Clothesline

Clothesline

 by Ramsés Dávila-Luna at The Writer’s Cavern

“Up the road a ways”

Delta, Alabama

Clay County

1989

          The night here is suffocating. Without proper lighting, the real fear isn’t the dark, but the deer that can suddenly dart onto the road and cause an accident.  

           Noah Smith, 59, lean and tall, smokes a cigarette as he leans against his police cruiser. He looks up at the night sky and gazes at the stars. He’s set on tracking how the smoke clouds blend into the night sky above him. He lifts his scarred left hand toward the sky, as if yearning for it to become part of the night.

           The police cruiser is turned off and parked behind a tree line. For the past four nights, the minister at Bethel Baptist Church has reported strange nighttime activity at Bethel Cemetery just up the road. This is rare because Bethel Church Rd is a rural country road, and most visitors come only by day for services or visitations.

           It’s not common practice for one to disrespect the church grounds. The church anchors the community and fills up for Sunday services. Adult attendees are especially careful never to let the kids or teenagers wander off into the nearby Talladega National Forest.

           “I wish I could see you again,” Noah blurted out as he crushed the cigarette bud with his feet.

           Through the tree line, Noah saw a car's headlights turn off as it pulled onto Bethel Church Rd. The car drove past the church and parked near Bethel Cemetery. He went into his vehicle and pulled out a flashlight.

           A soft humming noise hit Noah’s ears. He drew his weapon and scanned his perimeter. As he turned to look up, the stars above him became blanketed by a black mass. The black shape resembled a pyramid the size of an entire city block. The night in these isolated places frequently played mind games, and Noah convinced himself it was exactly that. He gathered himself and jogged towards the cemetery close by.

           The triangle from above followed Noah the entire way, but this policeman didn’t believe in the otherworldly. Life followed a formula, with every answer precisely defined. The only mystery was in human inaction, so he jogged faster towards the cemetery to find his answers.

           Noah finally reached the concrete roadway bordering the cemetery. The headlights of a car suddenly turned on and drove straight towards him. With barely any time to react defensively, he wildly let out a shot and leaped forward onto a patch of grass. The vehicle zoomed past him and made its way back to exit Bethel Church Rd.

           “Please, don’t shoot me, mister!” a nervous female voice cried out.

           “Who's there?” Noah replied with his weapon pointed into the distance. He turned on his flashlight and pointed it forward, revealing a figure in a hooded sweatshirt standing in the middle of the roadway. The figure held a bag with a glowing red light emanating from it.

           “Get on the ground! Now! Get on the fucking ground!” Noah furiously screamed as the figure dropped on all fours. He pulled out his handcuffs and fastened them around soft, small hands.

           “I can explain, Noah.”

           “How do you know my name? Who are you? Is there someone else here with you?”

           “No, my friend tricked me and left me here. They’ve been waiting for you.”

           “Your friend just tried to run me over!” Noah screamed out as he turned her over and removed the hood from her face.

           A freckled, redheaded teenager came into view. Her neckline had curved indentations and scratches with a different pigmentation.

           “Isn’t it past your bedtime? What’s your name?” Noah asked as he patted her down for weapons.

           “My name's Stacey. My friend and I came out here three nights ago for shits and giggles. This thing that’s in the bag fell out of the sky, and we took it home. Four small E.T. things showed up. They looked just like in the freaking movie, and they told us to keep coming back here until Noah met up with us.”

           “You’re on that reefer, aren’t you?”

           “Dude, no. You got to believe me!”

            Noah glanced skyward, and the outline of the triangle still lingered against the night.

           “The spaceship. It was following us the whole way here. You see it too, don’t you?” Stacey shrieked.

           “Alright, that’s enough out of you. I’m going to take you back home.”

           Noah escorted the handcuffed teen back to the police car, carrying the glowing red bag. As the teen hopped into the back, the light inside the car revealed heavy bruises and markings on her pale hands. He took the bag up front and opened it. The rock was baseball-sized and looked like a glowing red emerald.

           “Don’t touch it, bro!” Stacey yelled at Noah as he almost went into the bag to grab it.

           “Where do your parents live?”

           “Lineville, but can’t you drop me off somewhere else close by? Like at a shelter.”

           “You want me to book you into the jailhouse or take you home?”

            In the back of the car, Stacey pulled away, her worried expression replacing the cheerful, talkative girl she’d been moments before. Noah turned on the radio and tuned into his favorite classical piano station. The silence grew stronger along the way, and the nearer they got to Lineville, the more Stacey got nervous.

           “It let me see how he used to be. The different side of him,” Stacey said emotionally.

           “What are you talking about?”

           “My father. When I touched the rock, it let me see how he was back in the day.”

           “Didn’t you grow up with him? How could you not have seen this old version of him?”

           “He got divorced and later met my mom. He changed.”

           “How so?”

           “He lost his true love. He used to be kind. I saw it all.”

“This rock lets you go back in time?”

“The aliens taught me how to use it. My friend was too chicken shit to hold onto it.”

“Well, this rock of yours. It’s mine. You won’t have to worry about it anymore. I saved you in my time-traveling police cruiser,” Noah said sarcastically.

“They never told me why I had to meet you. All they said was, ‘There’s a clothesline that ties you together,’” Stacey said quietly as the car parked in front of her house.

           They had arrived at their destination on Foster Cove Drive. Noah took Stacey out of the car, removed her handcuffs, and walked her up the front steps. He rang the doorbell a couple of times until the lights inside turned on.

           An older scruffy man in his 60s opened the door full swing. He wore matching pajamas, and a belt hung on a coat rack right behind him. He gave a stern look at Noah, and his face shrunk even more when he saw Stacey by his side.

           “Sorry to bother you, sir. I’m Officer Noah Smith from Delta. I found your daughter playing at a cemetery at night…” Noah explained.

           “The name’s Dalton. It isn’t enough that you bother the living. Now you moved on to shake the dead out of their grave,” Dalton said as he stared at Stacey with hovering eyes.

           Stacey kept her gaze down and stiffened in shock. Dalton grabbed her sweater and pulled her inside.

           “If this happens again, I am going to have to book her…” Noah continued to say.

           “Won’t happen again. I’ll make sure Stacey and I are on the same page tonight,” Dalton shouted out sinisterly. He motioned to close the door, but Noah stopped him with his hand.

           Stacey stood behind her father, tears streaming down her face. Noah focused on the sight of the belt on the coat rack and snapped forward to grab Dalton by his shirt. He pressed Dalton close to his face and held him as he trembled, trying to hold back his anger.

           “If I ever see another mark on that girl, I am going to come back here so we can go play in the cemetery at night ourselves. You hear me?” Noah told Dalton as he seethed at the mouth.

           Dalton reciprocated the cold stare, but his eyes didn’t match Noah’s intensity, and he relinquished control by looking away in time.

           “I heard you,” Dalton replied as Noah loosened his grip and slowly let him go.

           Stacey and Noah locked eyes one last time before Dalton softly closed the door. Noah walked back to the car, looking up at the sky along the way. There was no sight of the triangle shape. When Noah got back into his cruiser, he looked at the bag with the rock inside and saw how it glowed with more intensity. He took one last look at Stacey’s home until he saw the lights inside turn off.

           Back home, Noah rested on his living room sofa with the glowing red bag and a torn picture of his mother on a large coffee table. In the picture, someone had their arm around his mother, but Noah had torn off the mystery figure. He opened the bag and turned it over, letting the red glowing rock roll onto the table. Without much thinking, he placed a hand onto the rock as he looked at the ripped portrait of his mother.

           Noah’s vision started to blur. He could see the walls and shapes around him start to bend.

           Before he knew it, Noah found himself back at his childhood home in North Carolina. A huge cornfield stood next to their plot of land. His mother fixed shirts and pants on a clothesline outside. Noah tried to make out her face behind the clothes, but every new piece she hung up hid her more. When Noah tried to move towards his mother, he found himself frozen and unable to budge.

           A short, alien gray stepped to his side and looked up at Noah with its beady, giant eyes. The gray didn’t speak but connected with Noah telepathically.

           “How selfish of you,” the gray transmitted to Noah.

           “That’s my moth-”

           “We know, but unlike Stacey, you had a choice. You chose to leave your home and never come back consciously. You chose to never forgive the past. This is where your mother hoped and dreamed you would come back. She prayed and prayed for you to show up one day and meet up with her at the clothesline.”

           “If you saw what my fath-”

           “He did the same to your mother. She stayed by your side. You left, and now you live with that regret of never having returned home.”

           Tears gushed from Noah’s eyes. He could make out his mother’s bruised hands as they gracefully pinned each piece of clothing onto the line.

           “I abandoned my mother,” Noah let out in anguish.

           A giant shadow cast over them. The triangular mothership flew into view right over them, and the surroundings slowly morphed back into Noah’s home. Almost immediately, he was transported back to his living room couch as he dropped the rock and cried.

           “I abandoned her,” Noah muttered to himself.

           Three short and stout alien grays stood before Noah. One of them picked up the rock and held it without issue.

           “All is not lost, Noah. Your actions tonight kept her from running away, as you once did. Because of you, she will find her father’s love and remain where she’s needed. One day, Stacey’s role will be crucial to many fates. The stone found you, just as we intended,” the three alien grays telepathically told Noah.

           “Why me?”

           “You share the same pain. Those vibrations are a force to reckon with to mold one’s fate. It’s something we don’t quite understand ourselves, but things worked out.”

           A bright light shot into the living room and filled the home. Peter closed his eyes, unable to stand the intensity of the light. In a flash, the alien grays had disappeared. Noah looked at the photo on his coffee table—restored to its original state, showing him with his father and mother.

Copyright © 2026 The Writer's Cavern by Ramsés Dávila-Luna at The Writer’s Cavern LLC. All rights reserved.