Understanding

UNDERSTANDING
A SHORT STORY BY MICHAELA CATALANO

I was in bed the night white fire fell from the sky. My brother was sleeping on the couch. He died. I didn't. I don't think there was anything more to it than that.

I was in bed, but I was awake. Night brings out my most morbid and fatalistic thoughts and that night was no different. I turned thoughts of death over and over in my head, focused not on the means but the outcome. Crossing the river. Traversing the doorway. Slipping under the veil. My own voice multiplied in my head, echoing off that vast space, words bleeding into a single ringing discordance.

And then it was quiet. I tried to think and I couldn't. I tried to speak and no sound passed through my lips. I stumbled silently to the floor and then the window, ripping open the blinds. The sky was lit by rings of white light, shining haloes, twisting and winding together, shedding long streams of luminescence that fell faster and faster toward the ground.

Down on the street people were running en masse, tripping over each other and running nowhere at all. Then the fire hit. Thin shafts slamming into the ground, hundreds of thousands of them within my field of vision alone, like tracer rounds fired straight down. Some people were hit, and they died, collapsing wherever they stood. It went on for a while. Time meant nothing then, in utter silence. It might have been a few seconds or minutes or hours. Then it was over and the lights in the sky spun off into the black.

I turned and looked back at my bedroom. The ceiling was burned nearly completely away by hundreds of impacts, the bed perforated with charred and smoking holes. I was untouched.
There was no sound in the world, no thought the rest of that night, and I remember little of it but fleeting images and scenes. I remember a man in a black coat crouched over a body, not moving. I remember the streets still clogged with residents running until their legs gave out and they lay bewildered among the dead.

I woke in the middle of the street. The sun was shining and birds sang obscenely from all around. I went back into the apartment. My brother was sprawled across the sofa, cold.

I walked for hours. I don't know where I thought I was going. I guess I didn't know then, either. I had to move. Burned out buildings and the twisted husks of cars lined my way. The asphalt was studded with small black holes. The streets seemed empty of all life.

Later on, in the afternoon, I crossed paths with a young woman who was walking in the opposite direction. Her clothes were already dirty and torn. She was covered in bruises, scratches and cuts.

"The judgement of God has been passed," she said, her eyes feverish and bright. "Don't you think? It was water last but the lord keeps his promises. First with water then with fire, he cleansed the world of our sins. Don't you see?"

I shook my head. "Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding."

Her eyes widened. She took a step back.

"Nothing," I said, "Is done for such a simple reason as judgement."

She raised her head and stalked past me. I walked on.

The sun drifted lazily down through a purpling sky, and it was not until dusk that I saw another person.

"Hey," he said, his voice slightly hoarse. "Hey, come here." He was tall and pale. He wore a dark shirt and blue jeans. "Look at this." He raised a shaking hand. There was a small rock in his palm.

"Look at this." The rock rose into the air and hung there, a foot above his palm.

I didn't know what to say.

"I can do this," he said. "I couldn't do this before, but I can do this." He turned to me. "Stay still," he said. I didn't really have much of a choice. At first nothing happened, then I felt something tugging at me from above, a suction growing stronger until I was lifted off the ground. I panicked then, yelled, and he leapt backward, releasing me. As soon as I hit the ground I was running, and I didn't stop for a long time.

I'm on a roof now. Somebody's roof. I don't know whose. Nobody's now, of course. I live in this house, but it will never be mine. It's night, and with the power out everywhere, I can see the stars more clearly than I ever have before. I'm lying back and staring up, and I'm not thinking about the end of the world or even about dying.

I'm lying and remembering the end of that night: the night sky so pure, haloes of white light flying up and away, out into the dark.