Marfa, Texas. Population: small. Sky: enormous. Since the 1880s, before the automobile, before the highway, people have watched lights dance out over the Mitchell Flat. They split apart. They merge. They pulse like something breathing.
The official explanations arrive on schedule. Car headlights, they say. Atmospheric refraction. Swamp gas's desert cousin.
One problem: Robert Reed Ellison saw them in 1883. There were no car headlights in 1883. There was barely a Marfa.
We drove out in July. Cass timed them with his pocket watch (don't ask; it's a whole thing). The lights kept their own schedule anyway.
I believe everything, he believes nothing, and the lights didn't care what either of us believed. That's the thing about the edge. It doesn't perform for you. It just keeps happening, whether you're watching or not.