on her husband's shoulders in caution. The rocket had made no other noise aside from its booming collision from earlier. The noises of crickets remained mute. The only sound that remained was the crackling of the measly fires that were now almost to nothing but hot patches in the grass.

Jonathan and Martha got themselves down from the front stairs out onto the unharmed portion of the grassy field. They could feel the slight heat from the large object, slowing down their pacing towards the crater.

As they got their way to where the depression started just inches away from their feet, they looked down as Jonathan had his shotgun at the ready. They looked down and they saw a better view of the rocket. It had a very peculiar design. From what it seemed, there were little engravings on the rocket. It didn't look like any other comprehensible language, not even Russian dialogue.

The biggest feature that caught both Jonathan and Martha's eyes was that there was a large glass-like window that was placed in the center of the rocket. The glass had been cracked open, revealing a black void beyond it. It was hard to tell the contents within from where they were standing.

As the couple neared further with Jonathan's shotgun aimed, a sound was heard. It was a little coo and then turned into a fuss. Both gasped as they heard it.

"Oh my God!" Martha silently gasped with her eyes growing white-hot as they widened. "It's a baby!"

The baby's cooing turned a little louder now. Aside from the oddity, it was a beautiful sound for Martha, who thought she would never live to hear after today. The sound eased Jonathan's grip on the shotgun, but he kept it in the same position as he tilted his head and squeezed his eyebrows together.

"A baby?" he said wildly. "In a rocket?"

"We gotta get it out!" Martha exclaimed as she reached over towards the rocket.

"Wait!" Jonathan exclaimed, not buying this for one second. "What if it's something else?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Jonathan!" Martha insisted. "It's a child!"

Martha climbed over and looked through the angular hole where the glass had broken. She looked inside beyond the jagged edges of the glass and there it was. Indeed, there was a baby. The baby was letting out several babbling cries in a repeating pattern. It had been tucked in what seemed a nice cushioned little space where it had been lying. Wrapped around it was a large red cloth, save for its chubby warm-red squinting face.

"Careful," Jonathan warned as he saw his wife about to place her hands near broken glass.

Thankfully, the hole within the glass wasn't too small for any person to reach inside without being cut if one was careful enough. Martha's arms fit perfectly inside the rocket's window and braced the child with all of her fingers that wrapped themselves around the red cloth. With both her hands on the child's sides, she scooped the clothed baby from where it had been lying.

Taking her time, she pulled the baby out of the window of the rocket and placed it within her own arms, giving Martha much warmth. As the child was now free from its glassy prison, Martha looked down at it.

She let out a joyful gasping laugh. The child was beautiful. Martha nearly shivered while holding it in her arms. This moment had been exactly what she had imagined for the longest time since she thought about having a baby. It was finally here.

With the shotgun now held in one hand pointing downward, Jonathan's eyes froze on Martha's face. He had not seen her smile this brightly for the longest time. Seeing her so content forced a smile on his face. Enough seconds and he could've joined her tears.

"Oh, he's beautiful!" Martha exclaimed with tears in her eyes. "It's a boy."

Jonathan's trance broke and reality returned. "But what's a baby doing in . . . in a rocket? I mean, do you think . . . maybe the Russians would put it up there?"

That statement was enough to break Martha out of her enchantment. She gave her husband a look. "Why would the Russians put a baby in space?"

"I . . . I don't know!" he stammered. "Like . . . what if they come back looking for him or something?"

Yeah, it did sound ridiculous in that sense.

Martha just cocked her head and squinted at him.

"We'll need to get him to a doctor or something," he recovered. "Maybe call a sheriff and see if they could . . . they could find out who he belongs to." His voice trailed, realizing that he was losing this argument.

"What kind of person would place a child in something like this?" Martha asked aggressively.

"We don't know where it came from, Martha," Jonathan replied, trying to bring her to her senses. "Wouldn't you want to know?"

"He's not from around here," Martha admitted. "But this child needs a home. And that," she bitterly pointed at the ruined rocket, "is not the place for it."

Jonathan raised his eyebrows and looked at his wife curiously. "Are you suggesting that we keep him?" he asked, wondering if they were intimating what he figured they were doing.

"Whoever put him in that thing isn't raising him," Martha said deeply. "He's staying with us."

Jonathan looked as if he was about to speak, but Martha caught him off and continued, "We know he's not from here. That also means that this thing," she pointed at the rocket with her free finger, "doesn't look like it's from around here. We don't even know what it is. Do you?"

Jonathan desperately tried to find answers within himself to these questions. Questions that he might as well have asked himself. If this baby just crash-landed in a mysterious looking object, then government agents might be looking for him. On the other hand, he was thankful that he was just as stumped as she was as they both were thinking the same thing. "No," Jonathan answered calmly.

Martha nodded in understanding as the baby started fussing more. She started making bopping motions with her arms to soothe its stirring, silently hushing it while holding its tiny head.

Jonathan looked at his wife again. Before the day's earlier news, he had dreamed about a day like this. He had dreamed about his wife holding their own child one day. The sight of his wife holding a child for theirs to keep forced a smile onto his face as he saw this fantasy form into reality. She was deeply saddened moments ago; he found that taking that away from her would've been too difficult.

The baby's fussing began to give up as Martha's arm movements and soft shushing were seemingly working. The fussing turned to cooing and eventually silence. Martha looked at the baby's sleeping face. It was so peaceful and so beautiful, her face turned from fear and concern to a profound form of contentment. While she was just as clueless as to the baby's origins as her husband was, she silently thanked God for bringing the child and her together.

As the night was calm and undisturbed once again, Jonathan, not taking his eyes off the baby, placed his hands on Martha's shoulders in support. Martha looked at her husband and couldn't help but smile. She released a trembling breath of delight. "Let's get him inside."