The Provider

It was that time of the night during that time of the year when the Alaskan town of Fairbanks quieted itself to accommodate the squeals of delight, the murmur of excited voices as the populace basked in the ethereal atmosphere. Furniture stopped creaking, tin pots retreated into stony silence and mice decided to tiptoe across the fields, unafraid of the barn owls who desisted for the moment. It was a quiet town, and you should only hear so much noise in a town sentenced to eternal slumber. Nature muffled herself to hear the sound of laughter and wonder better. She waited as the sky overhead ignited into potent shades of green, the colours stringed to stars which moved to form fantastical creatures in the night. More colours slowly crept in. Perfect silence. She sighed in confusion as the Aurora carried on, oblivious to human eyes. Somewhere, a twig fell and the mice began their scuttle across the grass. Normalcy resumed.
Inside his lodge, Hall Baker's eyes were fixated on to a 16 inch screen, luminated by colours of its own. His smooth hands smelled of late night cigarettes and bad coffee and the dark circles under his eyes attested to it. Mr. Baker had been a resident of that quite town for a long time and he knew, in some far away corner of his mind tethered to the unconscious, what had happened just then. Why everything had grown so quiet. He thought back to the time when the streets would have been filled with locals drunk on the magic of the Northern Lights. It was not an uncommon phenomenon, but the town always banded together in a solemn toast to Nature, who lapped it up gratefully. But times had changed and one quick glance out of his window told Mr. Baker that every lodge had a lighted screen with a body rigidly stuck behind it, typing away into oblivion. The Lights held no significance to him as the screen mutated in front of his eyes into labyrinths that showed more than the Lights ever could and promised even more. The world was his playground and the screen gave him the attention he needed, as the bytes permeated through the jagged edges of the keyboard. He wondered for a second about the Lights. He'd forgotten what they actually looked like. Pictures on the internet couldn't be far from the truth, he thought.
Mr. Baker quickly realised what he did wrong as the labyrinth distorted in front of his eyes and began to suck him into the vortex. Penance, screamed his head. The screen opened up to reveal a large cave where Mr. Baker found himself chained. The iron dug slowly into his wrists as he repeated his apologies to The Provider. I must not go into temptation. The Provider has given me everything I need.
The scene slowly dissolved and Hall Baker found himself sitting in front of the laptop. He put off the whole thing to sleep deprivation and went back to showing Borealis off to the wider world.
* * *
Far away in a land where not so long ago lights in the sky would be considered witchery, Zoheb was having trouble sleeping. The events of the past day had left him disoriented as his bespectacled eyes adjusted away from the virtual world after eons. He slowly rummaged through his thoughts and settled on the crushing realisation of what had to be done. The barren streets beckoned and the night was long.

To be continued….