The Day The Sky Fell

The Day The Sky Fell

         “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”  Rodrik ran around the wooded area, arms flailing as he tried to draw attention to the imminent catastrophe.

         “Rodrik, stop being so melodramatic.  Everything is fine.  See, the sky above is as solid as ever.”  Karlo sighed, he couldn’t believe how easily Rodrik let himself believe the impossible.  The sky had always been there, it wasn’t possible for it to fall.

         “But Karlo, I distinctly saw it move, and look over there.  Don’t you see?  Right there, it looks different than it did just a few minutes ago.”

         “Rodrik, you’re imagining things again.  Remember when you thought the ground was coming apart in pieces, only to see that it was a blade of grass growing?  Or when you insisted that we’d all die from a massive amount of water; yet all we ever saw was a dribble, barely enough to sustain us?  Relax buddy, everything’s fine.”

         Saying all that, Karlo leaned back and relaxed, for all was right in the world.  He loved watching the solid sky, its beauty never ceased to amaze him.  It had always been there, always would be.  He and Rodrik were best friends.  But Rodrik had a habit of getting upset so easily that he found it amusing.  Karlo  thought of himself as a well grounded individual, happy in his understanding of the universe.

         Suddenly, he felt something that made his blood run cold.  His entire being became a mass of jelly in the flash of an eye.  There was a great rumbling in the sky, something he’d never heard before, the whole earth around him shook from the force of the rumble.

         Now it was Karlo who became agitated.  He too started gesturing wildly toward the sky.

         “The sky!  The sky is changing!  Look, look everyone, it’s changing!”  Karlo couldn’t believe his eyes.  Long dark streaks appeared in it as it slowly shook.  Suddenly, it began to fall down on them all; Rodrik, Karlo, and the rest of the clan.

         “See?  I told you it was falling Karlo!  I told you!”  Rodrik was beside himself now, scurrying around in utter terror.

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         Mark grunted as he moved the biggest rock yet.  Luckily that first blow of his sledgehammer had broken it into several pieces, making it easier to move. 

         He’d moved to New Mexico six months ago to enjoy the southwestern style of living.  He hadn’t counted on his yard being full of large rocks that would need to be dug up for his cactus garden.  As he moved the large rock, he noticed the usual scurrying of small bugs as they strove to get out of the harsh glare of the sunlight, and back into the shelter of a nearby rock.  For a brief moment, he wondered if they knew what was going on, and imagined they might think their sky was falling.

Jim Dorrell
2/6/11