28 x 28: February Twenty-Three

Short story. Guess where I got the inspiration?

I wonder if they talk to spacemen. I ask myself that every morning when I get the paper. Across the street is a huge concrete building. There's nothing special about it. No windows, a few pipes either going in or coming out, and a pretty plain steel door in the front. I guess if there was one thing I could say strikes me about the whole thing is the huge metal spire sticking out of the roof. It's easily taller than anything else in our little town and exceptionally more bizarre. At night the red lights all over it blink on and off. No one ever leaves that I've ever seen, but every morning when I stumble out my front door to grab the news three men in really nice suits show up and walk single-file through the door. I don't really know if they're the same three guys every day. Nondescript is the best word I can think for them. Either way I've never seen them leave for the day either. To be honest, the whole thing doesn't really bother me anymore. Sure in our otherwise normal little suburban town the building across the street is basically an eyesore, but no one has ever had a legitimate problem that wasn't aesthetic. Still, as I sit at my average little breakfast table and look out the window into my quaint backyard to watch the sun peak over the trees, I can't help but muse. Our town is far enough in the middle of nowhere that a radio tower doesn't make a lot of sense. But maybe it's not a radio tower. Maybe it's something else. Maybe they're collecting information on everyone in the town for the government and beaming all that info back to whoever they report to. Perhaps they're doing some kind of diabolical research that will either help save humanity or utterly destroy us all. I think about this all throughout breakfast, but the moment I finish my toast it couldn't be further from my mind. I take a shower and I put on my work uniform and feed my dog. On my way out the front door to hop in my car, I always manage to steal a glance across the street. One day I'm going to go knock on that door, and when I do I can only think of one thing that would interest me enough to ask: "Do you guys talk to spacemen?"