Panic Sets In

The trees slowly waved their branches back and forth, back and forth like they were trying to flag down help but not wanting to be too obvious about it. Their leaves were in a tizzy, shaking violently. We watched their panic in the moonlight from the back porch. It took us a few minutes to understand what we were seeing. When a cloud passed in front of the moon, the sky was silvery and dark blue, almost black – a dead face with a thick black beard, which was the woods behind our house.

You said something terrible was about to happen. And then you said something about electromagnetic waves, which I didn’t understand. But I imagined it had something to do with the air’s sudden dryness and the static electricity. You always knew so much more about the world and the systems it relies on than I did.

Dogs pawing at a dozen living room windows on the block were barking in high-pitched distress. The strays, which had a much better head for undefined but pervasive danger, had already left the neighborhood. They’d probably gathered at the creek a quarter of a mile away. They went there, pressed their bodies low to the ground, and stayed quiet in times of general danger, like when crashing lightning storms come in. The deer and foxes were gone, too.

The people, though, were a mystery. We went around to the front of our house and watched couples walking fast on the sidewalk to get their steps in. Others drank glasses of wine with their neighbors in driveways. Little half-globes of light, from smart watches and smartphones, illuminated each of these scenes. The retired cop across the street sat on a lawn chair looking at the sky through binoculars.

Darkness was closing in, but they didn’t notice. Two worlds were coming together, but they weren’t combining. The one with the dead face and darkness was about to overwhelm and atomize the other.

I took your hand, brought it to my face, and kissed your palm.

It was hard knowing we were doomed without knowing why.