The Night They Came

I tried writing a funny story and this is what happened

It wasn’t common to see Mrs. Ridgeway so early in the morning. Also uncommon was the way she stood, deeply rooted to the ground, unmoving, and with her head upturned, eyes fixated on the sky. Any call for attention went unnoticed. And there weren’t a small amount. Regardless of status, age, or familiarity, Mrs. Ridgeway remained paralyzed. The younger group took advantage of the situation and took as many pictures with her still figure as their attention span would allow. The older crowd mostly ignored her, preferring instead to tend to their middle class sensibilities. Afternoon came and the smell of cut grass and fresh pastries lent the neighborhood a suburban scent. The one story, four bedroom houses reeked of comfort.
Mrs. Ridgeway stood on her lawn. Unknown to any who refused to go near her, which around 12:34, was an unsurprisingly small amount, her odd behavior was exacerbated by a frantic, speedy, illegible muttering. Some called it murmuring, but the majority had a tendency to say “She’s muttering now.”
So, it was decided, for whoever cared, that Mrs. Ridgeway was, in fact, muttering.
A few brave individuals were courageous enough to get within biting distance to her in order to make out what she was saying. None of the three brave individuals could make out what she was muttering. After those three tried and failed, three stupid individuals tried the same. After walking across or down the street in the very specific way that only unwise people do, they pressed their ears and focused. For the most part. One boy, who had undiagnosed ADD, thought about his bike and how hard it was to travel without a car, then about getting his license, after which his mind naturally progressed to the danger of tickets, followed by a memory of a drug awareness assembly he attended where he thought about his plans for that night and how much easier it’d be to travel with a car. As he walked out of the assembly, and away from Mrs. Ridgeway, he thought to himself: “I need to get my license.”
After a few minutes, around 1:17 PM, and an array of non fruitious listening, the neighborhood collectively decided to give up. Then, a majority wondered if they should alert her husband after a minority realized her name was Mrs. Ridgeway. But this realization came before the realization that no one had his cell phone number (unbeknownst to them, his ownership of a cell phone would have been more than a little useless, as he was currently in a cemetery five blocks from her house, 5.78 feet under the ground close to a tombstone that incorrectly spelled “Bartholomew Ridgeway”).
The neighborhood largely forgot about Mrs. Ridgeway for another few hours. It was within this timespan that a boy noticed his dog was missing.
“Lania!” he called, either impervious or unwillingly ignorant to the fact that she never learned to answer to her name. She never answered.
It would have taken a few days for anyone to notice a small collar in the litterbox of Rebeccaj’s pet mountain lion.
A child who would have been named Diona was conceived at 3:45 PM.
In total, three major events happened within the few hours that Mrs. Ridgeway was muttering to herself. The third being Mrs. Ridgeway muttering “They’re coming, it’s all over,” to herself.
The rest of the afternoon went by without much else happening.
The sun set and the suburb was coated in equal parts darkness and neighborhood association mandated street lights.
Soon, an unearthly orange glow overtook the two sources of light. Dozens of interior lights were then overwhelmed as well. Upon exiting the perfect climate of their well ventilated, air conditioned homes, every occupant of the small suburb witnessed an array of lights beaming down on their trimmed laws and well rested eyes. The lights were so brilliant they gave the sense of density, as if the beam had condensed into material. They were bright enough to appear, and to some with more conditioned senses, feel solid but the neighborhood had no problem seeing anyone who wasn’t them. This was useful, as everyone was giving the rest of the crowd a confused glance.
Mrs. Ridgeway remained in the same position but nobody was paying attention to her anymore. All eyes were fixated on the light and what was barely distinguishable of the source.
Had anyone been looking at their watch, the amount of which amounted to zero, they would have noticed that the second hand had not moved in the five mostly uninterrupted minutes they had been staring at the light. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, the light spread even further, blue enveloping the trees, yellow overtaking the white houses, and black unnoticeably covering the asphalt.
Seconds after this, the lights flared and condensed around the onlookers. The silent whisper of the spectacle didn’t convey the inexpressible pain that everyone felt as their bones were crushed into a powder that was then condensed to an even finer powder. Their eyes were useless as they were almost instantly pulverized and then compacted. Their entire bodies were then crushed even further into a sliver a fraction of a millimeter wide. Luckily, at least as lucky as they could have been from that moment on, the pain was fleeting. The light overtook them in seconds and then returned to the source. The ship disappeared into the inky sky in almost as much time. The suburb was empty, silent, and perfectly dark. The only person left in the absence was Mrs. Ridgeway. She stood on her lawn, feet planted firmly on the ground, eyes fixed unfalteringly on the night sky where even the light of the moon had disappeared from sight. It was unnoticed by the deserted world.
“They’re here,” Mrs. Ridgeway said to absolutely no one.