Quicksilver

by Dean Koontz

“I’m sorry.” I looked around at the hundreds of UFO photos papering nearly everything. “I didn’t leave myself in the middle of that highway, but I feel responsible for what you’ve been through, for what you’re going through.” His eyes at last narrowed. He squinted at me, as if scanning for structural anomalies. Then he startled me by throwing his arms around me and saying, “No, no, no. No, no, no.” He released me. His eyes were owlish again and now glimmering with unshed tears. “Before you, before baby you, before that door in the day and that hole in the sky, I was just marking time, just existing. There was no wonder in my life, no magic, nothing to believe in except a paycheck and a six-pack. That day, what happened on that stretch of highway—after that, I understood the world wasn’t just a movie screen, wasn’t just flat, there was depth to it, strangeness and meaning. I don’t know what meaning, but it’s something big, and I’m a part of it. If there are evil Grays—and there are!—then there must be other ETs, good Blues or some other color. Whatever’s out there, it’s anything you could imagine, everything you could imagine, because the universe is that big. I owe you, Quinn Quicksilver. I owe you for my happiness.”