Will Musgrove
To kill time, we were watching all the Rocky movies in order. We estimated that around the end of Rocky IV, it’d be dark enough to see the northern lights.
I wish I had a name like Rocky. A name that makes people go, “No way!” A name that makes you unique even if you are a high school dropout and stock shelves at the Walmart just outside of town. So when Rocky ran up those steps for a third time, I joined Gary in celebrating the feat. A few hours later, Rocky beat the Russian, and we climbed into Gary’s pickup.
People see the northern lights all the time, so we felt like we were just playing catch-up. But how many of them see the lights from the middle of Podunk, Iowa thanks to a rare solar storm I’d read about online? That’s what would make our viewing special, how we couldn’t take it for granted.
Heading toward the country and away from all the light pollution, Gary turned onto a gravel road. I glanced in the passenger side mirror and saw our town fading into a speck. We’d driven in silence up to that point, but seeing everything dim reminded me of how my brother used to talk to God.
“When we were kids, my brother would ask God yes-no questions, like if he should do something or not,” I said, not looking at Gary. “God was a light hovering outside his bedroom window. If the light got brighter, the answer was yes. If it got darker, no. ‘That way, I’m never wrong,’ my bro would say.”
Gary bit his lower lip, probably unsure why I was bringing any of this up. We parked next to an empty cornfield and got out. Then we looked up. Pink and green hues barely glowed on the horizon. Gary oohed and aahed, but I could see he was a little disappointed. There was something familiar about the lights, and I realized it was because they were coming from the pork plant a few miles north of us. Unlike Gary, I worked third shift and had seen similar lights in the sky several times before while on my way in.
“Can you believe it?” Gary asked. “Nature sure is crazy. Makes you think about your place in the universe, about what we’re doing here.”
“I don’t know, man,” I said, wanting to be wrong. “Maybe we could see them better farther out.”
We got back into Gary’s truck and headed north. But no matter where we went, we either saw the pork plant or nothing. Eventually we drove home, where Gary dashed up our deck, his arms raised. “If I can change, then you can change,” he said, imitating Rocky’s speech to the Russian crowd at the end of the fourth film. He shadowboxed for a bit before going inside to finish our movie marathon.
I stayed outside to smoke. As the tip of my cigarette burned orange, I thought about how the God outside of my brother’s window had ended up being a streetlight. I thought about how an overgrown tree in front of the streetlight was to blame for God’s fluctuating brightness. I thought about how I never told my brother the truth, about how I could never tell Gary the truth, and I snuffed out my cigarette, ready to start Rocky V. A few seconds later, the light from our television flickered out the living room window, calling me home.
Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Florida Review, Wigleaf, Pinch, The Cincinnati Review, Passages North, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Connect on Bluesky at @willmusgrove.bsky.social or at williammusgrove.com.
Photo by Parker Coffman on Unsplash