Unseen

The grownups are talking politics again. I’m bored, but they won’t let me leave the table. At least they’re too absorbed to notice me tipping my chair back to look out the window. It’s dark outside. Suddenly there’s the brightest flash in the sky. My chair thumps back onto all four legs. “Did you see that?” I ask.

“Arthur, please don’t interrupt the adults,” my dad says, distractedly.

The next evening he comes home, clutching the newspaper. “PLANES COLLIDE MID-FLIGHT,” reads the headline. “Did you see this?” he asks my mother.

“I did,” I say quietly, but, as usual, nobody notices.