{"id":6685,"date":"2015-05-06T17:32:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=6685"},"modified":"2015-05-06T17:32:32","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:32:32","slug":"obelisk","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=6685","title":{"rendered":"Obelisk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Amato<\/strong><\/p>\n

George usually stared out the kitchen window each morning, before his brain started working. He usually held his coffee and watched the sun rise over his neighbor\u2019s house. It was calming.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for George\u2019s routine, something unexpected blocked the sun. As his brain was still powering on, it took him a moment to realize this was peculiar. \u201cHmm,\u201d he muttered to himself. \u201cHmm.\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife Lucy came into the kitchen yawning. She poured herself some coffee and joined George at the window. \u201cGood morning, dear,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood morning. Say, Lucy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, dear?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave we always had a massive stone obelisk in our backyard?\u201d<\/p>\n

The obelisk stood at least twenty feet tall and seemed darker than midnight. Its pyramidal top disappeared into the highest branches of their neighbor\u2019s oak tree. The rising sun revealed words etched in the stone, but George could not tell if they made sense, or if they were even English.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I had it installed last night, just as the last star of the Aeron Nebula took its final breath and blinked out of existence, as we all must do when our time comes,\u201d said Lucy. \u201cThe girls at the club have all got one now, and who am I to buck trends? Isn\u2019t it beautiful?\u201d<\/p>\n

George put on his slippers and walked outside. The obelisk looked even taller and menacing from their backyard. It was doing a remarkable job of blocking out the sun. It seemed to be absorbing any light that touched it, like a black hole. The symbols were brightening.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy does it sound like it\u2019s breathing?\u201d asked George.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it is<\/em>, silly!\u201d Lucy pulled George\u2019s arm to her chest and laughed. \u201cBut it\u2019s not breathing air like you and me, oh no. It\u2019s breathing something much less knowable. Something deep within all of us, though we may never truly know what it is, or what we have lost. At least, that\u2019s what Diana told me at brunch yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see,\u201d said George. His coffee was cold now. \u201cHow much does something like this cost?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly not money,\u201d said Lucy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good to hear,\u201d said George. \u201cI\u2019m going to take a shower. Holler if it does anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, dear.\u201d Lucy sat, legs crossed, beneath the obelisk and stared. She had sewn the symbols into her pink bathrobe days earlier in anticipation. Now they were beginning to glow as well.<\/p>\n

The shower\u2019s water pressure never failed to disappoint George. Water dripped pathetically from the spout, and he had to press himself against the chilly tiled wall if he ever wanted to be clean.<\/p>\n

George wondered what his friends would say about the obelisk. How would this affect his barbeques? Would anything cook in proximity to that chilly pillar of darkness? Was their obelisk as nice as Lucy\u2019s friends\u2019 obelisks?<\/p>\n

A low hum reverberated through George\u2019s ears, like he had stood too close to the speakers at a concert When he turned off the water, he could still hear it. Curious.<\/p>\n

The noise had not left him even after he had shaved and gotten dressed. Q-tips did nothing. He looked out the window and saw only the black obelisk.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, right.\u201d He was embarrassed to think it had taken him this long to consider the obelisk as a culprit. It was almost definitely causing this infernal buzzing.<\/p>\n

George stepped into his backyard and found Lucy where he had left her, albeit hovering six inches off the ground. The belt of her bathrobe barely touched the grass.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucy turned her head, a frozen smile on her face. Had she been wearing that much black eyeliner when they woke up?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, hello, George! Off to work?\u201d Her bathrobe was an incandescent blue. The symbols on the obelisk shone like searchlights, projecting themselves on the side of their house. They were definitely not English. Egyptian hieroglyphs, perhaps? Or something older? George could not be sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to pick up Chinese food on the way home. Does that sound good?\u201d George could have sworn something sat beside his wife, but when he blinked the monstrous outline disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds wonderful, but I\u2019m not going to need food after this, George. You should treat yourself! I\u2019ll see you on the next level of existence!\u201d Lucy rose higher and higher as she spoke. She would reach the top of the obelisk soon.<\/p>\n

George stood at the gate, debating whether or not he wanted to stick around and see what would happen. He decided against it, as he was going to miss his bus at this rate.<\/p>\n

KYLE AMATO<\/strong> is a fiction writer attending Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. His work has been featured in Skidmore’s Folio Literary Magazine<\/em>. He did not cry at the end of Toy Story 3<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Amato George usually stared out the kitchen window each morning, before his brain started working. He usually held his coffee and watched the sun rise over his neighbor\u2019s house. It was calming. Unfortunately for George\u2019s routine, something unexpected blocked … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":6684,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6685","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1JP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6691,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6685\/revisions\/6691"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}