The Calm Before

10

               The industrial heart of the massive metropolitan area had suddenly stopped beating, and everyone went outside to look up at the impenetrable red clouds that had conquered what was just a few seconds ago, a very clear blue sky. Factory workers, longshoremen, mechanics, and administrators all huddled together like wild dogs on a cold winter night, wondering just what the hell was going on miles above their heads. Visages of bewilderment, realization, panic, despair, and fear- fear was the most evident, as even the thick miasma of salt air and sulfur smelled of it- flashed all around as if they were quick moving images on a zoetrope.

               One of the mechanics pointed a grimy, calloused finger towards at sky, and called attention to something moving beyond the red sky. A dockworker who had recently become a father swallowed the lump in his throat and climbed aboard a motorized sailing dinghy, intent on commandeering it and fleeing the scene. An electrician pulled his brand-new phone out of his pocket with clumsy, trembling hands, and began texting his wife. A young middle manager, a greasy little college educated fellow who had always seen himself as being above the unwashed laborers he worked alongside, began pocketing the contents of the safe he was put in charge of with great haste, stuffing his pockets with as many bills, stocks, bonds, and jewels as he could, no doubt having seen the writing on the wall and the action in the heavens. An older engineer, having just had that cold sweat realization of what was going on, mouthed the word for what he was seeing in the sky up above him, but no words came out. “Plane”, was the word the shape of his mouth was attempting to make.

  9

               There were fleets of jets thundering towards the city at ten times the speed of sound. The pilot of the craft at the tip of one of the V formations gave a slight sigh. He was absolutely numb. One had to be in order to commit the great evil he was ordered to perform. His tactical glove encased hand, which was always so strong in its convictions and nimble in its actions, now felt leaden, and he had trouble moving it towards the hatch release. What the hell is wrong with me? he thought chillingly. These dogs murdered my older brother back when the war first started. They’re the reason my family had to go without food and water for days on end. Dropping this motherfucker on them should be easy…

He checked the fuel gauge. There was more than enough in the tanks to drop the payload and make it back to base.

He looked at the stealth meters. The reflective cloaking and radar-scrambling clouds were all playing their parts phenomenally. Only the sharpest of eyes would be able to see their shapes moving behind the veil.

Everything is working fine, a voice even quieter and softer than his usual inner one seemed to say.

Fuck me, but everything is fine.

He glanced at the photograph of his brother and him. He had taped to the corner of the systems information display. It was a little yellowed and frayed, but the memories that the little square of processed film brought back were as colorful and clear as they had ever been. Whenever he looked at it, he was frozen in that moment in time, happy, safe, and oblivious to the horrors of war.

And then he would be snapped back to reality, whenever reality brought him out of his daydreams.

His left eye twitched a bit as he saw the industrial area far below. Only a few seconds until he reached the state capital building.

You’re fine. This is what you signed up for. Revenge. You’re getting your revenge. Revenge for your brother, revenge for your country. This is easy, and you’re fine. Make them proud, and get a ticker tape parade. You’re fine.

His forehead was sweating profusely behind his helmet. His mouth was dry. He felt his balls shrivel up as if the temperature had just dropped. He kept trying to think of fun times with his brother, but he couldn’t remove the encroaching city from his field of sight, or the weight of the burden on his shoulders. Reality would simply not leave him alone. In a scant few seconds, the city would absolutely be out of his field of sight. It would be gone. Would the weight of his burden be lightened? Or would it be replaced with the weight of something even more terrible still? He tried killing the thoughts. They weren’t helping with a damn thing.

This is fine, he kept repeating to himself with a trepidatious monotony.

This is fine, this is fine, this is fine.

8

               A sister and her two younger brothers stopped their game of hide and seek as a flurry of immense shapes whizzed past them beyond the gathering clouds.

               The youngest child gazed skyward and was delighted. He stood up and clapped his hands, a semi toothless smile overtaking his face. His long black locks bounded as he jumped up and down. He was reminded of the blue toy plane he would often play with during his evening baths. His eyes lit up with youthful wonder as he saw one of the shapes lower its altitude. The opening hatch of the belly of a plane came into view.

               The second youngest, a child of 8 years, was confused but not afraid. He had never seen such a thing before. His immature mind- which was always so inquisitive and optimistic because of his tender age- could only remember so much, and nothing he had ever experienced could sync up cleanly to the chaos that he now saw beyond the clouds. He broke and threw the large branch he had been carrying as far as he could and went over to his older sister. “What’re those?”, he asked her.

               The oldest child saw it all in in another way. She was an intelligent girl; eleven years old and nearly twelve. She was old enough to understand the glimpses of the news she caught whenever her parents were watching. In school, she was already starting to learn all about geopolitics, and the sad, sordid history of human conflict. Her teacher even made her and her peers study the stories in the newspaper sometimes. Her childish curiosity was beginning to give way into a mature understanding… but it was still in that incomplete phase, where everything she thought she understood was now new, frightening, and exciting. She had just taken her first, wobbly steps into adulthood. Even though her mind was not yet developed completely, she knew enough to know what all of this was. She knew exactly what was going on.

And it terrified her deeply.

“I don’t know.” She said as she embraced her two younger siblings.

“I love you both.”

7

The mayor of the city had her head laid down on her desk like a child taking a nap in class. It wasn’t fair that she and everything she had worked for was about to be exploded away to nothing. She had given her all into making sure that her people were healthy, fed, and entertained, and that her city stayed clean and modern. She thought about that one boxer who had thrown his championship belt into a garbage can. Her husband was an avid fan, and she had grown to enjoy the sport as well. She was never able to wrap her mind around that notion, however: the one of throwing away the fruits of your labor. Why anyone would dispose of their trophies was beyond her. So it was with the federal government. Who in their right mind would willingly provoke and stoke a war of mutually assured destruction, and throw everyone’s belts into the trash? How easy for them, she thought, to give the go ahead on sending the nukes flying, when they knew that the capital wouldn’t be the first city bombed. The thought filled her with a bitter resentment.

               She thought about taking a drink from her liquor shelf. She needed one after the call she had just shared with the president. She looked at the bottle of prime French cognac lasciviously. Her beloved husband had given it to her as a Christmas gift, and she had yet to crack it open. She figured that it was too beautiful to consume. The curves and contours of the bottle were too flawless, the dignified amber color of the liquor was too beautiful, and the warmth of the light it seemed to produce when it caught the fluorescents of her office filled her with bright and sunny feelings, memories of her husband, and hope for the future.

It would seem like cruel satire to partake of it now.

6

He hoped and prayed to god that there would be something wrong with the hatch release. He didn’t want to do this anymore; his orders be damned. Fuck vengeance, and double fuck patriotism. He wasn’t about to vaporize a city of nearly four million people. He didn’t have the right to do that, and his higher ups sure as hell didn’t have it either. It’s not going to drop, he thought wildly. I’ll flip the switch and turn the knob to drop the bomb, and the thing won’t open. Then they won’t risk dropping the rest of the payload if the main course can’t be served. Can’t have your deserts if you haven’t had your steak. He thought about his comrades carrying the smaller, less destructive firebombs. Those would do damage, but they weren’t anything close to the thing that he had in his hatch. No, the weapon he was ordered to drop was something else entirely. It was something new in its science, but absolutely ancient in its hatred. The type of thing ancient philosophers and writers preached against. The kind of things entire counterculture movements sprang up to put a stop to. You can eat your salad before your steak, he went back to the analogy.

But if there’s no steak, then there’s no desert. And the chef can go home.

To his complete dismay, the weapon release worked perfectly. The bomb was primed to drop.

He wanted one of the instruments to go haywire, or for some unaccounted-for problem that would pop-up, scare the high command, and force the commander to call back the jets. He wanted some random act of god to put a stop to all of this, something primordial and terrible to stop him from committing the most painful act of barbarism a man could ever make.

Unfortunately, everything was going according to plan.

5

               Something shiny and metallic dropped into a guitar player’s case as he was busking for the people passing by his neck of the city park. It wasn’t the usual quarters and dimes he was more than happy to obtain, but something a bit heavier. Something that made a heavy clunk. He hadn’t seen anyone drop it either, so it must have fallen from the shady tree he was sitting against. Maybe a weird-colored acorn or something like that? Maybe something fell from a crow’s nest? He knew that crows liked shiny objects. It wasn’t a big deal. He had found stranger things in his case before. He sang the last verse of his love song, played the final chords, and thanked the tiny smattering of applause he got on that increasingly more and more cloudy May afternoon. It wasn’t the best day for street performing, he thought with an inner smile.

               He set his guitar down and started fumbling around his case. Without looking, he wrapped his fingers on something thick and squat. Something that had helical ridges. Now that his eyes were on the prize, it was without a doubt a screw…but it was the largest screw he had ever seen. It was something that belonged on a very large industrial machine. The top was as big as a baseball, and the shaft was long enough to poke out of his fist when he clenched it. The tip was very rusty, and the ridges looked dull from overuse.

When he shifted his gaze to the sky, he saw that the clouds were now blood red, and the sound of jets zooming around was ear splitting.

“Oh my god…” He heard as he turned to look at a well-dressed woman talking to herself as she gazed skyward.

“The kids are at home…”

4

               Hell yeah. Can’t drop a bomb if the hatch has a screw loose. The pilot thought with cautious optimism.

All right colonel, just give us the word and we’ll turn around and head for home. No one needs to die.

“Peregrine One, this is base, what’s your situation?” The radio crackled at him.

“Base, this is Peregrine One. I don’t know exactly what to tell you, but it looks like a screw came undone from one of the hatch doors.”

“Screw lost?”

“Seems that way.”

“Give us a moment, Peregrine One.”

The pilot heard the unmistakable sound of a heated argument in the background. Papers shuffled and added percussion to the crescendos of distant and angry voices.

“Base?” His heart skipped a beat.

“Peregrine One, our telemetry shows that there is no structural damage to the hatch or to your craft at large. You should be able to complete your mission as you are.”

His hopes were dashed. Damn it all to hell.

“Peregrine One, do you copy?”

“Copied. Over and out.”

“Godspeed, Peregrine one.”

Godspeed, he thought with a bitter venom.

“God have mercy on me for what I’m about to do.”

He started reciting the words to the Lord’s Prayer.

3

“Mr. President, we are still unsure of how they were able to invade our airspace so quickly and without our knowledge.” A serious looking aide told his master.

“These sumbitches are smart; I’ll give them that.” A tired old man sighed.

The aide held up a small map to show the President the flightpaths the planes were taking.

“This city right here is undoubtedly their first target. It should take them less than an hour to reach us here in the capital.”

The president sighed and furrowed his brow. He rubbed his temples with wrinkled hands.

“You want us to call a state of emergency, right?”

“No, son. No, I do not.” The president stood up and looked at the window into the tulip garden.

“You…don’t?” The aide lowered the map to his side and cocked his head. He was at a loss for words.

“No.”

“I…don’t understand. One of our cities is clearly going to be vaporized. How can you not-”

“When I was a boy,” The President interrupted him.

“My grandmother died of Leukemia. My beloved grandmother. This was a woman who was always there when I needed her. Had a hand in rearing me. Whether I know it or not, whatever I do and say undoubtedly speaks of her. So great was her influence on me.”

The aide stared at the president with serious eyes.

“Even after her diagnosis, she was there for me, and everything was business as usual. She still pushed me on that old tire swing, she still baked me sweets. And I never knew anything was wrong with her. No one had ever told me.”

“I see what you’re getting at sir, but this is something completely different. This is-”

“Son…what would be the point? Hurting a child that don’t know no better? Sometimes the wisest thing you can do is to just let something happen. Sometimes not knowing is better.”

“Sir we can’t just simply let the enemy do as they please with us!”

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” The President looked at his aide with knowing, calm yet furious eyes.

The aide knew exactly what he meant. They stood there silently staring at each other for a few seconds.

“…M.A.D. it is then, sir.”

“Good man. Been a pleasure.”

2

               After a fiery opening act, Peregrine One dropped the bomb. The planes following him in the formation gave their contribution to the destructive symphony. They all sped away as the experimental bomb fell down, down, all the way down, seemingly slower than the rest.

“Great job, Peregrine One. Return to base, I think commendations are in order.”

“…Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil…”

“Peregrine One?”

“Over and out.”

It just feels so damn heavy. Too damn heavy, he thought to himself.

A barrage of missiles shot over the heads of the jets, rocketing towards their home country.

Fitting, he thought, shaking his head.

1

               The clouds rent and the heavens shattered as a new and terrible bomb plummeted towards the city at terminal velocity. In the calm before the explosion, the world almost seemed pleasant. The only noise heard was a very distant whistling, and the only visible movement was a few far-off planes, and what seemed to be rockets in the sky. Birds sang, and the wind blew gently. The grass and trees moved too, very softly at first, then they moved faster, over and over in waves. Finally, they shifted violently in anticipation of the coming misfortune. In less than a second, a city of four million and a radius of one hundred miles beyond it were bathed in otherworldly light, searing heat, immense gravity, and psychedelic colors. The land broke apart and heaved with horrific, turbulent spasms. Horizontal houses collided savagely with vertical city parks, and hundred-foot skyscrapers shot into the sky then fell back down with monumental force. Swift flashes of red, yellow and blue created a mystifying, frantic lightshow, visible from space. People and animals vanished in puffs of smoke and broken glass, never to be seen again. The entire city and its populace had been effectively erased.

The birds resumed singing an hour later.