The island house is all porches and windows, built to catch every breeze, and half-hidden in the shade of big old trees. There were bright colors everywhere, because my mom loved bright colors.
I had friends visiting; we were going to laze around the beach that day after breakfast. Mom's cat was stalking birds, Mom was pouring tea, and Dad was making crepes and filling them with whipped cream and fruit.
The sky broke.
I mean a huge jagged-edge tear opened up over our heads. Every other noise was drowned out by something between breaking pottery and stressed metal. The cat scooted under Mom's chair.
That was probably the brightest thing to do. Too bad I wouldn't have fit.
The noise got louder and louder. The sky shuddered. The crack in the side got bigger, until it covered maybe a quarter of the sky and almost reached the horizon on either end. Maybe the world really would have ended if it had.
The noise of the sea and wind picked up, but it wasn't them making the noise. And it wasn't really surf or wind in trees or over water, either, but that's what it was least not like. The noise just got louder, and louder. I don't remember thinking. I just stared at the sky, because what else would I do?
The stuff tumbled from the rent and billowed out in vast clouds, and don't ask me what color it was; it had every color and no color and sometimes I couldn't see it at all. The wind didn't touch it as it tumbled down to earth. It wasn't like a waterfall, or fog. It wasn't like anything. It wasn't cold or hot or wet or dry.
But as it fell, the sky turned the color of an approaching storm. The sun was still out, but ... it didn't matter. It's not that the sun got dimmer, it just ... didn't matter that it was there. Everything took on that diffused shadowiness of a gray day.
My mother said, as matter-of-factly as if it had simply rained, that it was the darkness between heaven and earth, and I think she was right.
Copr. ©2004 Sara A. Keating. This work will enter the public domain January 1st, 2034.