kce

more or less in the buff, to get a robe out of the bedroom, but when I got
into the light I looked down and discovered an odd mark underneath my
navel.
It was a perfect little equilateral triangle, angry red, with sharp lines.
It looked like it had been burned into me, or that the first few layers of skin
had been removed. It measured about a centimetre on each side, and was
located underneath my belly button and a little bit to the right, almost
touching it. I stared at the mark for a moment and wondered why I felt no
pain from it.
It was so small, roughly the size of my index fingernail. Nothing
really, but it was unnaturally geometric. Again, the something/nothing
paradox came into play. An unobservant person might have simply
shrugged it off: it was certainly nothing to see a doctor about, and no cause
for alarm. But I clearly linked it to what had happened earlier that night,
although I had no idea how it was connected.
Too many something/nothings add up to a definite something,
eventually. That mark, the fading pain in my stomach and shoulders, the
bleeding, the craft we had seen — it seemed that they were all connected.
But it was late, I was tired, and I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to try and
settle it right there and then. It had been a weird night and I simply headed
for bed. I didn’t think: Oh, I’ve been branded by aliens. I didn’t think anything
at all really, and all I wanted to do was sleep.
But that night, I had a strange dream.