It was a beautiful, clear, blue sky day on Saturday. Lisa and I decided to take the dog to the dog park. Rufus was bouncing off the walls all week long, and so we threw him in the car and headed out. He kept on trying to scoot up into the front seat with Lisa, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“He might be small, but his nails are pointy,” she said. “We should go to the groomer’s soon.”

I just shrugged. “I guess. We also have that thing, the buzzy thing we could try.”

She gave me a look. “Yea, I know, he hates it,” I said.

We got lucky with parking, a spot right in front of the park. It was still early, and the sun hadn’t gotten high enough to be warm. It felt nice to not need sunscreen for once.

The second we let him off the leash, Rufus was gone. Lisa laughed, watching him zip around the park like a ping pong ball.

After Rufus was done terrorizing all of the slightly smaller dogs in the small dog park, we opted to walk along the river.

There is a sweet grassy area, set down almost at water level fifteen minutes along the path that had the softest grass. A few people were out there already, throwing a frisbee, and one cute fluffy dog who promptly begun a staring contest with Rufus, his pink tongue hanging out.

I curled up next to Lisa, sat on the leash and just leaned back under one of those big oak trees dotting the river.

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A nice cool breeze swept across the city, a rare touch for Houston. There are only two seasons in Houston, sweat lodge and summer. But for a few weeks on the shoulders of the year, it was perfect. Well, perfect before noon.

“Do you want to go grab lunch somewhere,” Lisa asked.

“Sure, in a bit,” I said quietly. I was enjoying this weather too much to want to pack up. The slight whisper of the leaves, the fresh smell of nature. No swampy smell, no humidity. Heaven.

“Thank god it isn’t this nice all year long, or we’d be priced out of living here,” I said, smiling down at Lisa.

She leaned back into my lap, a contented smile on her face, looking up at me. I nervously felt the small felt box in my pocket.

“Hey, Lisa, I’ve been wondering...” I started, slowly smiling. I could see her eyes widening slowly. I guess it wasn’t a surprise after all.

“What is that,” she asked, pointing upwards.

I followed her finger upwards. “An oak tree,” I said, teasingly.

“No John. What is that?” she said more insistently. I looked past the swaying leaves, up higher.

In the sky it looked like someone had stuck a tiny aurora borealis, really far away. Really, really far away.

We both stood up, and I stepped out of the shade and put my hand up to my eyes to block out the sun. It was about the size of the moon, a rippling curtain of color that seemed to be spewing out of a spot in space.

“Huh...” I idiotically said. “I don’t know.”

Everyone else around us had noticed the weird ripple as well, and were looking up at it, pointing. Some tried to get a picture on their cameras. I tried, but it just looked like a smudge.

As I looked a bit closer, little dots started to cross my view. Gnats or something.

I looked back at Lisa and Rufus. “Let’s head home?” I asked. “It might be a solar flare or something.”

Lisa looked at me, disapprovingly. “The sun is over there,” pointing a good 45 degrees towards the horizon. “What solar flare?”

“Fine, then google will have something,” I said, unlocking my phone.

“Holy shit!” Lisa cried. I swiveled my head back up, only to see what looked like a frozen lightening bolt, rip a short line in the sky.

Even more unbelievable, the rip started to stretch, creating a jagged black spot, a vicious counterpoint to the tiny rainbow vomit.