That son-of-a-bitch just slammed the knife like it was - shit. I know better. It wasn't like that no matter how fucking much it looked like it.
He'd invited a bunch of us down to his folks' house down on the islands. Nice place, even if there was too much wildlife, too many windows, and too much bamboo. And not enough pavement. I'm a city boy, all right?
Pretty good vacation, anyway. I was looking forward to some swimming that day, maybe a little snorkeling. And more good food. His folks were great cooks and his dad mixed kickass drinks.
Happened at breakfast.
That damn noise ... fuck, I still wake up hearing it when the nightmares hit. Like a metal bridge collapsing under a loaded freight train, just this godawful tortured metal screaming. The sky just ripped, tearing itself open like somebody wanted to reach in and didn't much care about putting it back together. That damn noise again, loud enough to make my ears hurt and my teeth ache, and the sky convulsed itself open until that rip went damn near edge to edge. Wasn't dark inside, or light either. Whatever the hell it was, it was like it didn't know what dark and light were.
Fuck. He keeps going on about how it wasn't like anything. It was like oil or vinegar in water, or maybe more like dye spreading, except it wasn't really, dye doesn't spread in billowing clouds and oil and vinegar don't either. Bastard's probably right, it wasn't much like anything else.
Whatever the fuck it was, it kept tumbling down out of that ugly-ass tear in the sky. By the time it hit the ground, we were forgetting what color was and what sunlight was supposed to look like.
Nobody got up and ran away. Kinda like gawkers at a wreck, nobody could tear their eyes away. Not even when it reached us.
It just rolled right over us, like we were rocks. It ran through her hair and down her dress. Tumbled down all the way to the sea, and don't ask me where it stopped and the water started.
His ma said something about it being the waters between heaven and earth. Hate to admit it, but that's as good an explanation as anyone ever got.
Copr. ©2004 Sara A. Keating. This work will enter the public domain January 1st, 2034.