The news anchor's voice, tinny and breathless, crackled from the small television mounted high in the corner of the shop. "An unidentified object, also known as a UFO, has been spotted in different areas across the region…" Rowan's eyes were glued to the grainy, pixelated footage of a darting light against a bruised purple sky. The world outside the glass felt miles away, the monotonous, whirring hum of the ancient air conditioner and the rhythmic squeak of his mop a familiar lullaby of his daily existence.
He never heard the bell over the door. A hurried body slammed into him, and a hot, aggressive voice tore into the quiet. "Watch it, you useless slob!" a hulking man in a pristine white shirt bellowed, the words cutting deeper than the sharp bolt of pain up Rowan's arm. The bucket clattered as soapy water sloshed across the tiled floor. Rowan's mouth worked on its own. "I am so sorry," he repeated, a faint, automatic whisper lost in the man's red-faced tirade.
The sun beat down with a vengeance, turning the humid air into a thick, suffocating blanket. The sweat trickling down Rowan's spine felt like tiny, crawling insects. His boss appeared, his face a mask of indifference. He glanced down at his watch, a quick, almost imperceptible flick of the wrist. "You're fired," he said, the words dropping into the hot, heavy silence like stones into a still pond. Nothing more was offered. No reason, no explanation, no chance to argue. The heat had already sapped Rowan of any fight he might have had. It was too hot for arguments, too hot for tears, too hot for anything but a slow, resigned nod.
Stepping out onto the street was like walking into a blast furnace. A cold fist of panic seized his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. His breath hitched, a useless, whistling sound that was lost in the roar of the city. The question hammered at his skull: How will I pay the rent? He sifted through the phantom coins in his pocket, a mental inventory of his meager savings amounting to nothing but a carton of expired eggs he'd found in the back of his fridge. He had a second part-time job, but that barely covered his food and a single bus fare. The apartment was a rotting ruin of cracked windows and water-stained ceilings, but his landlord had made it clear his patience had a limit, and Rowan had just reached it. His stomach clenched. He had no one to ask, no one to call. Just the unforgiving weight of his own existence. Lost in these thoughts, he moved through the churning river of the crowded road, the smell of exhaust fumes and stale street food assaulting his senses.
When he finally reached his building, the air inside his tiny room was even heavier than the air outside. The heat was a tangible presence, a pressure on his skin. A pervasive smell of damp rot and unwashed laundry clung to everything, so cloying that even he, long accustomed to it, had to retreat.
He made his way to the rooftop. A gentle breeze, a small mercy after the day's heat, drifted across his face. The air up here was different—less thick, less suffocating. He stood on the cracked tar, looking over the empty stretch of road below, a silent, unmoving asphalt river. He remembered how he used to stand there and smoke, the sharp, acrid taste of nicotine a momentary escape. Now, the memory was another sting of his poverty; he couldn't even afford that small luxury.
It was in that moment of profound stillness that the full reality of his situation finally hit him. A cold, hard certainty washed over his hot skin. He had nothing. He was nothing. The sheer, crushing weight of it all was almost funny. He couldn't even afford to be miserable. It was then, as he considered the cosmic joke of his existence, that a brilliant glow appeared on the horizon. It moved with impossible speed, a silent star that grew in size, casting an eerie, shifting light on the buildings below. He watched, transfixed, as the object, a sleek, humming disc, hovered directly above his building. This was it. The UFO everyone was talking about. A primal fear seized him, but it was quickly replaced by a sudden, insane thought.
A small smile touched his lips, which quickly blossomed into a loud, hysterical laugh. He dropped to his back on the rough tar, tears streaming from his eyes as he roared with laughter. It had been years since he had felt a laugh so genuine, a sound that was half-laughter, half-sob. Of all the people in this bustling, noisy city, why him? The man who passed by a thousand faces a day, none of which ever registered his own. The irony was so bitter, so sharp, that it brought tears to his eyes.
He raised his arm and gave a triumphant, defiant middle finger to the sky. "You won't find anything here!" he yelled, his voice raw with a mix of fury and bitter amusement. "You can't even ransom me! Nobody would pay!" He continued to laugh, the sound echoing in the silent night. "No one would even bat an eye at me!"
His laughter morphed into choked, tearful gasps. He was utterly, completely alone. What rotten luck the aliens had, to choose him. As he was about to say more, a beam of brilliant, pulsating blue light descended from the object above and enveloped him. With a quiet, almost gentle hum, the light lifted him off the rooftop. The man who had felt so invisible was now a single, defiant silhouette, bathed in an impossibly brilliant light, lifting slowly into the sky.