The Only Moment We Were Alone

The sound of thunder woke us, great rolls and booms shaking the room. Outside, the sky was falling. You could reach out and touch the roiling steel thunderheads that coiled and uncoiled up above. The sky was cataclysmic, a panorama of smudged oranges, reds, and bruised purples hidden in places by the grimacing charcoal of the clouds. Ash drifted lazily through the air, hell’s snow flurries staining everything grey, making outlines hazy and indistinct.

We rose in silence to stand silhouetted against the open rectangle of the door, rubbing our eyes in disbelief. Nothing was the same; the violent shades of the sky seemed the leech all color out of the normal greens and browns of trees and grass. Houses that had been familiar for so long took on new, darker facades, some seeming to shrink back in fright, others appearing to loom menacingly against the wild sky. Windows became gaping eyes and doors grim mouths in the warm, dying light.

A few other families and individuals had also turned out for the spectacle, as we had. Mothers clutched small boys and tiny girls close, husbands placed reassuring hands on the shoulders of their beloved while looking apprehensively skyward. All bore various expressions of shock, confusion, fright. A few were crying, children whimpering quietly, adults standing in silence, tears streaking down their faces. One man was face down on the pavement, prayer beads grasped tightly in both hands, his lips moving franticly in a soundless prayer. As we watched, another woman joined him, prostrating herself with Bible in hand. The two of us just stood there, framed in the doorway, watching it all unfold.

A low moaning could be heard, a collected sound of worry, fear, and shock. It came from everywhere and nowhere, rising and falling, mingling with the distant rumble and crash of thunder. An odd hush had fallen elsewhere, the normal sounds—of traffic, birdsong, dog barks, and children playing innocently—were all but gone, replaced only by the ethereal groan of a million terrified souls and the disgruntled growl of thunder.

A sudden ear-splitting scream made us all jump; planes streaked overhead, hundreds of them flying to God knew where. Many turned their faces to the sky, mouths agape, as if they’d been struck dumb by such a sight. I turned to the horizon instead, in the direction the planes now soared. Huge twin columns of thick black smoke reared up to meet the matching storm clouds above, feeding them urgently. The columns looked to be hundreds of yards across, each within about 30 miles of the other. A city and its suburb had once stood there, but now there was only smoke. Ash swirled about, floating on a sulfurous and heat-tinged breeze.

The planes continued to blast on overhead, all disappearing into the thick belt of clouds to reappear in the orange-red-peach-vermilion-plum-sulfur-black patches of the sky.

“The city,” one man murmured. He was heavyset, with thick glasses, a bald pate, and the moustache of a walrus. “Someone’s burning the city.” A perfect copy of the apocalyptic sky and ravaged horizon could be seen on his glasses, making him seem eyeless. He licked his thin lips and swallowed nervously. “What’s happened?”

At his words, the first audibly spoken in too long a time, others looked stricken and panicked. “They can’t do this,” one woman said faintly, but nobody even knew who “they” were. Terrorists? Rebels? Did it even matter?

As more people began to talk and fret and rage together, I slipped my hand into yours and watched the smoldering city in silence. The other voices, the thunder, the drone of the planes still fanning out overhead, the cries, the prayers, they all faded away. It was just that glorious bloody sunset and your hand in mine, the only moment we were alone.

And so we watched as the world fell to pieces and the normal order of things ceased to exist.