8 Minutes

8 Minutes

You can’t. You promised. You swore never to destroy —

That’s not what I promised. You twist my words.

He vanished into the vapors. Left us alone. My center became white-hot magma. Feelings inside oozed, burned. Cauterized. My comrades turned to me for answers.

Is it true?

Do they know?

How will they survive? 

Can we help? 

What should we do?

I held my breath. I let panic run through the woods and stop in the desert. The moment before chaos, I spoke. It’s true and they have no idea. They won’t know for another 8 minutes. For 8 minutes, they will think they are happy, or successful, or lucky. Or alive. 

One of us thought we should tell them. 

I suggested we let them live their last moments in ignorance. Let them enjoy the life they chose. It wouldn’t help if they knew. It would only make things worse. 

We silently watched the wars and the declarations of peace. We saw babies born and the elderly die. School bells tolled freedom and gavels barked for order. First kisses. Last goodbyes. Grocery runs and bank withdrawals. Famers planted and harvested. Toasts to good health and handshakes full of spite. Weddings. Divorces. Graduations. Terminations. It wasn’t a special day. Not to them. Not to mankind.

Violent disagreement swept us into gyroscopic movement. Voices pierced the vacuum of space like shattering crystal. 

We can’t save them. There’s no point in watching.

Maybe we can comfort. Let’s go down there. 

Let’s go down and sing.

The people won’t hear our voices. They hardly hear us now. It will only get worse in 8 minutes.

I wondered how there could be resistance. We were designed to obediently serve. Created to enlighten. I urged them to try. Reminded them all things are possible. Voices overlapped with battle cries and remembrances of past wars we’d won. Trumpets blasted across time and space. Pinion pounded and thrashed in every direction. Unorganized faith. A magnificent display of hope. 

Legions and legions swarmed beloved nations. Linked in melody, we projected our voices until the sound could be felt by skin. Ours was a glorious song harmonized in the name of unconditional love. An orchestra of warriors. We hadn’t sung like that in three millennia. The passion brought tears to our choir. And then it happened. 8 minutes passed.

The people lost their light. The sun fell asleep. Earth flooded by everlasting nightfall.

The sky became an onyx shroud. Heavy. Thick. Suffocating black. For some, ambient luminescence and electricity created false optimism, but within minutes, the Earth’s wailing and gnashing of teeth could be heard from light years away. The sound of billions mourning their own deaths — the death of everything they had ever known. 

They grieved when their electronics lost power. Internet connections failed. A digital world void of signals. Conveniences disappeared. The rich couldn’t access their money. The poor lost their faith.

I forced myself to watch while others of my kind retreated to the stars. Retreated from the insufferable pain. The sympathy. The empathy. The boiling guilt that we had failed our mission to protect them. With each passing second, the absence of light absorbed goodness.

Darkness begets darkness. Humans cursed the heavens and the earth and each other. Blame was volleyed back and forth across the globe like a sick game. They set fires. Others took to looting and murder and rape. Life became inconsequential. Governments fell. Tyranny rose. Infrastructure perished.

My resilient friends and I walked among them. We offered consolation, compassion, love. The people couldn’t feel it through the cold. It wasn’t long before they were living in near freezing conditions. 

I rallied my messengers. Be strong and of good courage, I pleaded. But many couldn’t handle the torment. Trusted friends slithered away and mourned in isolation. They were embarrassed to ask the people to love despite this fate. Despite the loss of light. They feared ridicule. They feared rejection. The shame of being abandoned by the forsaken. 

Our presence dwindled each day. The heartbroken escaped to the throne while the rest of us endured. We endured the gruesome violence. Humanity succumbed to primal urges, tearing each other apart with teeth and nails. We suffered alongside freezing villages. Blood turned to ice in the veins. Children starved. Brittle bones and distended guts. Desperate mouths filled with dirt, with feces, with the flesh of their fathers. We wept looking into insanity’s face. Mothers whose infants were stolen from their arms by wolves. Men whose wealth betrayed them. Intelligent beings without a solution. 

I wasn’t immune to the suffering. I nearly crumbled. Pulverized by the weight of rejected fellowship. Isolated by sorrow.

I was tempted to flee. To rush home and feel the glow, the warmth. But I couldn’t. Faith. Obedience. Love. These prevented me from rejecting my duty. And so I sang. I sang with hundreds. I sang with dozens. I sang alone.

I sang until only small factions remained. Tiny families formed from strangers. Clever ones who made their way underground and lived liked moles. Communities bonded in the only warmth left. The faint body heat shared in a desperate huddle. Food became scant. Mere drops of water. Unripe air. Everything had been taken from them and their eyes became blind beyond the darkness. There was nothing left to see. 

And yet I sang.

I sang of old glories. I told them to resist fear. I reminded them of miracles. The wonder of friendship. The astonishing power of love. The miracle of life. I urged them to believe in light. To never give up on light.

On its own, my voice sounded pathetic. I couldn’t stand to hear it. I cried. 

And one cried back. A whisper. A tiny, I believe.

The light returned. 

I gasped. I sobbed. Joy consumed me and I could not control the elation. I pranced like a wild animal. I laughed until I hurt, until my energy drained. I laid on the frozen sand and waited. 

Waited for the light. 

8 minutes. 8 minutes for salvation.